by Dick Porter
With ZE records starting to flounder, James Chance made the logical move of recording an album for Animal, revisiting the James White And The Blacks persona devised by his late girlfriend Anya Phillips, in which he had recorded Off White with members of apocalyptic jazz band Defunkt. Live, Chance’s crowd-baiting onslaughts had achieved an Iggy-like notoriety, giving him a reputation that hardly helped his career. His music remained a sabre-toothed mixture of hellish caterwauls and taut funk backdrops, East Village aural anarchy playing havoc with ‘That Old Black Magic’. Over 30 years later, it’s apparent that Chance was sparking a rebirth of the cool in New York’s post-punk hotbed.
“James is a real controversial figure,” claimed Chris. “People either hate him or love him; there’s no middle ground. Ever since he was jumping into the audience and getting into fights, that’s how it’s been. James did his own thing and his own cover and everything; that LP was recorded last spring. James has been through lots of weird trips but he is what he is; a real original … He’s always tried to maintain what he thinks is right. He’s an honourable person and he is sensitive. We’ve been friends a long time … People are not gonna readily accept his record, but James is aware of that … The record’s really thick; it’s the most heavy produced record he’s ever made.”
Other records released by Animal in 1982 now seem like curios from an era of unfettered adventurism. Previously, Walter Steding’s sole recorded output outside the TV Party studio had been 1980’s ‘The Poke’, produced with Chris as the lone release on Andy Warhol’s Earhole label (now a three-figure collectable for Warholites and Blondie completists). The track is revisited on Dancing In Heaven, a Steding-produced melange of post-punk quirkiness, multi-tracked vocal convolutions and occasional funk undertows, recorded at Blank Tapes. The back cover shows Steding and a worried-looking Warhol – billed as the album’s ‘executive producer’ – clamping his hands over his ears.
Snuky Tate made his long-playing debut with the multihued hallucinogenic sonic collisions of Babylon Under Pressure, which he described as, “Like Ray Charles and reggae, but space stuff and salsa music at the same time. Actually it’s completely insane. It’s like Ray Charles on acid.”
Tav Falco and the Panther Burns released the rambunctious four-track Blow Your Top EP. Named after the legend of a demonic panther that stalked and terrorised a 19th-century plantation, The Unapproachable Panther Burns’ ‘art damage’ project was the 1979 brainchild of confrontational performance artist Tav Falco and the late Alex Chilton. After impressing Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis at a New York show, an album was recorded at Sam Phillips’ Memphis studio but rejected. The group, now including future Gun Club guitarist Jim Duckworth, tried again at Ardent studios, recording everything in one take to emerge with the sizzlingly shambolic rockabilly hellfire of Beyond The Magnolia Curtain. When Panther Burns took to the road, Chilton departed and former Lydia Lunch drummer Jim Sclavunos (now an integral part of Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds and Grinderman) joined on drums. Soon, Falco was being embraced by the Mudd Club scene, sufficiently captivating Chris to place them in the same Plaza studios where Blondie had recorded their early albums, resulting in the tightly energised Blow Your Top.
Speaking now, Chris remembers this time with much affection, while acknowledging that trying to balance a record label with Blondie ran him into the ground. In New York at that time the energy seemed to be buzzing out of the subway vents and, if one’s energy flagged, cocaine was omnipresent. “The Animal Records thing was satisfying because, in retrospect, we – and there were only two people who made up the ‘company’; me and Ed Strait – got some memorable recordings out. I think about 12 albums and maybe twice that many singles. The best known is probably the Wild Style soundtrack.”
Animal briefly embodied the rampantly creative downtown spirit. The Wild Style project now stands as a remarkably prescient landmark, one of hip hop’s most crucially vibrant early documents, setting footage of rapping, turntabling, graffiti and break-dancing against the cavernous ruins of the South Bronx. Producer Charlie Ahearn’s movie was the first to depict the neighbourhood’s hip hop culture, aided by a cast including Freddy Braithwaite, Lee Quinones, Lady Pink, Rock Steady Crew, Grandmaster Flash and the Cold Crush Brothers.
Whereas Malcolm McLaren diluted what he witnessed on one personally terrifying night at a South Bronx jam to create the globally successful Duck Rock, Chris and Fab Five Freddy went straight to the source, secured the originators and (crucially) documented its outlaw excitement in the movie and on the soundtrack. The latter’s mix of infectious old-school rapping and smoking funk-based grooves (whipped up by Chris, Steding drummer Lenny Ferrari and bassist David Harper), laced with dub-fired mixing-desk trickery, was truly ahead of the coming hip hop wave. The album’s credits boast several nascent talents who would go down in folklore: Grandmaster Caz, Double Trouble, Grand Wizzard Theodore, Cold Crush Brothers, Kevie Kev and Chrois, plus Debbie’s favourite, Rammellzee (soon to cause a stir with ‘Beat Bop’). Unfortunately, most would be lost in the gold rush which strangled much of the movement’s raw street spirit.
“We never even met!” laughs Chris. “It was done like how people work today on the internet. We just traded tapes back and forth. They had bass and drum parts, then I came in and did weird electric guitar stuff, while Freddy added sound effects like electric shavers and police sirens. Then the finished thing was pressed up and made into a hundred white label copies. Guys would beg me for copies.
“They were initially just given out to people who were working on the film to use to scratch with, but everyone gravitated to this one track called ‘Down By Law’. Caz cut it on turntables and sent me a tape of his cut version, then I synchronised a bunch of synthesizers to the cutting, which I’m sure hadn’t been done prior to that.”
While the movie soundtrack was released on Animal in 1983, the Caz-Stein collaboration came out as a 12-inch singe entitled ‘The Wild Style Theme’, which now sounds uncannily like an instrumental blueprint for The Stone Roses’ ‘Fools Gold’.
Amid this maelstrom of activity, it was apparent that Chris’ focus was now primarily upon Animal Records, with Blondie a third consideration after Debbie’s solo career. “We’re gonna do another solo album with Debbie, which Mike Chapman will probably produce; I don’t know how long we’ll keep it together with Blondie. Animal seems to have evolved when the timing was really right … It’s like Zen, y’know? When you don’t have the desire for something, that’s when something happens. It’s when you define something and say, that has to happen – that’s when you’ll find that you can’t make it happen.”
With The Hunter’s release finally set for late May, Chrysalis trailed the album by issuing ‘Island Of Lost Souls’ on seven-inch, supported by a rather unreal video that set Debbie and the group down in a Scilly Isles approximation of a Fantasy Island tropical paradise. Chris, Jimmy, Nigel and Frank were asked to caper around pretending to play a variety of wind instruments. Infante was still ‘travelling separately’ from the rest of Blondie and found the shoot a fraught experience: “When we did the video – talk about island of lost souls, man, lemme tell you! When I was there, nobody would talk to anybody else; my lawyer said, ‘Don’t talk to anybody, don’t hit anybody.’”
Although sections of the music press dismissed the single as an attempt to replicate the commercial success of ‘The Tide Is High’, ‘Island Of Lost Souls’ cracked the Billboard Top 40 and narrowly missed out on the UK Top 10.
Just ahead of the album’s release, Blondie made a high-profile trip to the UK to announce a September 1982 tour, mark the release of The Hunter and participate in the launch of Victor Bockris’ Making Tracks: The Rise Of Blondie. The book launch took place at the B2 Art Gallery in Wapping High Street – at that time basically a near-derelict Thameside landscape of abandoned warehouses and trailer cafés. It resembled some pre-gentrification areas of New York, with this little gallery pointing toward a similar redeveloped future to Manhattan.<
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Despite the less than salubrious locale, nothing could stop the media converging on another label-funded Blondie blowout. Despite adverse reactions to recent records there was still feverish interest in Debbie, while the band had bowed to pressure and booked four nights at Wembley Arena as a climax to their forthcoming UK tour.
Kris was present at the Blondie/Bockris book launch:
At the time, the group stated that they were happy with how The Hunter had turned out, a beaming Nigel Harrison declaring, “We did it really fast, just went in there.” Of course, the bad reviews had riled Chris, who reacted with a contemptuous shrug: “Yes it got slagged. What a surprise! Where’s the spirit, chaps? What did they say? I wouldn’t know, I never read them.”
Debbie, resplendent in a blonde wig, seemed quite relaxed at first, finding time to tackle a trifle amidst the meeting, greeting and posing for photographs. For much of the bash, I stood at a far window with Chris, sundry band members and Victor Bockris. Chris looked thinner but was his usual dry, acerbic self, unable to stop enthusing on upcoming Animal projects such as Debbie’s second solo album, which he was thinking of asking Chapman to produce. He gave me a guided tour of the photos adorning the gallery walls; “There’s the box where I kept my comic collection before it got lost in the fire … That’s Debbie in Marilyn Monroe’s dress … The Ramones before they got leather jackets.”
After the party, the group embarked upon a punishing schedule of early-starting interviews and TV appearances, before popping off to the Scilly Isles for the ‘Island Of Lost Souls’ shoot. Following a brief overstay caused by fog descending on the Isles, the behind-schedule group jetted over to the continent to fulfil further promotional obligations. They then returned to London, where Debbie was scheduled to host Top Of The Pops alongside John Peel. Arriving at the BBC’s Shepherds Bush studio in the afternoon, Blondie set about rehearsing in that little studio which always seemed so much bigger on the TV. Debbie and Peel were already making a great double act, trading banter, John the epitome of warm charm, maybe thinking he was a very lucky man, as more often he was paired with Jimmy Savile.
With Debbie changed into blonde wig and green dress, the red light was about to go on so Chris and I made for the studio and were summarily refused entry. A combination of new fire regulations enforced by the consummate jobsworth meant we had to watch from an observation room miles above the studio. Debbie didn’t realise that her partner hadn’t been allowed in until near the end of recording, which had included the ‘Island Of Lost Souls’ video and gone very well, thanks to the good-natured chemistry between Debbie and Peel. Understandably, she threw a minor shitfit. Although Denny Vosburgh [Shep Gordon’s assistant] blasts a producer who apologises, it was evident that behind her favourite wraparound mirror shades Debbie was pissed off. So the last time that I would see Debbie and Chris together as part of Blondie finished under something of a black cloud. They were about to return to New York and start rehearsing for the tour next day. “See you in September” were their final words.
Any criticisms levelled at ‘Island Of Lost Souls’ paled into insignificance compared to the opprobrium that greeted the May 27, 1982 release of The Hunter. While Musician‘s Mark Roland described the album as comprising “all hot sauce and no enchilada”, in New Musical Express Adrian Thrills heaped on the disapproval: “This is the sixth Blondie album, their worst to date. At a time when the best new British pop is pushing forward at an invigorating post-punk pace, Blondie could hardly sound any safer, saner, stodgier or more senile,” he blasted, dismissing the group as “just a bunch of loveless old lags; pale, middle-aged hipsters politely fading into the wallpaper at a house-party for bright young things.” Thrills eviscerated the original material: “Had they been sent as demos to a record label, they would have been rejected outright by any quality-conscious A&R man, yet here they are on hard, black vinyl, obscene and embarrassing to the point of grotesque self-parody.” Finally, he critically consigned The Hunter to the sump pit usually reserved for money-spinning pap: “This album will doubtlessly sell and sell. Sadly, there are still a lot of people around who will buy a Blondie record on face value. On musical merit, however, The Hunter deserves to be the final nail in their coffers.”
Whatever the merits of Thrills’ musical criticism, he was inarguably wrong about one thing – The Hunter only sold in similar numbers to its preceding single, making number nine in Britain and hovering just outside the US Top 30 for a week. Debbie believed the album was poorly promoted and it was certainly true that Chrysalis – which had just undergone a management shake-up – did not put the push behind The Hunter that Eat To The Beat and Autoamerican had enjoyed. “There were changes going on at the record company as well. There are usually personnel changes at a record company every five years and those are deadly to an artist because very often the people who sign you aren’t there any more and the new honcho who comes in isn’t really interested in old artists,” she asserted. This was further evidenced by the lack of any funds being made available for the filming of a video to promote the single release of ‘War Child’, which slipped out with minimal fanfare across Europe and Australia in July. Unsurprisingly, the single flopped – only making number 39 in the UK.
Although Blondie’s British fans had been divided by The Hunter, expectations generated an optimism among those who waited patiently to catch the band live. However, this was undermined when the tour was cancelled due to slow ticket sales. Instead, the group returned to the stage (for the first time since January 1980) with the Tracks Across America tour, opening at Baton Rouge, Louisiana on July 23, 1982. As the band took the State University Assembly Centre stage, two things were immediately apparent. Most obviously, Frank was absent, having been replaced by session man Eddie Martinez.
“It was, ‘Frank, there’s a problem,’” recalled Infante. “And I said, ‘Get somebody else, and pay me as if I was there.’ The vibe wasn’t the same. I didn’t go to any shows, but that’s what I heard from people who did.”
Those who looked a little closer might have noticed Chris had lost a considerable amount of weight and was looking more than fashionably gaunt. “Nobody knew what was wrong,” Glenn O’Brien recalled. “We thought maybe he had AIDS, but how did he get AIDS? He didn’t do any of the things you’re supposed to do to get AIDS? You could see he was like a skeleton.”
Although, thankfully, Chris was not infected with HIV, he was obviously unwell. He’d experienced some chest problems the previous year, which he and Deborah had ascribed to asthma. However, as Blondie tracked across America, it was clear that the guitarist was struggling to cope with the rigours of being back on the road. His reaction to a pre-tour pep talk from Shep Gordon clearly showed where Chris was at. “He said, ‘You can go out and be millionaires, or sit at home on your ass, and sell a lot of records,’” recounted Clem. “And Chris said, ‘Well, I’ll just stay home, then.’”
“The tour was a disaster, it was just horrible,” Nigel insisted. “We were booked into gigs that were 20,000-seater places and there was only 9,000 people there. And at that point that’s when Chris really started to look pale and skinny.”
By the time Blondie reached New Jersey on August 14, both Chris and the band he played such a key part in were visibly fraying at the edges, putting in a lifeless set before a disappointed crowd. “Chris was sick by then. He weighed about 120 pounds,” recalled Deborah. “It was difficult for him physically and total stress time for all of us. We didn’t know what was wrong with him yet. It was horrifying. And there were so many fractures within the band. They kept getting bigger. Management wasn’t interested and eventually just walked away.”
“It was like a changing of the guard,” Clem observed. “Nigel and I got Duran Duran to open for us; by the end of the tour, they were the success, we were the failure.”
Chris did his best to remain upbeat. “Every big group has gone up and down. The question which makes existing relevant is whether or not you are making any statement.�
�� But it was difficult to understand what kind of statement a poorly attended tour by a conflict-ridden group, led by an evidently unwell guitarist, could make.
In common with the rest of the band, Debbie was finding the going tough. “In a lot of ways as a performer it’s easier to be the underdog,” she asserted. “When you come out on stage I think it’s more of a challenge to have people like you. Also, sometimes you come out on stage and everybody’s ready for you, and you just don’t come up to their expectations, because everybody’s fantasy is always more than reality – then it makes it very hard.”
A week later, after a gig alongside Genesis and Elvis Costello in Philadelphia, Chris could no longer continue. He’d been unable to swallow and had found it difficult to eat. Weakened by the as-yet undiagnosed illness, the rigours of touring and running a record label, and overenthusiastic drug consumption, he finally collapsed.
Chris Stein was rushed into hospital and, after 10 days of tests, was diagnosed as suffering from pemphigus vulgaris – a rare autoimmune disorder that causes blistering of the skin, sores, and damage to the mucus membranes. If left untreated, the disease – which most commonly affects middle-aged or older people – can be fatal.
“It’s a genetic disorder, even though nobody in your family necessarily has to have had it,” explained Chris. “It’s pretty rare. I got one letter from a guy who had it. But I also got tons of weird letters. Everything you could think of.”
Chris had been unaware that his life was in danger and was reluctant to stay in hospital. “If I hadn’t been doing what I was doing it wouldn’t have happened. When they first put me on the steroids, I had some really great hallucinations. I had no conception of where I was. I felt like I was everywhere in the world. It was like an astral tour. I’d wake up and think I was in Cuba or Hong Kong.”