The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
ROCKTALK GIG GUIDE
● Legendary drummer Clem Burke plays a Kinross exclusive next week.
The Blondie sticksman is at the Green Hotel on Wednesday and Thursday to perform the only Scottish gigs on a 15-date UK tour with tribute outfit Bootleg Blondie, celebrating 40 years since his band’s Parallel Lines album topped the UK charts.
“It’s a bit like what Bruce Foxton is doing with From The Jam, or Marky Ramone, who has his Blitzkrieg,” he tells RockTalk.
“It’s about the legacy of the music and we’re playing a lot of songs that we don’t play nowadays in Blondie so it’s been quite emotional, and fun.”
Clem and his London-based cohorts perform hit-laden Parallel Lines in full, including non-singles rarely played live by the New York arena rockers in recent years.
“Blondie did a tour for the album’s 30th anniversary and it’s hard to believe this is actually the 40th,” he declares.
“It’s a bit like a strange film sequence or something, but I enjoy just travelling around the UK.
“It’s much easier to do than in the States where the journeys are much longer.
“It brings me back to what I remember from the early days of Blondie – we went round in a van on our first tour of the UK – and also when I was working with Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox of Eurythmics when the Sweet Dreams album was out.
“We had a real fun tour just travelling round the country in a van. You actually get to see a lot more. When you’re in a tour bus travelling through the night you really don’t see much. You just wind up at the hotel and you go and do the show.
“I was really happy when we did the Parallel Lines tour and feel the same way about revisiting it again now. The rest of the show with Bootleg Blondie is basically more songs that we don’t necessarily play in Blondie nowadays. It’s been really great to revisit the older material and to realise how well it stands up.”
Featuring the classic singles Hanging On The Telephone, Picture This, Sunday Girl, Heart Of Glass and the USA hit One Way Or Another, Parallel Lines sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, but Clem insists his 24-yearold self wasn’t at all fazed.
“As far as I was concerned everything was just all going to plan,” he explains.
“I always had aspirations to be a rock ‘n’ roll star – it was more than just wanting to be a musician, I really wanted the excitement that came with it all.
“For instance when we did a signing at HMV in Oxford Street it was mania – it was great – but I think my parents brought me up pretty good and I had a handle on things and they were proud of me at the time.
“There are pitfalls and obviously we were subjected to quite a few of those but I tried to stay healthy. You’ve kinda just got to stay the course.
“We’d had success in the UK with Denis and Presence Dear from the album Plastic Letters and we’d done a world tour for that so in a lot of ways we were prepared for the phenomenal success of Parallel Lines.
“It was a really great time and we had some great support bands in the UK, like The Buzzcocks and XTC.
“I still have a lot of great friends from back then, Glen Matlock of Sex Pistols for instance, and Annie and Dave who I happened to meet because they were fans of Blondie. One thing led to another and I was always just trying to enjoy myself insofar as realising that this is something that I didn’t want to take for granted.
“It’s kind of funny, in some ways we still feel we’re a cult band in the States even after four number one singles there. It amazes me that we’ve had that much commercial success in the USA.”
Clem, 64, is proud that it’s 20 years next month since Blondie’s comeback single Maria shot to number one after a 17-year hiatus.
“As a joke back in the day I always used to say, ‘Give it another 18 months,’ and in some ways when I think about the band now that’s my same response,” he adds.
“If it was up to me Blondie would probably be doing more shows but I always considered myself very lucky to have met up with Debbie (Harry) and Chris (Stein) – Debbie would have become a star in any era.
“We’re in the writing process now and are aiming to put out another album some time in the near future, and hope to get over to the UK again this summer.”
Kinross tickets are £29.90 via Ticketweb.
● It’s a hometown gig from Saint-Louie, Time Sheets and Ruvellas at Beat Generator on Thursday. Tickets £7 from Skiddle.
● Welsh progsters Man bring their 50-year back catalogue to the Green Hotel next Friday February 1. Tickets are £21.50 via Ticketweb.
● U2 tribute Rattled And Hummin’ play Beat Generator tomorrow. Tickets £9.50 from Grouchos or tickets-scotland.com.
● Number 57 has regulars Tivvy tomorrow and a jam with Bedrock on Sunday.
● Covers outfit Cherry Bombz play Admiral Bar, McDaniels and Friockheim’s Railway Inn this weekend.