Clem Burke, Rock 'n' Roll High Schooler

Part 2 of my interview about NYC with the great late drummer.

Last weekend, I posted the first part of my interview with the wonderful and already greatly missed Clem Burke, conducted back in the mid-late oughts for my book All Hopped Up and Ready To Go: Music From the Streets of New York 1927-77. As I wrote:

Clem was always a fan, someone fascinated by rock ‘n’ roll history, fully cognizant of the way groups of people coalesce around each other and new music scenes get created and new music fashioned as a result. As such, he was both incredibly proud of his contributions to the New York City scene of the mid-1970s, and simultaneously amazed that he had become such a part of it as to do so.

Clem Burke, New York Rocker

The first part of that interview covered Clem’s upbringing, his immersion into the NYC glam scene via Club 82, his friendship with the pivotal Gary Valentine, his entry into Blondie, and the early days of CBGB’s (which he routinely referenced without its plural/possessive “s”). In this second part, we talk much more about Blondie themselves, from the early recordings with Richard Gottehrer and Craig Leon, through to later ones with Mike Chapman, and how, with such non-new wave international smash hits as “Heart of Glass” and “Rapture,” Blondie sought to reflect the music and the culture they heard and saw around them. Throughout, Clem’s fond memories of CBGB’s as his rock ‘n’ roll high school, with Hilly Kristal as some sort of beneficent principal/headmaster, outshine any temporary “playground” feuds or cliques.

“When I see Chris Franz or Richard Lloyd or somebody it’s like seeing an old mate from school. That’s how it feels. And that kind of hierarchy like you have in school did break down at CBGB too.”

As with Part 1, and just about all my archived manuscripts, this interview is for my paid subscribers. Those subscribers also get the Crossed Channels podcast with

Dan Epstein

(Blondie episode here) and the archives over 12 weeks old, and all for just $6 a month/$60 a year. I am a writer by trade, meaning this is how I earn my living, and while I enjoy writing so very much that I am happy to share many of my articles for free, without the financial support of enough readers/subscribers I simply would not be able to maintain this output and would have to give it up. So, as ever, a thank you to those who do support with a monthly or annual subscription, and with that, a deep nod of understanding that we can’t support every writer/podcaster/musician here or on Patreon or Bandcamp or via magazine subscriptions etc., and that if not this Substack, I hope you will support another one or two. Cheers.

And now to the interview. We pick up with Clem mid-way through talking about the social scene at the time that the CB’s scene was taking off, in late 1975, when he ventured to England and Blondie threw him a welcome party on return, and there he turned everyone onto the Dr. Feelgood album Malpractice he had brought home with him….