Face It: A Memoir

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She and Stein were keen to re-make the 1965 film Alphaville, and even bought the rights from its director Jean-Luc Godard for a thousand dollars. With all the grit, grime, and glory recounted in intimate detail, Face It recreates the downtown scene of 1970s New York City, where Blondie played alongside the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop and David Bowie.

A beautiful thought for Phil Spector while he was still alive and in jail or other considerations of a deep humanity. Readers will find reflection on life with a budding band and an uncensored view of what it took to succeed. And while reading this book, I couldn't believe that it's already been 20+ years since Blondie regrouped in the late 1990s and recorded the album No Exit (an album that now appears to be out of print). She name drops constantly, so I had to just let that go, and focus on her descriptions of her feelings and the sensory details she would give to conjure 70's New York and beyond.

She also doesn’t spend a lot of time complaining about the “boy’s club” mentality of the music business, but her determination and drive show clearly throughout the book. DEBBIE HARRY with Blondie has sold millions of albums worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. A character - a friend to many famous people, a drug user and part time pot seller (that did not get as much of attention as you'd think) and a abuse survivor. Harry seems like she's holding back and trying to skate around some major events and not really telling the reader what the heck she really felt/thought at the time (or even now in hindsight).

I felt pride in her inherent, unapologetic Americanness, a quality as post-modern Americans we dismiss too easily. By the time I went there Patti Smith, the Ramones, the Talking Heads and Blondie had moved far away from this tiny stage.I discovered there the existence of 2 obscure songs in 2 of their 1st albums, which she discusses succinctly.

Of course, I've since been listening to and watching Blondie concerts on YouTube for days afterward. In fact, she went out of her way to avoid that subject, explaining that she just put up with it and got on with what she needed to do- which is a cycle we are desperately trying to break. She is devoted to environmental issues such as clean water and saving pollinators as well as the promotion of the LGBTQ community and human rights. There was probably more in this book than I needed to know - Debbie is quite blunt about things, but it comes off as quite hilarious and I couldn't help but laugh at them. It follows the familiar celebrity memoir pattern of a) spending a little too much time regaling us with stories from the person's childhood (the only truly interesting thing I gleaned from this, which I was previously unaware of, is that Debbie Harry was adopted) and then b) documenting their rise to fame as something that they casually ambled into, rather than through a combination of hard work and crazy good luck.I was disappointed by that and wish she had relayed a stronger stance against the misogyny in the male dominated and controlled music business. Ultimately for me, it’s the overwhelming need to have my entire life be an imaginative out-of-body experience. This has Debbie Harry reading/performing her "Face It" book with vocal guest appearances from Chris Stein, Clem Burke, Alannah Currie, and Gary Valentine, with original music by Chris Stein. It felt glossed over and lacking detail regarding her relationship breakdown etc however she mentioned she was a private person so that may explain it.

She did reveal one very shocking detail in her life that left me feeling shaken and was the most harrowing moment in the book. The design of it is nice, with thick pages, some black pages with white text in interspersed sections with color fan art portraits of Ms. Their early struggling years, and rock and punk and art world friends are a Who's Who of Andy Warhol's 'Interview' and the Bowery/East Village scene, CBGB's in particular. In fact, she takes a very consistent approach in describing her career and spends as much time as on her solo records and movies as she did on her time in Blondie.She seems to have been open to and embraced all sorts of experiences in life that many people wouldn't have the courage to and followed her heart to try and live her life on her terms, even though it might have been easier if she had pursued a safer path. All I really wanted, and all I ever want from memoirs like this, is a clear-eyed, no bullshit look at the past while also giving me a good amount of hot gossip. We are torn between instinctiveness and sensuality on one side, and, on the other, in its opposite, in rationality of which man is only capable to a certain limit. While playing a series of shows in LA, she and Stein are invited to meet Phil Spector at his mansion.