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CLASH
BANG BOOM continued...
MICK
JONES, JOHNNY THUNDERS… AND DEBBIE GOES DOWN
“I
never thought I'd end up in a museum!” laughs Mick.
He's just come from addressing the audience at Cleveland's
Rock'n'Roll Hall Of Fame, where there's a new
exhibition on The Clash. “It's
odd” says Mick, still laughing. “I
never imagined it would get to this. The other day in England I
did an interview for the magazine Relix -
but it's spelt with an x so I guess that's alright…”
Mick's
compadre Joe Strummer, before he was
called to hang out with Elvis and Guy
Stevens and Vince Taylor and Bobby
Fuller, Joe said of Bob
Gruen's The
Clash book “This is the stuff. Absolute
mayhem”. And Gruen and Fallon first
met several full moons before that, in 1973 when Bob photographed BP's
charges Led
Zeppelin eight miles high over America on Starship -
the band's private Boeing 707.
And
tonight the New York demi monde turns
out for Bob's birthday. BP is
particularly pleased to be reconnected to Lee
Black Childers, all glitter in his hair
and not long back from Japan where
his photographs - and he - were feted. Lee,
he used to work for Mainman, his job
nannying Iggy and
fussing over Bowie. Later in London this New
Yorker managed The Heartbreakers until
- like their predecessors The New York Dolls who
birthed two of 'em in a junkyard of syringes and cold
turkey - they collapsed in a vortex of heroin and defeat
and BP took over the management of their
brilliant-but-smacked-out leader Johnny
Thunders to make Johnny's
classic So
Alone album. Lee and BP hug.
Been a long strange trip.
And
tonight… BP DJs up a storm and
plays Stevie Wonders's MLK tribute
song Happy Birthday for birthday boy Bob, Mick
Jones waxes lyrical about his very vibey combo Carbon
Silicone that pairs him with his longtime
pal and sometime Death Disco DJ Tony
James, The Sex Slaves rock
it out live and so do our young chums ModRocket,
this quartet of effervescent schoolgirls who've already
crossed the country to California to
record with Tom Dumont of No
Doubt and return with contagious new ditties
like LA Pickup.
Blondie's
brilliant drummer Clem Burke appears,
trepidatiously approaches BP behind
the DJ decks. And because of the disgusting and graceless
way Debbie
Harry had acted towards former Blondie members Frank
Infante [guitar] and Nigel Harrison [bass
guitar] on the band's induction into The Rock'n'Roll
Hall Of Fame last year, refusing
to allow them to play, Clem now
says to BP “You must think I'm
a cunt”.
Dig:
when BP first came to the sex and drugs
and rock'n'roll nirvana that was 1972 America with
the incendiary English torn-velvet peacock
punks Silverhead, Nigel Harrison was
the bass player and it was Nigel - after
an LA stint playing with Ray Manzarek and Iggy and
on Runaways records - who'd introduced BP to
his new Blondie family and they'd all
got on great, always had a laugh.
Chris
Stein took a great series of Debbie and BP pix, Iggy hung
out with them in London, BP almost
got the band busted, even took Nigel and Frankie and Clem to
the house of one of Clem's heroes Eric
Faulkner of The Bay City Rollers,
Debbie was always gracious and funny - and
in sunny California Clem invited BP down
to the studio when he was recording with Brian
Wilson… the usual stuff. And later,
having diligently rehearsed in the home of Kathy
Valentine of The Go Gos, Frankie and Clem plus
the bassplayer from The Plimsoles became BP's
backing band at his spoken word gigs in LA.
Blondie was
wonderful, once. And now this dysfunctional band, it's
all turned to shit.
Clem rushes
off to see The Kooks at The
Bowery Ballroom, returns with Debbie
Harry. BP doesn't talk to her.
Fuck you, Debbie. Love hurts.
BP plays
another CD…
All
photos by BP Fallon unless otherwise credited:
Birthday boy Bob Gruen and his wife
Elizabeth outside CBGB RIP NYC 2006 | Jimmy Page and BP
Fallon on Starship USA 1973 by Bob Gruen | Nigel Harrison and Kate NYC 2006 | The ladies Alex
[guitar] and Alice [vox] of ModRocket playing a set of
T.Rex songs with members of The Bones Royal at Death Disco
NYC 2006
BP
Fallon uses Fuji FinePix S9500
This
piece is dedicated to the memories of Johnny
Thunders and Joe Strummer and
the magnificence that was Blondie.
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