Chris Stein/Negative: Me, Blondie And The Advent Of Punk (BOOK REVIEW)

steinbook “I had no idea that Chris was a voyeur when I met him,” Debbie Harry writes in the forward to her bandmate’s new book. “How could I know? His mother told me when we met that his personality was fully intact as a tiny baby.” She’s joking. Maybe.

With another foray into the photographic world of his life in Blondie, the first being Making Tracks originally published in 1982 but reissued in 1998, guitar player Chris Stein dives back into his vast collection of photos to give us Chris Stein/Negative: Me, Blondie And The Advent Of Punk. Illustrated with predominately black and white photographs, the face of the punk/glam rock scene is shown in overwhelming glory without going so over the top that it becomes farce. This is Stein just showing us how he interpreted his life in New York City. The New York City in which, as Glenn O’Brien so vividly proclaims: “People came to New York because you could be yourself here. You could be an artist or musician or a ballerina or a drag queen. You could be a freak, a sexual outlaw, an artist or a bum. It was OK.”

Although readers will again love the intimate hotel room peepshows of Harry and her band of Blondie brothers, it’s interesting to note how many of the real scenesters Stein has captured and the stories behind their friendships and eventual outcomes: Anya Phillips, Eric Emerson, Stephen Sprouse, International Chrysis, Elda Stilletto, Arturo Vega; names only true aficionados of the scene would recognize. For the rest of us, we can peruse the pages and find glimpses of Harry hanging out with Iggy Pop and David Bowie, modeling for Andy Warhol, reading in hotel rooms and train cars, smoking weed next to Joan Jett, bungee jumping topless in New Zealand.

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Of Nancy Spungen, Stein writes that “she was much smarter than she is portrayed in her cultural stereotype,” and he doesn’t believe her boyfriend Sid Vicious killed her – “They were too close;” Jean-Michel Basquiat was “a moody guy but really fast and bright;” while the Ramones were “crude in the beginning and they would stop in the midst of a song and seem to argue about some detail.” Stein shows us a fourteen year old Anthony Kiedis standing next to his father Blackie Dammett, notorious music journalist Lester Bangs carrying Harry over his shoulder, Jett in a long black dress, Johnny Thunders and his Heartbreakers playing at CBGBs. It’s all here between stark images of places long gone but immortalized in punk rock history.

Blondie fans will have a feast day with Stein’s book, released this week. Here’s hoping he has yet another volume of black & white treasures still in his archives.

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