Update On 2026 WeTransfer Subscription Donations

 

Yesterday subscription tally reached the halfway mark with £105 of £198 kindly donated. A huge heartfelt thanks to all of you who have taken the time to support the Aural Sculptors site. Don't take this as rattling the tin, I post this only due to the fact the fact that the earlier post requesting donations to cover the annual WeTransfer subscription (which hosts all of the files associated with the site) is now buried beneath several yards worth of subsequent posts.... mostly pictures of Debbie Harry!

Should you still wish to contribute you can do so by scrolling down the right hand site bar until you reach the PayPal button. 

Thanks once again.

Adrian.

Blondie's New York... And The Making Of Parallel Lines DVD

 

Okay, so for now here's the last word on Blondie's third studio album, the unparalleled 'Parallel Lines'. This is a 2013 BBC Four documentary telling the tale of 'Blondie's New York... and the making of Parallel Lines'. The title says all you need to know really. A great watch featuring interviews with all of the major players in this part of Blondie's story.

DVD Disc image: https://we.tl/t-unzBmsPqzdeCPyJm

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-SXNJO9NAJjTO7Wfk

Blondie Chateau Neuf Oslo 28th August 1978

 

In the late Summer/early Autumn of 1978 Blondie brought 'Parallel Lines' to Europe. If their first two albums had been notable New Wave successes, this their third studio album propelled the band to the highest levels of pop stardom. 1978 (and 1979 for that matter) belonged to Blondie. Here is a nice sounding audience recording of one of those European shows that took place in Oslo.

What a set! In terms of the 'Parallel Lines' material, well that is represented by no less than 10 tracks (there were 11 on the original release of the album). What did they drop you may ask... 'Heart of Glass' and that is not exactly shit!

So here in Oslo you have a band really at the peak of their creativity and the success that went with it. The hits continued for another couple of years until the band dissolved in late '82. Chris Stein became seriously ill and Debbie Harry withdrew from the limelight and tended to him for several years.

In 1999 they achieved a marvellous feat when, on coming back after an absence of 17 years, they scored an major international hit with 'Maria'. Testament to the inherent quality of the band.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-iFnjxcbDTiBr1Zve

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-7uOzgw9im7eP7sQR

Top 30 Punk Albums #11 Parallel Lines - Blondie

 

'Punk album'? Okay, I'll admit to bending the rules a little bit on this one... perhaps it is more pop, new wave, garage, disco... who cares, it is one of the defining albums of the 1970's and I bet there are not many visitors to this site that don't own a copy of it. 

I missed punk, but there was no escaping Debbie and Blondie. I remember in 1980, my home town of Burgess Hill in West Sussex hosted a 14 - 18's on Saturday mornings in a hall in the town centre. I was 11 and my mate, Paul, also my next door neighbour, was 10. What's more we were both tiny, real small fry.... but we got in week after week. The reason for getting in was simple. Paul's Dad was the local 'celebrity' DJ responsible for spinning the discs at these events. Thinking on, the year could have been late '79 into '80. Either way, Blondie was huge and the singles lifted from 1978's 'Parallel Lines' album were still played as they were guaranteed to fill the dance floor with teeny boppers. 'Sunday Girl', 'Hanging On The Telephone' and 'Heart Of Glass' were just huge. The intros to each of those tunes are perhaps the most evocative songs in my jukebox brain. To hear them throws me straight back into the late '70s. If ABBA produced the perfect pop, then Blondie took the crown for delivering perfect pop punk, or perhaps as the term did not really exist at the time... power pop. What's more their incorporation of the rhythms of disco did not seem out of place at all... after all New York City was the crucible of the '70's disco scene.

However, whilst the singles were brilliant, the album tracks that make up 'Parallel Lines' are also works of extraordinary art. 'One Way Or Another', Fade Away & Radiate', '11.59', 'Will Anything Happen'.... all classic tracks that would also have been huge hits if released as singles.

It's funny, I have never been drawn to female vocalists. Don't worry I'm not an incel or an otherwise misogynistic moron!! I just happens that 80% of my record collection features male singers. Debbie Harry was always an exception. It is fair to say that I did rather fancy this particular female singer too. Debbie's looks worked very well for the band, a fact that Debbie herself exploited to maximum effect. That is not to say that Blondie were just a band with a pretty face. Far from it. As a package they had it all, great musicians, great producers and engineers, all contributing to a great collection of songs... and they had Debbie Harry fronting! There was something else too... Blondie were extraordinarily exotic, at least to a pre-teen from Sussex! They walked mean streets of New York City, a place known only in the vaguest sense through television. Blondie encapsulated all of that I imagined of New York at that time.

Many years later I saw Blondie for the first time and it was in Manhattan, at the Roseland Ballroom to be precise and it was something else.

Years later still, in 2013 Gunta and I travelled to New York to see The Stranglers. On our last day in the city we were drinking in a bar, possibly in Bleecker Street or Greenwich Village, I don't recall now, but we got talking to an elderly, bohemian couple. They were in their 80's and had lived in the area for ever. We started taking about the NYC music scene. They said that Lou Reed could be regularly spotted wandering throughout the area, but they said that he was a miserable old sod (or whatever the New York equivalent was) who hated to be recognised on the street almost as much as he hated not being recognised! Debbie Harry, on the other hand, whilst also a regular sight on the roads all around, was lovely, always obliging to say hello and to have a photo taken... take that Lou!

Back to 'Parallel Lines', here's what the UK critics had to say.... it was mostly positive, but at the end of the day I don't give a damn for the opinion of the music press... 'Parallel Lines' is a work of art!

Sounds (9th September 1978)

New Musical Express (9th September 1978)

Record Mirror (9th September 1978)

There will be a couple more 'Parallel Lines' related posts to come. But for now I just want to wish Debbie Harry a very Happy Birthday. The remarkable lady is 81 today! The greatest female icon of my generation!

The Rezillos Opera House Winter Gardens Blackpool 5th August 2023

 

The irrepressible Rezillos here, performing at 2023's Rebellion Festival and captured by Chatts. Cheers! A smattering of 'newer' material in this set.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-Ch82DQFBCPFoGzQF

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-jDAreTgMMZRmWs3U

Atlantis Alkmaar Netherlands 24th February 1997

DomP has gifted the site another great recording to which he has applied some audio noodling to achieve a version of this Mk. II gig that is streets ahead of the previous version that I uploaded to the site both in terms of format (FLAC versus MP3) and quality. I have also now added artwork.

For enthusiasts of this era of the band this will be a gem. With Paul and John performing the majority of the song writing on 'Written In Red', this dynamic was logically translated into the live set. Never before or since has a Stranglers set deviated so much from the 'classic Stranglers' and for that reason this is a good recording to bag as some of the songs in the set are unlikely to make a reappearance. Did 'In A While' ever get played anywhere else?

As mentioned in the first posting of this gig, Alkmaar served as the forerunner of the Wonky Bus excursions. It is evident from Paul's comments during the gig that the UK travelling contingent took over the front of the gig.

Thanks for answering the call Dom, some more Roberts era material was what I was looking for to balance up the audio record somewhat.

FLAC: https://we.tl/t-tNaXOOJPe8Dy560L

Artwork: https://we.tl/t-46XudTkFrzjQNuOx

The March Violets 100 Club London 2026 - A Review

 

It was another day on which temperature records toppled in South East England and with the prospect of spending the evening in one of the most famed basements in London, try as I might I could not remember how good or how bad the A/C in the 100 Club is. This is despite the fact that I was only last there about three weeks ago. In the event it wasn't an issue at all as on arrival at the venue we discovered that the air con is indeed up to the job and the temperature noticeably dropped with each descending step into the venue.

We were late arriving due rail signal failure on the way into London so we entered part way through the support act's set. They were called Moth Slut. A new name on me, but Mo assured us that they, a Manchester band, have built up quite a following in the city. Visually, very striking to say the lest, musically they were quite good. They certainly made an impressive noise for a duo.

Moth Slut

100 Club London

26th June 2026

If I was ignorant of the band, the audience certainly weren't. They were very well received both on and off the stage as quite a gothic gaggle crowded their merch stand as the band completed their set.

This summer, as part of the annual Record Store Day event, The March Violets' 'Natural History' early singles compilation was reissued in remastered form. To mark this, the band were playing under a 'Natural History', or rather an 'Unnatural History' banner, playing the album in its entirety. The only downside to this is that when bands play album themed shows, additional room needs to be created in the set and songs must drop out. Material from the current album, 'Crocodile Promises' (the album that brought me back to the band) was cut down to one track, 'Hammer The Last Nail'. But that was OK because a 'Natural History' set would be faster and punkier than much of what followed.

So, the March Violets took to the stage and a metallic clatter announced the start of 'Long Pig' before the drum machine and Tom Ashton's guitar kicked in. Next came two tracks that bookend the band's career to date, the brilliant 'Religious As Hell' (1982) and 'Hammer The Last Nail' (2024). Then a leap back to the start with 'Children On Stun' and 'Fodder', two excellent work outs for drum (machine) and bass. Not sure what the thing was about Leeds and drummers... whatever it was, at the start of the 1980's they seemed to be very thin on the ground as a clutch of local post-punk bands (The Violets, The Sisters Of Mercy, Red Lorry, Yellow Lorry...) opted for a drum machine. In these early songs, Tom Ashton's guitar work really comes to the fore, angular and shimmery. Looking at on-line discussions on the band's back catalogue there are more than one comparison to the style of the late, great John McGeogh, which is in there, but I too can hear something along the lines of John McKay's playing on the early Banshees material.

Grooving in green!

Rosie explained that 'Radiant Boys' was the first song that the band wrote and it was dedicated to all in the audience... radiant irrespective of gender. And that is an important point. I have not been to see many bands that are so closely associated with the goth scene.... The Damned and The Banshees don't really count on that score. But I have to say that it's very refreshing to see people out for a gig night out being completely comfortable in that scene, amongst like minded people, with no fear of being singled out for being different. It's really healthy. As we become more polarised in the UK, I often think about Sophie Lancaster who was murdered for going her own thing (whilst doing no harm) by morons without the wit to understand a different outlook on life. Good for the people in the 100 Club last night for following their own path and ignoring the shit. That said, I am not about to turn goth, I have neither the cheekbones or hairline to carry it off these days and the eyeliner pencil was set aside some time back in the early '90s. I'm sticking to a black wardrobe though!

She's behind you!

The crowd took some time to really warm up (in actual fact, so efficient were the air conditioning units in the place that it was bordering on being cold!), but all were up for it when Rosie announced two more songs. First came 'Made Glorious', a great song from the debut album of the same name. It is a debut despite being released in 2013... the 'Natural History' album being a compilation of earlier released material. That was followed by a spirited 'Snake Dance'. But of course there would be another encore as no one was going to leave before hearing 'Walk Into The Sun' which closed a highly enjoyable set.

It was a great gig once again... I just wish that I had got to see them on one of the occasions that they played Brighton back in the day.