Ticket Giveaway: Blondie in Boston
Posted on March 14, 2006 at 10:32 pm | No Comments
I’ve got a soft spot in my musical heart for Blondie, soft enough to overcome my usual aversion to some mainstream promotional action here on the ‘Nac. I was raised on the radio-broadcasted voice of Debbie Harry, and remember very clearly when my dad would put the original Best of Blondie on the turntable. My 12 year-old self couldn’t get enough, although due to that album’s track selection I’d be unaware of their punkier early years until I was a bit older.
The Blondie marketing machine has been revving up big time, for a number of reasons: Their induction into the R&R Hall of Fame last night (the actual presentation of which was, some might say, slightly uncomfortable), last week’s release of their new “Greatest Hits: Sound & Vision” CD/DVD collection (20 tracks on the cd, 16 videos on the DVD), and their just-announced summer tour of the U.S., which will supposedly be their last.
Which brings me straight to the point ‘o the post: A contest to give a fortunate Almanac reader a couple of tickets to Blondie’s Boston stop, which is happening on Wednesday, June 7th at the Bank of America Pavilion down on the waterfront. Five other entrants will get a copy of that new Greatest Hits collection, along with a disc from Blondie’s summer tourmates, The New Cars. (an aside: Can’t fault the ex-members of the Cars and Mr. Todd Rundgren for milking that nostalgia money-cow, but all those songs without either Ric Ocasek or the much-missed Ben Orr on vocals? Hmmm.)
Here’s the official schpeel from the promo-peeps…
Celebrate Blondie’s newest release Greatest Hits: Sound & Vision, and be a part of their last US tour EVER! 1 grand prize winner will receive a pair of tickets to the Blondie / The New Cars concert on 6/7 at the Bank of American Pavillion in Boston, MA. 5 runners up will receive Blondie “Greatest Hits: Sound and Vision”, and “The New Cars It’s Alive albums!”
… which is pretty much what I just said, but more excitedly.
Not going to make you jump through hoops for this one: Just drop me an email (address is near the bottom of the column on the left) before 9am next Monday, March 20th. Make sure you put ‘Blondie’ as your email subject, and include your full name, email address, and just the town you live in. I’ll pick one random person to get the tickets, and five others for the double-disc action. Winners will be announced next Tuesday morning (don’t worry, I won’t print yer last name) and contacted for mailing info. Prizes will be sent out straight from the promo folks to you sometime thereafter. Easy parcheesi.
Some links for ya:
Buy tickets for the show through Ticketmaster, and you’ll be able to download a 10 song Blondie/New Cars digital album. Head over here to join the Blondie/New Cars mailing list. Stream the new video for ‘Rapture Riders’, a Blondie / Doors mash-up that was done especially for the greatest hits collection: Windows Media 100 / Windows Media 300 / RealAudio 100 / RealAudio 300 / Quicktime 100 / Quicktime 300 / Quicktime 750
Alright, start those emails comin’. My inbox awaits.
update 3-20-06: contest entry is officially closed, and winners will be announced tomorrow.
Mp3s: The Wedding Present in Cambridge, MA
Posted on March 13, 2006 at 10:15 am | No Comments
This past Tuesday, David Gedge and his Wedding Present came back to the Boston area for the second time since the release of their latest album, Take Fountain, and they used the return to dig even deeper into the Weddoes/Cinerama catalog. Less recent songs, and more old faves they didn’t play back in April ’05. They touched on all six of their proper albums, and dropped in the occasional single-only track and Cinerama song. It was a real treat for a fan of Gedge’s entire songwriting career, and especially for one like me, who fell in love with ’em during the Bizarro/Seamonsters-era. Having seen them live a half dozen times (including as Cinerama), this one ranks nearly at the top.
Here’s Here was a recording of the set, which doesn’t sound quite as good as some of the shows I normally share, but is still well worth a download. Blame the acoustics at the good ol’ Middle East Down…
Live at the Middle East
Cambridge, MA
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006
(note: files removed on 6/5/2006)
1. Corduroy / Sucker
2. Blue Eyes
3. Always The Quiet One
4. Apres Ski
5. Go Out and Get Em Boy
6. Don’t Talk Just Kiss
7. Loveslave
8. A Million Miles
9. Suck
10. I Am From Further North Than You
11. Come Play With Me
12. It’s Not You It’s Me
13. Crushed
14. Falling
15. 2, 3, Go
16. Click Click
17. Ringway to Seatac
18. Brassneck
19. Nobody’s Twisting Your Arm
20. Heather
For those keeping score, ‘Go Out And Get ‘Em Boy’ was their first single, and can be found on the Tommy singles collection. There were two songs from George Best, their debut, and three each from Bizarro and Seamonsters. Three songs can be found on the Hit Parade 1 singles collection (including ‘Falling’, the Twin Peaks theme), and ‘Loveslave’ is on Hit Parade 2. One song each from Watusi (the excellent ‘Click Click’, which I’ve always wanted to see live) and the Mini EP. One song from Saturnalia, and three from Take Fountain. As for Cinerama songs, we got ‘Apres Ski’ off of Disco Volante, along with ‘It’s Not You, It’s Me’, which was Cinerama’s latest (last?) official single. Like I said, they touched on an awful lot of releases.
The setlist hasn’t varied much (if at all) during this tour, and familiars will know that they don’t take requests or do encores. Not sure I’ll ever get used to walking into a club and seeing one of my musical heros standing by himself behind the merch table, answering questions and taking cash. Sure does attract the fans, though, and you gotta wonder how much his presence there boosts sales. Me? I picked up the Cinerama tour DVD and a set of Weddoes postcards, the only two things on display I didn’t yet have.
Kyle over at Information Leafblower saw them a couple days before me down in D.C., and he’s got some more words and pictures for ya. And just a few days after me, Frank Chromewaves caught them up in Toronto, so behold his words and pictures as well. Frank saved me the trouble of describing the Weddoes lineup changes, but I will add that I thought the two new guys were ace, even going so far as to say the drummer was the best I’ve seen backup Gedge in years.
For some video action (of marginal quality, but still), someone shared up the band performing ‘Falling‘ at Neumos in Seattle last month, and another fan has a clip of them doing ‘Ringway to Seatac’ in Chapel Hill last week (follow link to the forum, where you’ll find a link to the video).
On an entirely unrelated note, you may have noticed that I’ve been conspicuously absent from the ‘Nac for a few weeks… I won’t bore you with the many reasons why, but I’ll sum it up with ‘life changes’ and leave it there, at least until my next giganto-post. Hopefully I’ll get to that in the next day or two, but regardless, Boston-area readers should stop by here tomorrow when I’ll start a contest to give away a couple of tickets to see a certain nostalgic new-wave-pop band on their farewell tour…