“We really achieved something”: The Blondie song Clem Burke always called his favourite
Blondie were never content with playing the same song twice. There were definite styles that they always came back to throughout their years, but there are often times when things can go from a song that sounds like it’s going off to the rails to the most infectious melody to ever come out of the New York underground. But for a drummer like Clem Burke, it was always about whether or not the song was actually fun to play.
While it’s easy to focus on the sleek guitar parts and Debby Harry’s commanding presence every time she got onstage, Burke’s drumming was what always led the charge. He was never interested in being the technician that John Bonham was, but what he could do with the beat could put many punk drummers to shame, often using different cues from R&B and disco that were bound to ruffle some feathers every time they played tracks like ‘Heart of Glass’.
And listening to the footage of them playing live, Burke was never messing around with any of those disco rhythms. Some tunes may have stretched his playing in some respects, but there were equally as many that showed him to be a fish in water whenever he played, even putting the same kind of energy into dance grooves as most of the bands at CBGBs put into their usual aggressive beats.
Then again, there’s a difference between playing onstage and getting the right vibe for the studio. Any band usually has to work on their chops before they even set foot behind the glass, but Blondie understood that they needed to be something more than the flashy band that lit up the punk scene.
Ramones had the ferocious energy behind their debut, but that was never how Blondie thought. They had their pop side and were never afraid to show it, so when they sat down to make ‘X Offender’, it wasn’t simply about the performance. It was about making a statement to every band that doubted them when they were in the clubs.
As much as Burke played his heart out every time he performed, he always acknowledged ‘X Offender’ as one of the best songs in the band’s discography, saying, “It really means a lot to me because it was a song that opened up the door for the band in general and also showed the community we were involved in at the time, which was the whole CBGB New York underground, that we were able to make a record because when we went in and did ‘X Offender’, it wasn’t a facsimile of our live performance, it was set out to be done as a production, as a homage like Phil Spector whatever and I feel we really achieved something with that record.”
And listening back to the tune, there are more than a few Spectorian touches that don’t get brought up nearly as much when talking about Blondie. The reverb may have been thankfully kept to a minimum on the drums, but outside of the backbeat, the layers of harmonies on the tune and the way that the guitars are layered on top of each other is a much better way of fine-tuning their sound than Ramones’ approach of separating everything.
But for Burke, it didn’t get better than when he got to hear people put the song on the jukebox when the record first came out. They had been local heroes for years, but going from channelling Phil Spector to being put in the same rotation as his classics was confirmation that they had officially arrived.
