Customer Reviews

Headliners, Blondie

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As a Blondie fan I appreciate everything I can find written about the band, be it the good ("Making Tracks") or the plain ugly (Lester Bangs's "Blondie"). Between those, Gary Valentine's "New York Rocker", three good documentaries, various punk music histories and the wonderfully overheated 70's rock music press still archived at sites on the internet, there are a variety of sources.

Putting aside a mountain of magazine articles, this book is, with the Lester Bangs production, one of two band biographies written during the band's heydey. While it lacks the notoriety of the Lester Bangs book created by Bangs's celebrity, if you can find it Schruers's effort is far superior. Whereas Bangs went off on an ego-driven polemic of sorts, Schruers actually attempts to write a conventional band history. Which is exactly what fans of a band are looking for when they purchase a band biography.

I happened to purchase the British edition of the book, although I don't think it differs from the US version in any respect with the possible exception of the cover photo. The book consists of 117 full pages with an additional 17 pages of photographs located in a section in the middle of the book. The book was published in 1980 right after the worldwide success of Call Me. It takes the band's history right up through the Eat To The Beat album. The book discusses the early history of the band, mostly drawing from earlier magazine interviews, but the history is sound and he emphasizes the right sources. The book provides a more insightful snapshot of the band at the time when Eat To The Beat was recorded, which marks the period of the author's main involvement with the band. This includes an interview with the engineer who worked with Mike Chapman on the album who provides insights into the recording process. The book closes with an individual interview of band member Jimmy Destri and a collective interview of Clem Burke, Nigel Harrison and Frank Infante. The final chapter draws from an original magazine article by the author that details the bands involvement with the movie "Roadie." The book is not as photo-heavy as the Bangs book or "Making Tracks", although it does contain a nice photograph of the Stilletoes (Debbie, Elda and Roseanne) at Club 82 being backed on stage by the New York Dolls. I also noticed a few typos in the text regarding dates, although I believe this was due to the reprinting.

In sum, while the book, based on its publishing date, is not a complete history of the band's initial run, missing a very eventful additional two years encompassing the release of the band's 5th and 6th studio albums and the events of the band's break-up in 1982, still if you are a Blondie fan and you can find it, this book is worth reading and owning.