52 SUNDAY EXPRESS June 5, 2011 53 CD RELEASES with DAVE ESSON Music Review THEA GILMORE John Wesley Harding (Fulfi ll) Maybe just sending a card would be easier, but Thea decided to commemorate Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday by covering his 1967 album in its entirety. A brave decision, but one which an Pictures: RICHARD YOUNG; BRIAN RASIC/Rex outstanding singer-songwriter takes in her N THE restaurant of London’s most stride. Don’t dismiss this as merely of interest to rock’n’roll hotel, belonging to the hairy Dylan and Gilmore completists. She inhabits the ‘I’m a live-in- hard-rockers Iron Maiden, Debbie Harry and Even after more than songs well and isn’t afraid to tinker with some Chris Stein’s jetlagged chat is drowned out 30 years in the business arrangements – All Along The Watchtower, the-moment by the hiss and gurgle of an expensive coffee Drifter’s Escape, Wicked Messenger and I’ll Be I machine. It’s Chris who suggests we relocate Debbie Harry and Chris Your Baby Tonight are personal favourites. Bob person but I to the peace of a basement cinema and, as we both should be delighted by this unusual present. leave the table to check it’s empty, Debbie Harry is left Stein of Blondie are still appreciate the alone with my Dictaphone. cool, still credible and IRON MAIDEN “They have both left and I am here alone,” she From Fear To Eternity: Best of 1990-2010 (EMI) past. I’ve done murmurs seductively, I discover later when I play still hoping for another Maiden headed up the New Wave Of British the tape back. “And I think I’m going to make out Heavy Metal back in the 80s, but after 30 years in the trip, run with myself.” number one, discovers the business, does NWOBHM just stand for Now the gamut of Well, who can blame her? At 65, Debbie Harry is still CHARLOTTE HEATHCOTE Worryingly Old But Hirsutely Miraculous? This unequivocally hot. She freely admits to submitting to compilation of their best bits over the last two what it’s about’ cosmetic surgery (“I’m like, get over it, so what?”) but decades shows they can still teach the young RAPTURE: Chris Stein, top left, Debbie and the band in 1979 that has left her looking well-preserved, rather than pretenders how to rock out, and is a good history wind tunnel. However, for all her legendary beauty, for lesson for young metal fans. all the pin-up, fantasy glamour that Debbie Harry injected into the male-dominated late DEPECHE MODE Seventies music scene, Blondie’s Remixes 2: 81-11 (Mute) music is the reason they have sold Sprawling triple-disc set reworking Dave Gahan 40 million albums. That said, the and the boys over the years. As with most of these band behind Heart Of Glass, Atomic, endeavours, it’s a cross between being too radical Sunday Girl, Denis, One Way Or or too reverential, but big names like Royksopp, Another and many, many more Eric Prydz, UNKLE, Orbital and ex-Moder Vince vignettes of feisty pop perfection, Clarke make an impression. Personal Jesus gets currently fi nd themselves without buffed up three times. a record deal. “Record labels look at older KITTY, DAISY AND LEWIS bands’ value as being in their Smoking In Heaven (Sunday Best) catalogues,” says Debbie. (When The Durham siblings appear to have been buried asked whether she prefers to in a time capsule, then dug up to innocently be called Debbie or Deborah, entertain with a quirky nostalgic mix of she shrugs: “Whatever. I don’t rockabilly, ska, jazz and blues. Championed by really care.”) Chris Martin, who had them open for Coldplay on “Most of the time when you get a their US tour, their second album unfortunately band like us, you’ll fi nd it’s two new lacks bite. songs with a bunch of old songs. It’s not really a vote of confi dence THE PIERCES for a band. The current thing that You & I (Polydor) we are, they’re not interested in Another act getting a boost from the Coldplay that. It’s annoying. It’s lads, as their Scottish bassist Guy Berryman frustrating.” produces Alabama sisters Allison and Catherine’s They also believe they’re having fourth album. This could be the one to break to work harder to carve a niche as them in the UK, as Berryman gets the radio part of the fi rst generation to hooks into their material, while their Stevie Nicks sustain such a long music career. meets Mamas and the Papas vocal style on tracks “When we were in our 20s, like Glorious and You’ll Be Mine shine through. there weren’t people in their 60s or 70s playing,” says Chris. “The FELICE BROTHERS older singers were Andy Celebration, Florida (Loose) Williams and Frank Sinatra, Tom Having mined the rootsy Americana of the Band, Jones; they were the older the Felices spread their wings a bit – with mixed generation.” Debbie agrees: “We results. Ambient synths, the odd horn section, dub weren’t even considered bass, drum machines and children’s choirs all legitimate music, it was the pervade these new songs. On Cus’s Catskill Gym, counterculture, but now the Honda Civic and Ponzi, the transformation is counterculture has been quite startling. Fans of their past work may wish absorbed into this massive to hang on to tracks like Dallas and Oliver Stone. culture worldwide.” As they point out, their back WALDNER catalogue means they could StillSt blonde, Found & Lost (Blue Fleur) make a killing trading on Pleasantly melodic pop-rock from Canadian nostalgia but they have never lost the creative urge. David Waldner, who has upped sticks and moved Fans have waited eight years for Panic Of Girls though, to London to search for fame. Think of in part because the band spent a couple of years Beatles-infl uenced contemporaries like Brendan navigating a record industry in a state of fl ux, before Benson, Jason Falkner and Mull Historical releasing the record themselves. Society, and you get the driving force behind The wait is also partly because Chris had two songs like Rude Awakening and Heaven Only children with actress Barbara Sicuranza. While Debbie Knows. is their godmother, she has remained childless. She stillstil ambitious PHAMIE GOW wouldn’t rule out adoption but, as in the Seventies and Eighties, work remains her primary focus. Road Of The Loving Heart (Wildfi re) The partnership with Chris goes back to 1973 when Debbie. “I get total cabin fever and I have to go out, and their disappointment that, as predicted by better at it. I guess I can relax behind it a bit more. For someone principally revered as a harpist, they met in a pub, Debbie performing in a band, Chris I’m an old dog really.” Chris agrees: “We both have evangelist Harold Camping, Jesus did not return on I’ve done the trip, run the gamut of what it’s all about this collection of original an art student who asked to photograph her and they enough egomania to be seeking out this kind of stuff May 21. Although Chris is the more chatty of the two, and I can laugh at it more. I still have a tremendous compositions for piano is fell in love, spending 15 years together. Debbie recently [making music].” Debbie, if slightly distracted, is by no means the ice amount of ambition but some of the desperation is enchanting. These described him as the love of her life. However, the band “If I just went to parties every night, that’d be OK,” queen that past observers have described and both are gone.” classical-new age pieces fell apart in 1982 when Chris was diagnosed with a adds Debbie. “I’d always run into people in New York respectful of each other and their views. A big part of Debbie Harry’s impact was the woeful were put down live and life-threatening autoimmune disease and Debbie spent but a lot of our contemporaries aren’t here any more. lack of women in a testosterone-fuelled industry. “It unedited near the Scot’s four years nursing him through it. Finally, in the late “Mostly we don’t see them or they’re dead,” says OTH AGREE they’re enjoying Blondie was a boys’ club,” says Chris but, for Debbie, there was new home in Montpellier, Nineties, manager Harry Sandler persuaded them to Chris, matter-of-factly. “Joey Ramone, Johnny more than they did in the early days. “I no conscious decision to break down barriers or to blaze France, and the melodies reform and Blondie even enjoyed a number one hit in Thunders and Jerry Nolan [from New York Dolls].” think we took a lot for granted in the a feminist trail. “I think if I hadn’t been Chris’s girlfriend, in tracks like Carousel 1999 with Maria. Today Debbie still writes most of the They cite drugs as another way in which their beginning,” says Chris. “I wasn’t really if we hadn’t been a team, I probably wouldn’t have kept and Regresso a Chile are lyrics, Chris, most of the music. generation was naïve. “It’s a phase a lot of people go thankful for what was happening at it, it would have been more diffi cult. I just happened to spellbinding. Having Both freely admit to more regrets than they can through but it certainly isn’t a sustainable way of life,” Bbecause I thought it should be be in the right place at the right time and, whether or worked with such diverse mention, having been among that legion of naïve artists says Debbie, who once admitted she was a junkie for a happening.