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| From | "Sager, Greg" <greg.sager@bankofamerica.com> |
| Subject | Re: Blondie at R&RHOF |
| Date | Fri, 17 Mar 2006 05:33:16 -0500 |
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> Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2006 10:16:38 -0500
> From: beth2459@aol.com
> To: audities@smoe.org
> Subject: Blondie at R&RHOF
> Message-ID: <8C8165A97741D90-1E98-9788@mblk-d28.sysops.aol.com>
>
> I had no idea that the other guys were not "allowed" in the
> reformed band, anyone know the skinny ?
>
> Blondie at R&RHOF
>
> from AOL news:
>
>
>
>
> When Blondie, the most commercially successful band to emerge
> from a fertile New York rock scene that also produced Talking
> Heads and the Ramones, reformed after 15 years, they didn't
> include former members Frank Infante and Nigel Harrison. They
> sued unsuccessfully to join.
> Infante, Harrison and Gary Valentine, another former member
> left behind in a business dispute, were barely acknowledged
> by former chums Deborah Harry, Chris Stein and Clem Burke as
> they received their awards.
> Infante begged to perform with the band.
> "Debbie, are we allowed?" he pleaded before Blondie performed
> their hits "Heart of Glass," "Rapture" and "Call Me."
> "Can't you see my band is up there?" Harry replied. The three
> rejected members walked offstage, but not before Infante
> groaned into the microphone.
>
What the masses want to know is: What about Jimmy Destri?
The local late news on Monday evening had a tease about the Blondie R&RHOF dust-up, and I made sure that I stuck around to the end of the newscast so that I wouldn't miss what was being described by the newscasters as a major onstage set-to. Big disappointment. It turned out to be ten seconds' worth of a Debbie Harry prima-donna star turn and Frank Infante's disposable-musician sulking. I was hoping for screaming and fisticuffs, or at least some vicious banter.
Among the R&RHOF's innumerable crimes is the fact that the institution makes everything it touches deadly dull. Even the unscripted onstage conflicts at the R&RHOF induction ceremonies are boring. The Sex Pistols actually did the R&RHOF a favor by releasing their nasty "screw you, we're not coming" letter to the public, since it turned Jann's Folly into a newsworthy item all over again. The truly punk thing for Lydon & Co. to do would've been to silently drop the invitation in the dustbin and to disregard both their induction and the institution itself. If there's a lesson that the Sex Pistols should have learned better than any other band on the planet, it's that there's no such thing as bad publicity in rock'n'roll.
Gregory Sager
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