November 29-December 5, 2007
buzz@boulderweekly.com

Dirty Harry
Debbie Harry built her career on a punk image, but now her handlers are punking her out
by Ben Corbett

I was up in Pittsburgh for the Ryan Adams concert a few weeks ago, and the show was stellar, even sublime at moments, because Adams really puts his heart into his music, and that’s what sets him apart from the status quo of current music sterility. So after the show, as all the fans (most in their 20s) burst down the steps and onto the sidewalk, streaming like automatons toward their shiny cars, I called a friend in Boulder and when he answered I yelled, “Man, save me! I’m surrounded by art fags and metrosexuals!” And it was true. Everybody was bedecked in fashionable androgyny, ya know, black everything buttoned to the neck and long, black wool coats, gelled hair and eBay hats and soft white hands, and you could practically feel the estrogen floating in the air. And that’s fine.

Leave the testosterone stuff to Ryan Adams. That’s why we bought the tickets, isn’t it? Anyway, my crude outburst made about 75 people laugh. A few laughed nervously, but most got it, and I was impressed. I had underestimated them, and I was wrong.

Underneath all that safety fashion there was life, and it gives me hope. Usually when I look around I see a phalanx of social cripples, but now I see potential again, and it’s quite a relief.

Musically, this whole trend toward safety began with disco, of course. It’s almost as though we felt so much emotion during the 1960s that, similar to hand-washing neurotics, we became frightened and felt guilty about it. So, logically, we retreated into this frigid, controlled atmosphere where humanistic bacteria (like honesty and heart) cannot multiply and one doesn’t need to take risks. Thus disco segued into techno, new wave, electronica and the like. But in the process, our culture atrophied. And us with it. Which makes the true rawness of Ryan Adams sort of an anomaly for the times.

Adams was born into the same unfortunate generation as me, which is really a Sybil generation, a cursed generation of split personalities. Because we have one foot stuck back in the early ’70s, when our cultural influences conditioned us to believe that we could actually make a difference, that caring and sincerity had value, and that putting thought into your products meant something.

Meantime, the other foot was rollerskating through the 1980s, when absolute materialism reigned, fashion was queen, and you were judged by quantity, not quality. This is still the mode today, yet multiplied by a thousand. People in my generation used to say stuff like, “Did you see the new Michelob commercial with Eric Clapton? Man, what a sellout!” Selling out? That was the worst crime any musician could commit. Putting music to a TV commercial? Unthinkable! Music was our sacred cow! And so we watched our gods slide down the slippery slope of materialism, one-by-one putting my generation in the awkward position of wondering if everything we’d learned in the 1970s was wrong. Children born since, say, 1989 don’t even have the choice of selling out. They’re sold out before they even hit the planet now. That’s postmodern original sin, and that’s a sad prospect.

None of this is Debbie Harry’s fault. Or maybe it all is. Because she was the hinge pin of the transition.

OK, that’s sensational, but what the hell, Debbie would probably see the humor in it. The lead singer of Blondie is a kick-ass goddess, and she’s coming to the Bluebird Theater on Saturday. This article that you’re poring your eyes over, by the way, is supposed to be about her. Originally I wanted to have phone sex with her and then write about the experience here. Nobody knew that but me — until now. Wouldn’t that have been a great angle? However, her PR flack (whom I haven’t worked with before) blew me off, never sending me the promised press kit about Debbie’s new disc and tour, never scheduling an interview until it was too late, and never following up to see whether I had everything I needed. Which is standard procedure with A&E journalism these days. All of this amounts to what in my opinion constitutes arrogance; they plain out didn’t give a shit about this story. I chased her and her management for a week, had them on the phone, everything was spiffy (I was led to believe), and then they just outright blew me off. Or maybe they forgot about me. Four or five times. Same difference no matter how you shake it. Anyway, this all led to a pissing match between me and said publicist, some discourse about professionalism and some seemingly passive-aggressive blame shifting on her part. A fusillade of back-and-forth ensued, followed by the publicist and her employer slipping in the back door of the paper for a feeble attempt at damage control with the editors. Embrace chaos, baby! Drama queens unite! Ride the snake!

Now here is where I’m supposed to write about a few of the new songs on the disc, which is called Necessary Evil, in case you were curious. But because I never received a promo copy of the new disc (I’m told two were sent. I have yet to hear the disc), I was forced to unsuccessfully try stealing a shared file of her new single “Two Times Blue,” (which is getting good reviews) so I could talk about what she’s doing these days.

And then here’s where I’m supposed to plug in a quote. Since I didn’t get one from Debbie, I’ll paste one in from the press release on her website: “That voice is unmistakable, so just be glad that Debbie Harry isn’t going anywhere.”

This may or may not be true — you decide. I like Debbie Harry, so I’m going to the show. And I base my decision on past merits. Maybe I’ll see you down there.

Now, back to the heart stuff. In the ’90s, Hunter S. Thompson made a couple of appearances at the Fox Theatre in Boulder. He always did these Q&A things, and one guy said, “Dr. Thompson, what advice would you give to an aspiring journalist? You see, I’m going to school to become a journalist.”

“Why?” Thompson asked, and that’s a damn good question. Before 1994, school teachers were the worst paid professionals entering their field after college. That has since changed. Now it’s journalists, who earn a whopping average of $22,000 annually after sweating J-school for four years. More than 60 percent of hires straight out of J-school go to PR firms. (Some wangle their way up the ass-kiss ladder and eventually wind up working as publicists for celebs, almost-celebs and wannabe celebs). The rest go to newspapers. The ones who think they have something to say go to alt-weeklies, like the one you have your paws wrapped around or maybe you’re mopping up your pizza with. Just like school teachers, journalists are romantics. We do this because we care, or we think we can improve things, or maybe because we’re just egomaniacs. But that never lasts (except in New York). And I’m reminded here about an e-mail exchange I had years ago with Greg Campbell, now editor at the Fort Collins Weekly. The discourse was about how journalists never get any respect:

Corbett: To be a successful writer, you have to eat your way through a swamp of shit with a spoon, and when you get to the other side, they hand you a shovel.

Campbell: Yeah, and after you get through the next swamp of shit with your shovel, then they break out a bulldozer.

That’s a fact. I ate my measure this week, and I’m picking my teeth with verbiage. It’s all in good fun. What really matters is what happens on the stage. Either Harry still has the heart or she doesn’t; she’ll let us know on Saturday.

On the Bill
Debbie Harry will perform at 9 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 1, at the Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver, 303-322-2308.

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