Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome into another rewind episode of Disgrace Sland
Speaker 1: and boy, oh boy, do we have a good one
Speaker 1: for you today. A controversial one. This one is on
Speaker 1: the band Blondie. More specifically, it's on this story about
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry, a story that I love, A story that
Speaker 1: at its very core is so true, crimey and very controversial.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't believe that this is true. However,
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry herself, she's the one who claims that this
Speaker 1: story of an abduction at the hands of none other
Speaker 1: than Ted Bundy absolutely happened to her. And frankly, those
Speaker 1: who are so called Ted Bundy experts the proof that
Speaker 1: they offer up to dispute Debbie Harry's account of what
Speaker 1: went down, it is complete weak sauce. I love this
Speaker 1: story because every time I talk about it on social media,
Speaker 1: a lot of people get upset and they come at
Speaker 1: us and they say, we don't know what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: But I believe Debbie Harry. And again it goes back
Speaker 1: to the actual proof. All right, So you can listen
Speaker 1: to this episode, you can tell us what you think.
Speaker 1: Be the judge yourself. Let us know. Aside from that
Speaker 1: it's just a great story about the foundational era of
Speaker 1: punk rock in New York City in the early seventies,
Speaker 1: and just a trailblazing artist Debbie Harry and her fantastic
Speaker 1: band Blondie. You're gonna love it. Here you go. This
Speaker 1: episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Speaker 1: Please check the show notes for more information. Disgraceland is
Speaker 1: a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Blondie are insane.
Speaker 1: The band got its start in New York's fertile punk
Speaker 1: scene in the late seventies, a time when fear and
Speaker 1: violent crime had a stranglehold on the city. Two members
Speaker 1: of the group were mugged on the street. One of them,
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry, was then raped at knife point by her attacker.
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry also barely escaped with her life after she
Speaker 1: unknowingly accepted a ride from a serial killer. Debbie and
Speaker 1: Blondie were loved and desired by many good and bad,
Speaker 1: including producer Phil Spector, who once held them captive inside
Speaker 1: his lavish Hollywood mansion. But Blondie didn't need Phil Spector
Speaker 1: to make great music, some of the coolest genre bending
Speaker 1: music of all time. Unlike that clip I played for
Speaker 1: you at the top of the show that wasn't great music.
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop for my mellotron called Robert
Speaker 1: Stack Attack MK one. I played you that loop because
Speaker 1: I can't afford the rights to a clip from Les
Speaker 1: Freak by Chic. And why would I play you that
Speaker 1: specific slice of ah Freak out Cheese? Could I afford it?
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America in
Speaker 1: January nineteen seventy nine, And that was the month that
Speaker 1: Blondie released Heart of Glass, a song that out punk
Speaker 1: punk pissed off some of the most devoted fans improved.
Speaker 1: They were capable of surviving just about anything. On this
Speaker 1: episode Fear and Violent Crime, Punk versus disco, muggers, serial killers,
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry, and Blondie. I'm Jake Brennan and this is
Speaker 1: this grayest Land nineteen seventy five. You step off the
Speaker 1: plane and La Guardia is humming. This is your first
Speaker 1: time in New York City. Maybe you came from the
Speaker 1: Midwest or some town down south. Maybe you hopped a
Speaker 1: puddle jumper from New England, or took a seven forty
Speaker 1: seven from across the pond. But you're here now, and
Speaker 1: it's crazy. The terminal is swarming with people and they
Speaker 1: knock up against you as you try to get your bearings.
Speaker 1: Limo drivers are holding signs with the names of people
Speaker 1: who aren't you. Harry Krishnas float by, bells ringing, consciousness expanding,
Speaker 1: and in the middle of it all there's this guy,
Speaker 1: average build, average height, average everything, handing out pamphlets to
Speaker 1: whoever will take them, which includes you. Because you, my friend,
Speaker 1: are way out of your depth, a fish out of water,
Speaker 1: a hay seed, a jabbroni. This man in front of
Speaker 1: you is going to make you take this fold of
Speaker 1: a piece of paper because you have no other choice,
Speaker 1: because you're new here and you're a victim in waiting.
Speaker 1: The pamphlet has an image of a hooded skull on
Speaker 1: the front, with a large, bold text that reads Welcome
Speaker 1: to Fear City and at the bottom of the page,
Speaker 1: a survival guide for visitors to the City of New York.
Speaker 1: If this pamphlet is to be believed, Right here, right now, robberies,
Speaker 1: aggravated assault, larceny, burglaries, they're all on a meteoric rise. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the mayor's making sweeping cuts to public safety in order
Speaker 1: to balance the budget. New York is no longer New York.
Speaker 1: As this pamphlet tells you, New York is a living hell,
Speaker 1: and in a living hell, there's plenty to be afraid of. Muggers, rapists, thieves,
Speaker 1: criminal devians of all stripes, everyone ready and able to
Speaker 1: rob you, mean you, even kill you. You have no
Speaker 1: idea what these sub human city types are capable of,
Speaker 1: and you also have no idea that this pamphlet was
Speaker 1: created and distributed by police and fire unions as a
Speaker 1: subversive means to drum up support for Popeye Doyle and
Speaker 1: his partners currently nursing a cold one on unpaid leave
Speaker 1: while a garbage strike strangles New York with rotting trash.
Speaker 1: All you're focused on are the guidelines written inside this
Speaker 1: piece of paper. Stay off the streets after six pm,
Speaker 1: avoid public transportation, safeguard to your handbag, and perhaps most importantly,
Speaker 1: do not walk anywhere. Over in Manhattan, Debbie Harry and
Speaker 1: Chris Stein were doing what New Yorkers did. They were walking,
Speaker 1: But Debbie Harry and Chris Stein weren't a couple of
Speaker 1: roubes fresh off of plane from Des Moines. They weren't
Speaker 1: victims in wading either. They were lovers, musical partners, leaders
Speaker 1: of the band Blondie, a band that thrived in New
Speaker 1: York's sketchiest corners. It would take more than a single
Speaker 1: fold pamphlet to strike fear in their hearts. Fear wasn't
Speaker 1: in the plan. Not tonight. Tonight, they were riding a
Speaker 1: very specific high, the KINDI get after your band plays
Speaker 1: a killer set inside a tiny club that reeks a
Speaker 1: beer sweating piss. Tonight's show at CBGB with the Ramones
Speaker 1: was one for the books. Blondie sounded tight on that
Speaker 1: shitty little stage. Every show they played these days was
Speaker 1: better than the last. They were broke, They were struggling,
Speaker 1: but all the same, they were quickly gaining an audience,
Speaker 1: a real following, not just the dudes who whistled at
Speaker 1: Debbie in her beach blonde hair that gave the group
Speaker 1: its name, but real fans of the music, of bands
Speaker 1: that were steering rock and roll back to its simpler roots,
Speaker 1: back to New York's musical past. A little shangri las here,
Speaker 1: some ronnettes there, but not quite. This was fast, this
Speaker 1: was loud, This was new, and just like Debbie and
Speaker 1: Chris weren't afraid of some fierce city freak lurking around
Speaker 1: the next corner. They weren't afraid of the new, new music,
Speaker 1: new fashion, new ideas. Embrace it all, Andy told them.
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol was a regular at Maxis Kansas City, the
Speaker 1: spot where Debbie briefly worked as a waitress. It was
Speaker 1: now one of the local nightclubs that booked Blondie on
Speaker 1: the regular. Debbie didn't want to go back to waitressing,
Speaker 1: just like Chris didn't want to go back on welfare,
Speaker 1: so they took Andy Warhol's advice. They didn't fear the
Speaker 1: new and they also didn't fear having a good time.
Speaker 1: Punk rock could be fun if you just let your
Speaker 1: guard down, you can dance to it. But people in
Speaker 1: New York circa nineteen seventy five weren't dancing to punk.
Speaker 1: Everyone was too cool for that. Even if Debbie Harry,
Speaker 1: one of the coolest fucking people to walk the planet
Speaker 1: then and now, encouraged dancing, the crowds just stood there,
Speaker 1: arms crossed, quietly judging while the band played, or, in
Speaker 1: the case of Blondie, probably undressing Debbie with their eyes.
Speaker 1: The whole scene was a sausage veest, even Patty dressed
Speaker 1: like a man. Debbie Harry did drag too, but she
Speaker 1: did girl drag, not boy drag, a blow up doll
Speaker 1: who would gladly kick your ass. And though the punk
Speaker 1: bands in New York hadn't come to blows yet, the
Speaker 1: divide had already begun right there in CEBGV a line
Speaker 1: drawn in the sand, rather a line drawn on the
Speaker 1: club's beer stained floor on one side, the Ramones and
Speaker 1: Blondie on the other. Patti Smith in television, pot versus art,
Speaker 1: those who danced versus those who did not. Tonight, Debbie
Speaker 1: Harry was done trying to get another crowd to dance.
Speaker 1: She just wanted to go home. She and Chris Steine
Speaker 1: made the short walk from CBGB to Chris's apartment at
Speaker 1: the corner of First Avenue in East First Street aka
Speaker 1: First and First aka the nexus of the universe according
Speaker 1: to longtime New Yorker Cosmo Kramer. But I digress. It
Speaker 1: was dark, it was late, and their footsteps were in
Speaker 1: sync and impatient. Just as they reached the front door
Speaker 1: to Chris's place, however, another pair of footsteps came rushing
Speaker 1: from behind them, loud and coming up fast. Debbie and
Speaker 1: Chris spun around and saw the hooded skull, Death's shrouded head,
Speaker 1: Fierce City and Carney. The man wore a leather jacket
Speaker 1: and held a large knife. He wanted money and had none.
Speaker 1: What about that? Fierce City motioned to the guitar case
Speaker 1: in Chris's hand. Chris didn't want to give up his fender,
Speaker 1: but what was he going to do? The guy had
Speaker 1: a knife, so Chris handed it over. What about drugs?
Speaker 1: Chris had a few doses of acid in the freezer
Speaker 1: inside his apartment. Did he want those? Nah man? Fierce
Speaker 1: City didn't want to trip out. Fiar City wanted to
Speaker 1: get high. The man now motioned to Chris's front door.
Speaker 1: Take me inside and let's see what else you got.
Speaker 1: Debbie and Chris let him inside the apartment, the knife
Speaker 1: at their backs. The man tied Chris to the bedpost
Speaker 1: with a pair of pantyhose. He tied Debbie's hands behind
Speaker 1: her back with a scarf. He ransacked the place. He
Speaker 1: found a camera and another guitar, this one a Gibson
Speaker 1: sg that Chris had borrowed from one of his Blondie bandmates.
Speaker 1: He took what he could get but he wasn't done taking.
Speaker 1: He wanted more. He untied Debbie's hands and told her
Speaker 1: to take her pants off, and then, at knife point,
Speaker 1: he raped her. Fierce City, took the guitars in the camera,
Speaker 1: and disappeared into the New York City streets. Blondie, a
Speaker 1: band that was making moves but was nonetheless broke and struggling,
Speaker 1: found themselves down two pieces of precious gear, and Debbie
Speaker 1: Harry found herself in shock. She was angry, she was furious.
Speaker 1: She wasn't afraid, because Debbie Harry was determined to never
Speaker 1: become a victim. She was a survivor. Teenage Debbie Harry
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to get the hell out of Jersey. The
Speaker 1: Burbs were so pathetic, so predictable. Fall in love, get married,
Speaker 1: settle down, two and a half kids, picket fence, the
Speaker 1: whole nine sounded like a death sentence. Debbie Harry wanted
Speaker 1: to live. She took the bus to New York City
Speaker 1: and saw people really living, beat Nicks, musicians, visionaries. She
Speaker 1: took the bus again. She watched the velvet underground get
Speaker 1: up tight under an explosion of color and light in
Speaker 1: Saint Mark's Place again, moondog, blind bearded, a Viking helmet
Speaker 1: on top of his head, passing out his poetry on
Speaker 1: sixth and fifty third. More people per people, freethinkers, free doers,
Speaker 1: all them doing something different, something divine, something dangerous. Even
Speaker 1: she could do that. She could be dangerous too. She
Speaker 1: just wanted to be something that she couldn't be in Jersey.
Speaker 1: In New York, she was a secretary, a waitress, a
Speaker 1: hostess at the Playboy Club on East fifty nine. But
Speaker 1: corsets and bunny years weren't her thing. Neither was the band.
Speaker 1: She found herself singing in the Wind in the Willows.
Speaker 1: Just like Pink Floyd, they took inspiration from classic children's literature.
Speaker 1: Unlike Pink Floyd, the Willows were not part of the
Speaker 1: new folk rock. Cheese wasn't Debbie's bag. So for now,
Speaker 1: at least, the gig was over. The jobs dried up,
Speaker 1: and the money ran out. Before long, she was back
Speaker 1: in the Garden State, and she was back to taking
Speaker 1: the bus into the city. Nineteen seventy two, visiting friends
Speaker 1: on Avenue C. Tonight, New York smelled like urine and
Speaker 1: hot trash. Debbie Harry wanted to get across town to
Speaker 1: see her favorite band, the New York Dolls, also hot trash,
Speaker 1: but the good kind of hot trash. The Dolls were
Speaker 1: the hottest and trashiest band in the growing underground scene,
Speaker 1: and though Debbie was crazy about them, her friends were not,
Speaker 1: which meant she had no one to bum a ride
Speaker 1: off of. Fuck it. It was only one mile down
Speaker 1: West Houston sixth. She strapped on a pair oftol platform
Speaker 1: she was and began to do that thing you weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to do in fierce city. She began to walk.
Speaker 1: She barely made it a block. The platforms were killing
Speaker 1: her feet. She stuck a hand up in the air
Speaker 1: in case any cabs drove by. But cabs didn't come
Speaker 1: to Alphabet City, not in nineteen seventy two, when it
Speaker 1: was all drunks, junkies and musicians, a demographic that kept
Speaker 1: the rents low, and thus was the last place a
Speaker 1: cabby could expect to find a paying customer, or so
Speaker 1: the thinking went. One car did slow down, however, a
Speaker 1: white VW Beetle. It traveled up Houston and then turned
Speaker 1: right on Avenue A. The platform heels were excruciating now,
Speaker 1: and Debbie stopped to take them off. She looked down
Speaker 1: at the sidewalk, broken glass everywhere. New York City was
Speaker 1: a mess, but it was her mess, well hers and
Speaker 1: sixteen million others, including the guy inside the white beetle,
Speaker 1: which was coming around again. This time it slowed down
Speaker 1: and stopped. The driver was alone. He called out and
Speaker 1: asked if she needed a ride. She didn't know this guy.
Speaker 1: She did know better than to get in the car
Speaker 1: with a total stranger, though, especially in a city where
Speaker 1: the murder rate had already broken records the first half
Speaker 1: of the year. Debbie told the guy thanks, but no thanks.
Speaker 1: The beatle pulled back out into traffic and took the
Speaker 1: right on a first avenue. Debbie kept walking, hobbling. Really
Speaker 1: what a slog At this rate, she was going to
Speaker 1: miss the dolls and have nothing but shredded feet to
Speaker 1: show for it. Miserable as she was, though at least
Speaker 1: she wasn't in Jersey. She had just broken up with
Speaker 1: her boyfriend, a house painter, a real man's man, and
Speaker 1: a real pain in the ass. Too jealous, paranoid, aggressive,
Speaker 1: he went through her phone bills and called her friends,
Speaker 1: followed her around like a psycho, convinced she was lying
Speaker 1: in two timing him. He especially hated it when she
Speaker 1: went into the city, not because he was concerned that
Speaker 1: she would wind up in some kind of trouble, because
Speaker 1: he couldn't deal with not having control over her. When
Speaker 1: Debbie ended it, the dude flipped, broke into her apartment,
Speaker 1: held her at gunpoint. She called the cops and they
Speaker 1: couldn't do shit, couldn't do or wouldn't do. Remember this
Speaker 1: happened in Jersey. Then they said New York City was
Speaker 1: the place to fear it. Right now, Debbie didn't feel
Speaker 1: any fear. She was sweating, her feet were killing her,
Speaker 1: and that beetle came around again, the only car on
Speaker 1: the street again. The driver pulled over and called out,
Speaker 1: need a ride. Debbie could see the guy clearly now,
Speaker 1: good looking, clean shaven, short, hairy, with a bit of
Speaker 1: a wavy curl to it, persistent, motherfucker. Debbie paused. She
Speaker 1: didn't hitchhike, never, not even in her hippie days. When
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry went to Woodstock, she drove, but she was
Speaker 1: hot and her feet were throbbing, and the show was
Speaker 1: going to start any minute, and it would likely only
Speaker 1: be a few minutes by car to get there, so
Speaker 1: Debbie jumped in the beetle and shut the door behind her.
Speaker 1: The driver pulled out on the house too. She thanked
Speaker 1: him for picking her up. He just grunted and stared
Speaker 1: straight ahead at the open road. That's when Debbie noticed
Speaker 1: the smell coming off of him. Not body odor, it
Speaker 1: was beyond that. It smelled like something rotting. The hair
Speaker 1: on the back of her neck stood up between the
Speaker 1: heat and now the smell. The air and the car
Speaker 1: was stifling. The windows were barely cracked and the stench
Speaker 1: burned her eyes. She needed fresh air, needed to breathe.
Speaker 1: She reached for the crank to roll her window down,
Speaker 1: but there wasn't a crank. There also wasn't a door handle.
Speaker 1: Debbie panicked. She had to do something, and do it fast.
Speaker 1: She had to get out of this car. With one
Speaker 1: eye on the driver, she propped herself up on the
Speaker 1: outer edge of the seat. She shoved her arms with
Speaker 1: a little crack at the top of the window. The
Speaker 1: driver turned his head from the road to look at Debbie.
Speaker 1: He was on to her. He took a hard left
Speaker 1: on the Thompson Street. I'd a slam Debbie into the
Speaker 1: door and prevent her escape. She arched herself up higher,
Speaker 1: the pit of her elbow now wrapped around the top
Speaker 1: lip of the window. She stretched her arm out lower,
Speaker 1: now all the way down to the outer door handle,
Speaker 1: and she yanked it upward. Just as the driver swerved
Speaker 1: and the car door flew open. Debbie, in her platform shoes,
Speaker 1: toppled out into the empty intersection, her ass at the pavement,
Speaker 1: and the VW Bug completed the turn, passing her door
Speaker 1: flapping open. She didn't know what she'd do with the
Speaker 1: driver through a U turn and came back for her.
Speaker 1: All she knew she had that feeling, the one that
Speaker 1: drove her to New York City in the first place.
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry wanted to live. She jumped to her feet,
Speaker 1: and she waited. She was ready for anything, the beatles,
Speaker 1: gurgling engine, the ungodly stench infesting the car's interior, But
Speaker 1: nothing happened. The car never came back. Debbie Harry walked
Speaker 1: the rest of the way to the New York Dolls Gig,
Speaker 1: knowing full well that only a naive Jersey girl would
Speaker 1: think that this would be the last time she'd find
Speaker 1: herself trapped and looking for a way out. New York
Speaker 1: City was dangerous. The whole world was. But Debbie Harry
Speaker 1: was dangerous too. We'll be right back after this word.
Speaker 1: Were were Thirty one year old Debbie Harry was pissed.
Speaker 1: She was looking at a promotional poster for Blondie's first album,
Speaker 1: a whole slew of posters actually pasted up on walls
Speaker 1: throughout Times Square. The posters featured her, just her, not
Speaker 1: her boyfriend in rock and roll co conspirator Chris Steine,
Speaker 1: not bassist Gary Valentine, her drummer Clem Burke, not the
Speaker 1: new guy Jimmy Destric who just joined on keys. It
Speaker 1: was all Debbie. Platinum hair, red lips, black sea through blouse.
Speaker 1: The record label promised they'd cropped the photo, but here
Speaker 1: it was. They left very little to the imagination. She
Speaker 1: kind of couldn't believe what she was looking at. Well,
Speaker 1: actually she kind of could. Dudes were dudes, and dudes
Speaker 1: ran this business. She was now in the music business.
Speaker 1: Dudes who heard the name Blondie and immediately thought only
Speaker 1: of her, Debbie Harry. Maybe that photo in Punk Magazine
Speaker 1: or was it cream the one where she's wearing that
Speaker 1: Vultures T shirt, A studded belt in underwear looking like
Speaker 1: a punk rock Barberella. She was sexy as fuck, no
Speaker 1: doubt about it, and she knew it. Everyone in New
Speaker 1: York knew it, and soon the rest of the world
Speaker 1: would too. But what she was looking at now didn't
Speaker 1: feel sexy. It felt like a violation. Not simply because
Speaker 1: you could see everything in this photo, nipples and all.
Speaker 1: That wasn't exactly what was pissing Debbie off. What was
Speaker 1: pissing her off was that they cut out the guys,
Speaker 1: her bandmates. It reinforced this erroneous idea that Blondie was
Speaker 1: Debbie Harry, which couldn't have been further from the truth.
Speaker 1: Blondie was, so said the T shirts and the pins,
Speaker 1: the ones that Blondie had printed up in the wake
Speaker 1: of the Sea through poster bullshit black background, thick pink
Speaker 1: texts that read Blondie as a group with an exclamation
Speaker 1: point there at the end. Those pins were similar to
Speaker 1: the one Phil Spector was now wearing. His said in
Speaker 1: the Flesh, a reference to Blondie's song of the same
Speaker 1: name from that recently released self titled debut album, a
Speaker 1: song that owed a sizeable debt to the girl groups
Speaker 1: of the nineteen sixties, groups that Phil Spector himself had
Speaker 1: produced some time ago. These days, Phil's reputation had more
Speaker 1: to do with guns and wild mood swings than it
Speaker 1: did making records. February nineteen seventy seven, Hollywood, Los Angeles
Speaker 1: loved Blondie in a way that New York never could.
Speaker 1: It was like cheap tricks stumbling into Buddhacan. And there
Speaker 1: are two week long residencies at the Whiskey of Go
Speaker 1: Go were CNBC in Affairs Week one. Petty and the
Speaker 1: Heartbreakers opened for them. We two their power pop buds.
Speaker 1: The Ramones taught the Sunset Strip how to properly pogo.
Speaker 1: Debbie was just stoked to see people dancing, but Phil
Speaker 1: Spector did not dance. Instead, Phil Spector emerged from his
Speaker 1: mansion up in the Hills and made his way into
Speaker 1: the Whiskies dressing room, black shirt, black tie, long black cape,
Speaker 1: his eyes somewhere behind a pair of aviators, and his
Speaker 1: soul somewhere behind a crucifix on a chain around his neck.
Speaker 1: Not that you'd find a soul if you went looking.
Speaker 1: Debbie was more than a little surprised to see that
Speaker 1: in the flesh pin stuck to his shirt, close to
Speaker 1: his heart. He was a huge fan obsessed. He took
Speaker 1: one look at Joey, Johnny and the rest of the
Speaker 1: Ramones and told him to scram. He was there for Blondie.
Speaker 1: He was there for Debbie. He stared at her thigh
Speaker 1: high leather boots. The two goons at his side were
Speaker 1: not so impressed. They had one job. No one gets out,
Speaker 1: no one comes in, especially not those talks from Queen's.
Speaker 1: But it was getting late, the whiskey was closing down,
Speaker 1: so Phil invited the group back to his place. Debbie
Speaker 1: was tired, she didn't really feel like it. The others insisted,
Speaker 1: this is Phil Spector we're talking about. He's interested in us,
Speaker 1: in Blondie, the guy who worked with the Beatles wants
Speaker 1: to produce us. So they went up a winding road
Speaker 1: into the shallow hills above Sunset Boulevard, to the lavish
Speaker 1: mansion of one of the most successful record producers of
Speaker 1: all time, who met them at the front door with
Speaker 1: a bottle of Menischevitz in one hand and a Colt
Speaker 1: forty five in the other. The time to back out
Speaker 1: of this little Meut and Greet had long passed. Debbie
Speaker 1: Harry and the others walked nervously inside. The door latched
Speaker 1: shut behind them. Phil Spector didn't give a shit that
Speaker 1: it was beyond late at this point, the wee wee
Speaker 1: hours of the morning. Debbie Harry and Blondie were going
Speaker 1: to hang out with him until the sun came out.
Speaker 1: He had his two goons on it. Just like at
Speaker 1: the whiskey. No one gets out, no one comes in.
Speaker 1: They weren't guessed. They were prisoners, trapped, and Debbie Harry
Speaker 1: didn't like being trapped, Not in her boyfriend's apartment, not
Speaker 1: in the VW Beadle, and certainly not in the mansion
Speaker 1: of the world's most infamous hit maker. It may have
Speaker 1: taken a minute for the boys in the group to
Speaker 1: realize it, but that's what was happening right now. Shit
Speaker 1: had gone sideways. But shit always had a way of
Speaker 1: going sideways, Like when they were kicked out of their
Speaker 1: New York loft apartment in rehearsal space just days into
Speaker 1: recording their first album, or when another apartment of theirs
Speaker 1: burned down while they were on tour, or when Fred Smith,
Speaker 1: their original bass player, blindsided them all when he announced
Speaker 1: he was leaving. He crossed that line from pop to art,
Speaker 1: left Blondie for television. Fred's replacement, Gary Valentine, crossed his
Speaker 1: own mind from teenager to adult and found himself in
Speaker 1: a world of trouble. Managed to knock up his girlfriend
Speaker 1: when both of them were underage, but as soon as
Speaker 1: Gary turned eighteen, the girl's mother, hell bent to hold
Speaker 1: him accountable, reported him for statutory rate. He hid out
Speaker 1: in Debbie's apartment. Jersey cops hot on his tail, Trouble
Speaker 1: had a way of finding Gary. He and Clem, Blondie's drummer,
Speaker 1: were pinched by the NYPD for a little weed two
Speaker 1: days in lock up, including one night in the Tombs,
Speaker 1: New York's notorious detention center. Ditto for Michael Sticka, Blondie's roadie,
Speaker 1: who did his own time at Riker's. Arrested for stabbing
Speaker 1: the dead Boys Johnny Blitz and nearly making him a
Speaker 1: dead boy for real, Sticka maintained his innocence didn't matter.
Speaker 1: Everything went sideways all the same on a moment's notice,
Speaker 1: no less. The only difference with this Phil Spector situation
Speaker 1: was that Debbie saw coming up in the Whiskey's dressing room,
Speaker 1: acting like a control freak and dressed like a real freak.
Speaker 1: At the front doors of his home, the revolver in
Speaker 1: his hand as long as the cape around his shoulders,
Speaker 1: and now inside this glorified meat locker overlooking Hollywood, Phil
Speaker 1: Spector put those hands on a piano and began to
Speaker 1: play the opening chords to Be My Baby, a song
Speaker 1: originally sung by his now ex wife Ronnie Specter, but
Speaker 1: Phil was no singer. He asked Debbie to sit next
Speaker 1: to him on the bench and take the lead. Debbie
Speaker 1: was thinking of the forty five and I don't mean
Speaker 1: the Ronette single. I'm talking about the actual revolver, a
Speaker 1: loaded revolver. Phil Spector wasn't asking, he was telling, So
Speaker 1: Debbie took a seat and she sang a few bars.
Speaker 1: Phil kept playing and kept egging her on for more.
Speaker 1: Debbie wanted to save her voice for tomorrow's show, she
Speaker 1: was so tired. But Phil wasn't done performing, hosting, fucking around.
Speaker 1: Whatever this was. Phil was being Phil, which included looking
Speaker 1: at Debbie's thy high boots again. This time, though he
Speaker 1: did more than look. He took the long barrel of
Speaker 1: the cold forty five and slid it between the leather
Speaker 1: and her skin. Another dude doing what dudes do, running
Speaker 1: this business, trying to run her. Phil looked her in
Speaker 1: the eyes, smiled and said, bang bang. It was another violation,
Speaker 1: another decision made against her will and without her permission.
Speaker 1: She didn't give a shit. If Phil Spector was this
Speaker 1: great and powerful producer, so what if he could turn
Speaker 1: Blondie into the Beatles. Fuck this guy. He just dragged
Speaker 1: them back into the past, which is not where they
Speaker 1: were going. Blondie was all about the new. They weren't
Speaker 1: afraid of it, and they weren't afraid of Phil Spector.
Speaker 1: What they were afraid of was going backwards, becoming some
Speaker 1: throwback novelty. So they moved forward, which began with Debbie,
Speaker 1: Harry and the boys standing up and walking right out
Speaker 1: of Phil Spector's house January nineteen eighty nine. She couldn't
Speaker 1: stop looking at the face of the man on the
Speaker 1: front page of the newspaper. She was mesmerized. She knew
Speaker 1: that face from somewhere, but where. Just look at him,
Speaker 1: good looking, cleaning shaven, short hair with a bit of
Speaker 1: a wavy curl to it, persistent motherfucker. Suddenly, Debbie Harry
Speaker 1: was transported years into the past, back to nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: to Avenue C and those god awful platform heels tearing
Speaker 1: up her feet, that white VW beetle, circling back over
Speaker 1: and over, the smell coming from inside that thing, not
Speaker 1: bo but something rotting, something evil, something to be afraid of.
Speaker 1: And that face, it was etched into her memory. She
Speaker 1: couldn't forget it, the face of the man who gave
Speaker 1: her a ride in that beetle, with no window crank,
Speaker 1: no door handle, no easy way out. And there he
Speaker 1: was now on the front page of this newspaper, A
Speaker 1: man who took the lives of at least thirty women,
Speaker 1: women who were lured, kidnapped, sexually abused, mutilated, brutally murdered,
Speaker 1: women just like Debbie Harry, A man who said few
Speaker 1: words to her, but said to the police when he
Speaker 1: was arrested in nineteen seventy eight, I'm the most cold
Speaker 1: blooded son of a bitch you'll ever meet. Debbie Harry
Speaker 1: was not, for the first time in her life, in
Speaker 1: shock the man who had given her that ride all
Speaker 1: those years ago, a ride she barely escaped from with
Speaker 1: her life. That man was ted Bundy and today. On
Speaker 1: January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty nine, Ted Bundy was dead
Speaker 1: courtesy of the State of Florida, who sent two thousand
Speaker 1: volts of electricity surging through his body. It had been
Speaker 1: a long time coming. One year after he was first arrested.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen seventy nine, Bundy was found guilty of
Speaker 1: killing two Florida State co eds. It was July Donna
Speaker 1: Summer's Hot Stuff was the number one song in America,
Speaker 1: a funky slugh the studio fifty four soul from disco's
Speaker 1: Dancing Queen. Three months earlier, in April, another song held
Speaker 1: the number one spot, sung by another Dancing Queen, The
Speaker 1: Boweryes Dancing Queen herself, an unlikely disco avatar. Heart of
Speaker 1: Glass was Blondie's first number one hit. The song sounded
Speaker 1: unlike anything the group had released up to that time.
Speaker 1: Debbie's Heavenly dreamlike vocal wrote a roll in copy rhythm
Speaker 1: drum machine sample, proudly bridging the gap between New York
Speaker 1: punk rock and punk. Sworn enemy at the time in
Speaker 1: the late seventies, you didn't cross the party lines of
Speaker 1: punk and disco, just like you didn't cross that invisible
Speaker 1: line dividing art and pop and CBGB. You could only
Speaker 1: be one into the diehards. At places like CBGB in Maxis,
Speaker 1: Kansas City, there was a clear choice. Punk was honest,
Speaker 1: Punk was authentic. Disco was commercial and soulless, pure evil.
Speaker 1: Disco was something to be afraid of. As early as
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy six, the Knives were out. The very first
Speaker 1: issue of Punk Magazine, a small publication that documented the
Speaker 1: New York scene, featured a brief editorial that doubled as
Speaker 1: a kind of mission statement. This editorial red, in part,
Speaker 1: death to disco shit, Long live rock, kill yourself, jump
Speaker 1: off a fucking cliff, drive nails into your head, become
Speaker 1: a robot, and join the staff at Disneyland. Oh d anything.
Speaker 1: Just don't listen to disco shit. Unlike the editorial board
Speaker 1: at Punk Magazine, Debbie Harry, Chris Stein and the rest
Speaker 1: of the guys in Blondie weren't afraid of disco shit,
Speaker 1: just like they weren't afraid of the New. It was
Speaker 1: like Andy taught them this new could take many forms.
Speaker 1: Punk disco a hybrid of the two. Even Heart of
Speaker 1: Glass was that hybrid. It got people dancing. It put
Speaker 1: Blondie on the map. It was a harbinger of more
Speaker 1: music to come, like Call Me and the Tide Is High,
Speaker 1: both number one singles in nineteen eighty and Wrap, a
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one number one that fused New Way disco
Speaker 1: and hip hop, and which also became the first hip
Speaker 1: hop video to be played on MTV. All of this
Speaker 1: resulted in a huge backlash from the so called real punks.
Speaker 1: Do you think Blondie cared? Not in the least. Chris
Speaker 1: Steine took it all in stride. He saw Blondie's choices
Speaker 1: as an act of defiance that was fully in step
Speaker 1: with the punk rock ethos. It made us punk in
Speaker 1: the face of punk, he said, and he was right. Or, perhaps,
Speaker 1: as Debbie Harry would see it, Blondie became fear in
Speaker 1: the face of fear, danger in a world, in a
Speaker 1: business built on danger. Survivors of a scene that would
Speaker 1: have rather seen them in disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in
Speaker 1: this this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and
Speaker 1: is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this
Speaker 1: episode can be found on the show notes page at
Speaker 1: disgracelampod dot com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All
Speaker 1: Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member
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Speaker 1: Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month,
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Speaker 1: for details, rate and review the show, and follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook at disgracelampod and on
Speaker 1: YouTube at YouTube dot com slash at disgracelampod, rock a
Speaker 1: roll up, Henn all Right discos, What did you think
Speaker 1: of this blondie episode here in Disgrace sand I want
Speaker 1: to know. Do you think Debbie Harry's account of what
Speaker 1: happened with Ted Bundy is in fact true? Give us
Speaker 1: a call, let us know six one seven, nine oh
Speaker 1: six sixty sixty three eight voicemail and text at disgracelam pod.
Speaker 1: On the socials coming Up next in Disgraceland, our new
Speaker 1: episode on smashing Pumpkins, don't