Spare quote

“By turning my head involuntarily, I can always see my alter ego, familiars or the gang of elementals that partly constitute my being.”
Austin O Spare 1948

whoa

i dont do this much and dont know if anyone is listening
what is up... biz as usual... going to promote in the UK and GER soon
thing at the Whitney museum
hmmm... spring came and it stopped snowing for now

under

currently Tazmania, pretty here, Hobart sort of Newcastle with palm trees... tour is moving gradually around Australia and thereabouts... lots of waiting for traffic lights in the cities...

GIP GIP GIP

today i suffered through Reagan's '81 inaugural speech that was broadcast on NPR... i thought that it was admirable that someone was going to make note of the irony of hearing Ron's words from then in todays economic climate... for example he says:
" But great as our tax burden is, it has not kept pace with public spending. For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is..." well he doesn't end with "to continue this long trend IS MY FUCKING PLAN OF ACTION!" rather he says he's not for it, that too much government involvement is a bad bad thing etc etc... do i have to comment here about why i think this is ironic? sure the US unemployment rate was a hi 7.5% at the beginning of '81 but who believes that its only 10% today? raise hands...
and who believes that Ron was the corporate poster boy and sure, he was happy to stop 'government involvement' by handing the key to the country to wall street... in the rest of the speech in fact the phrase 'decreasing government involvement' for me became a sort of code for 'total selling out' stopping regulatory commissions dead etc... wasnt it Reagan who even put the cabash on how long TV commercials were allowed to be... simply put the deregulation of the advertising industry... i found this passage: In 1984, ACT (Action for Children's Television, a child advocacy group) responded to the proliferation of program length commercials by filing a complaint to the FCC. However, according to the FCC, "marketplace forces can better determine commercial levels than our own rules"
etc etc
so even before the speech droned on to its god-fearing conclusion i realized that we probably weren't gonna hear any bright summation after all, and lo it turned out that the speech was just a homage to 'stirring words' on some 'stirring words' show that found its way onto NPR and rather than pointing up the absolutely crazy irony of the words we listened to some Reagan biographer carry on about what a great president Ron was... the final irony was to hear this guy say what a great and inspiring speaker Ronnie was.. as they say he was listening to a different piece of bla bla than the one i heard

time, heat

alas i have neglected here lately... facebook is easy and stupidly engrossing so that... the Uk jaunt was good fun, there i sso much good will towards us there that it makes the whole thing all the more... also the family came so there wasnt the usual separation anxiety... now brief hiatus twixt gigs... not much to report... along with various fan contingents i too am anxiously awaiting news of the impending record release... meanwhile i am working pretty regularly on material for whatever the next one is after 'panic'
its hot as all here... what if it keeps getting hotter? what if Al Gore is not a nut? etc
have you seen the thing about the huge island of garbage the size of Texas or bigger than the whole US depending on where you look; 'the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, has been growing a brisk rate since the 1950s, The San Francisco Chronicle reported Friday. The trash stew is 80 percent plastic and weighs more than 3.5 million tons.
"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option, It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues." says Chris Parry who works with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco'
cover with dirt plant trees etc

new site up

http://www.blondie.net/blog/ the site is finally upgraded!!!!

THE HAPPY EASTER MONSTER!

this guy was found hidden on a shelf in CVS... some sort of deformed peep...

A Great Day In Hip Hop part 3 of 3

! i was just looking at stuff about this event and found this... it was awesome to be a part of!

album cover

the new BLONDIE album cover art is being done by Dutch (Amsterdam) artist Chris Berens

he just had his first show in NYC... we have known about him for only a year or so, great stuff,
more soon...

new record

ok we are getting closer to the next record... all the mixes are done... we have a couple of very cool guest artistes, we are pushing for a 15-16 track record... there are three, maybe four cover songs... theres one track in French and Two in Spanish... as for the English language remaining tracks most of the lyrics are by Debbie... i must say i am knocked out by the lyrics alone... i think that this record will help people understand that one can write rock lyrics that go further into the realm of poetry and literature, that just dont make simple statements... i think all the blondie records are different and have their own character... this one has been in the works for over a year and the long period since the last record has certainly pushed it into its own space... yes it sounds like blondie no question... yes its a rock record... yes there are a bunch of different styles explored... beyond that i dont have more right now... i am close to saying its a little on the dark side but that may just be my own interpretation... so far we have only played things for very few people... when people hear it then we will get more of a consensus on what they think it is... we will release more details in a while the release is supposed to be in the spring... i will let you know

"winters gun" shoots us all

i have been neglecting some of these posting duties due to ennui and using the time i have to keep active on the upcoming record project

pretty soon i am hoping to release some concrete data re the next record, till then you will have to live in some suspense

thus far i have only heard i guess four of the tracks mixed... ok what i do have is tracks are being mixed by Mark Needham in LA, produced by our now old pal Jeff Saltzman one of the most patient individuals in the whole of something...

i am still working on new music... the world of digital recording is unlimited and i can do hours and hours experimenting with sounds etc etc

but yes winter is a drag ('winters gun' is the title of an old friends latest recording, i love it, had been playing it constantly for several months when i first got it)

and there is little to do outside of a limited circle sooo i was pleased to find the crazy service offered by Xtranormal.com ... there one can waste time making little cartoon creatures say weird shit to each other, the results however are pretty hi end... so for part and full time computer geeks like myself its an amusing winter pastime... some results are on my youtube site: esxp on youtube thats about it... still not set up to send autographs, should be in the UK this year etc etc

happy new year by the way

future of latenight

sooo XTRANORMAL.com is and even better time wasting device than video games

blue

i perhaps am risking alienating someone but damn! i thought avatr fucking sucked... i cant even detail my objections to it... just think about Lynch or even Coppola have 300 million bucks to spend on a movie...

allestair battlefield earth thai

ความคิดเห็นล่าสุด remake (อาจ) Current mood:stupidly thinking about hollywood again Category: Dreams and the Supernatural ดังนั้นนี่คือ ... เล่าลือ i ได้ยินจากบางคนที่มีชื่อเสียงเหลือเชื่อพวกเขาจะได้มีชื่อเสียงขยะแขยง, มันจึงมีชื่อเสียงพวกเขารำคาญ themself สำหรับ autographs (หรือไม่นี้อาจถูก bullshit) ที่ i วิธีเล่าลือนี้คาดว่าจะแพร่กระจายจนกลายเป็นความจริง: และมันคือ (รอมัน !)... ล่องเรือกลองที่ทำ gonna remake แผ่นดินสนามรบ "ที่จะดียิ่งขึ้นกว่าพรสวรรค์มหัศจรรย์ของเดิม (ปัจจุบันบางท่านอาจกล่าวว่า" รอเดี๋ยวเป็นร่วมเพศที่นี่แผ่นดินสนามรบ! ทั้งหมด blew! อาจจะแย่ที่สุด fi วิทย์ฟิล์มได้เคย! และฉันอาจเห็นด้วยกับคุณ ... ดังนั้นทั้งหมดเหตุเพิ่มเติม!!!) ดู travolta ล้มเหลวเวโรจน์ (sic) ของเรื่องเดิมส่วนใหญ่ทำให้เขาเป็นที่ดีที่สุดหาคนที่แต่งตัวประหลาดในหนังแม้ว่าเขาเล่นแปลกคนต่างด้าวเพื่อให้คนนำมาให้ odder มองกว่าเขาในการปลอมตัวคนต่างด้าวของเขา จริง i dont รู้สิ่ง goddam เกี่ยวกับเรื่องเดิม ... ฉันจะทราบ hubbard ที่ผสมทั้งหมดกับ crowley, ได้บางพิธีกรรมมายากลเพศกัน ... ทุกสิ่งนี้ออกมีสามารถตรวจสอบ i didn't ทำให้มันขึ้น dont จึงบ่นกับผม

LOST IN CHRISTMAS

first go to:
http://newmedia.10thst.com/blondie/splash.html

and download our xmas song; a version of 'we three kings'

the genesis of this track is simple enough; when i first heard the unfamiliar chorus part

i thought 'gee that sounds like something by 999 or other early punk thing' ...the "star of wonder star of light..." part has the rhythm of a punk song in other words

then yes we watched all of the five seasons of 'Lost' on dvd... pretty early on i got that it was being written on the fly as it were, that it had an outline that was filled in in a sort of improvisational manner which was cool but my fears were that like 'Twin Peaks' it would all amount to nothing even vaguely rational... its ok though, its nice to see all of this stuff dished out in mainstream format... 'Richard Alpert' ha ha ha etc

soooo i think that whats gonna happen is that yes they will wind up back on the plane and everything will be like it was almost... problem will be that they all will still have their memories of the island! at least the ones that were there when the bomb went off... you heard it here... i will surely see the last season, we'll see...

meanwhile i gotta say i liked 'Battlestar' better

leaving Halifax in an hour and 31 minutes

the Bklyn Museum show felt successful, fun to play to that particular crowd of 'hipsters' (i am open to suggestions for a better referential title...)

i was disappointed by the guy from the NY Times review of the photo show; his summation that 'video was the only way' to capture the spirit of rock just pointed out that he had grown up with MTV... there are quite a few 'rock videos' that i like but on the whole i think its more important to have ones own personal images linked to music rather than the images that some director thinks represent the song... it has always been a point that i had mixed feelings about... having grown up back in the ancient days, most of the music that i hear from those times is bound up with the things that i was seeing and the feelings i was having and not with the very specific video images that i often associate with later songs... isnt it hard to think of 'Like A Virgin' without picturing Madonna on the boat? now think of 'I Want To Hold Your Hand' and see what you come up with; most likely like me a sort of montage of Beatle images, many photographic... any way they cant all be journalistic gems but i expect more from the Times

missed Halloween at home for the first time in a few years, currently in a Marriott hotel in Halifax... now proof that there are a lot of hip journalists out there is here in the form of this review from Halifax Chronicle Record: BLONDIE HALIFAX REVIEW

Monday will find us back at reording with Jeff and the boys from SF... sitting around in hotel rooms is some kind of art form... i am of course reminded always of 'Old Boy' the Park Chan-Wook film wherein the hero is locked up in a hotel room for fifteen years for apparently no reason... well it turns out he called this other guys sister a slut in high school and the guy was out for revenge... hotel rooms all blend together and we frequently have lapses of recall: yesterday i was sitting in the room here when the maid opened the door and let in Clem who had gotten off at the wrong floor and thought his card-key didnt work... its tough at the top as we say
happy belated Halloween all

recording the next BLONDIE "record"

annnnnd we are plowing ahead, noses and other extremities to the proverbial grind(stone, house what have you)
the thing is that after the long build-up and the digital world that we are all working in these days we have wound up with over thirty tracks that are being worked on simultaneously... certainly a first for sheer amount of material, also a first for this way of working that is editing and adding to many tracks at the same time as we go along... in the past even the last two new era BLONDIE recording we have always focused on one maybe two tracks at a time... all the 'basic tracks' are done in a group still; that hasn't changed however
as per usual i am not exactly sure where the thing is going, how different it is from previous offerings etc... does it sound like a BLONDIE recording? yes i am sure it will be familiar, there are many aspects and sounds/styles that are there in it
in the old hippie days everyone used to say "the same but different" so that applies here

Jeff Saltzman is terrific in his production role and i am really liking his approach... we are all learning things as we go along
Jeff is a fan as well as a talented producer/musician so that understanding of the band that he brings is a whole other dimension... i have been exchanging ideas and sound files with him for probably six months or more prior to starting work... he has his two assistants with him Gaby and Marco so they are like a crew and work tightly together...

i will put out some more info in a bit... i dont think that we are gonna discuss the specific songs before they are done... i dont know for sure what we are gonna do with so many tracks, the strongest are gonna be on whatever form the thing is released in first

it looks like we will come over to Europe/UK next year for sure

BASTERDS

i loved Inglorious Basterds... i am so pleased that Q still has his edge... i was a bit concerned after 'Deathproof'; the painful interminable banters in Deathproof made for some low points in Tarantino cinema but he has more than redeemed himself here (well assuming he really needed to)...

the layers of film references are great fun but i was mainly taken with the long dialogs (here because its a period piece we are not subjected to conversations about Madonna's sexual activity or Burger King)... for me some of the Quentin long ass dialog scenes in previous offerings work and some dont, some are annoying and some are brilliant; in Kill Bill we have back to back scenes that are brilliant (Uma and Don Esteban the old pimp) and then annoying (the end long scene between Uma and 'Bill' for me didnt make it in spite of some great bits like the 'Clark Kent is how Superman sees humanity' thesis)

but the long scenes in Basterds all held me, they all were played over underlying tension... even the 'language barrier' was somehow an addition

also i thought Brad was fucking fantastic, i am seeing that his performance is a bit overshadowed by that of Christoph Waltz as col. Landa but Pitt's deal was just terrifically subtle while Waltz just played his part bigger and therefore stood out all the more... Waltz is a fantastic find for Tarantino, i couldnt even find a picture of him on imdb.com, very funny... no doubt he will shoot up the hollywood ladder quickly now

some of you know me as a WW2 buff so there's that... i wrote a list of "my favorite movie weapons" for Dick Manitoba's "Book Of Punk Rock Lists" a year or so back... well i certainly would have added the oss glove gun that is featured in one of the finale scenes... the glove gun is one of the weirder weapons that came out of WW2, it can be found in most collections of special forces memorabilia and oddities (like the one shot Liberator pistol that was distributed to the resistance fighters by the allies)... anyhow the glove gun is a real thing and putting it in the film gets may points from your narrator here... after much looking i found a pic of one, see above

BROOKLYN GIG

this then was the Brooklyn show; Aug. 13 at Asser Levy Park in Coney Island...

pic is courtesy Debra Garcia the director/producer of the events there...

word was it was the biggest crowd of the series; close to 18 thou

now we are in Chicago, show tmrow

i have been taking my own pics i'll put some up in a day or so

just saw the new Rambo movie on the bus, way behind in movie watching... i think we need to see "RAMBO VS. PREDATOR" made

no sleep till...

the Coney Island show is tomorrow and we look forward to some good old fashioned chaos; as its a freebee with the usual hordes attempting to access whatever small area is designated as the deluxe vip thingy... we are planning several levels of non-admittance, that is velvet ropes and people with clipboards preventing entry into other areas that are guarded by people with clipboards these in turn surrounded by the same etc etc ad infinitum... at the end in the interior superior vip area there will be nothing, like unto the proverbial matter sucking black hole:

the shows continue to be amusing... we will return to Europe and the UK though probably not till next year, i keep getting queries about that

thanks so much to everyone who has turned out this summer to see us

i'll put up some pics from the tour soon...