A bookstore; a ballad; and Blondie’s masterpiece, Eat to the Beat.

I’m All Lost In…

the 3 things I’m obsessing over THIS week.

#37

1) My great friend Valium Tom, aka Tom Nissley, celebrated the 10th anniversary of his easy going, literary bookstore, Phinney Books, this week. He marked the occasion by inviting the community to the store after business hours for wine, beer, crudités, and sliders (tofu versions available for the vegans, which seemed to be me and Tom’s wife Laura).

There was no book selling allowed, which drew out Tom’s delightfully-chatty- on-this-evening, longtime staff—Kim, Liz, Haley, Anika, Doree, and Nancy—from behind the counter and into the cozy, throne-sized leather chairs usually reserved for customers.

Tom, center, thanking his adoring customers.

It’s no surprise that a warm soul like Tom has assembled and fostered such an exceptional cast of dedicated squares. (Tom noted, in his neighborly remarks that, turning job applicants away on the daily, he hasn’t had to hire any new staff in six years.) But what a gas to watch them let their hair down and debate book recs over wine; Miranda July’s All Fours was the current staff favorite, although contrarian Liz, obviously revered by her colleagues (and Tom) as Phinney’s quirky conductor (to Tom’s composer), was not convinced.

The place was overflowing with customers-turned-summer-evening-cavorters, all of them talking books as well per the flurry of list making going on: there were cards to fill out. List the Top 10 Books You’ve Read over the last 10 years.

My 2014 -2024 list.

Phinney Books, which has an exhaustive, yet engaging weekly news newsletter (a secret-gem resource for serious book lovers), has gotten its outsized share of glowing press coverage over the years; 100% earned, thanks to Tom’s bookworm curating.

This 2022 Seattle Times article by Paul Constant is my favorite, largely because Tom’s signature personality sneaks into the headline: At Phinney Books, a neighborhood bookstore has patiently assembled one of Seattle’s best browsing experiences.

It’s always a joy to head to Phinney Books around 6:30—the #5 from downtown stops right there (74th & Phinney)—as Tom quietly wraps up the day. I savor floating around the store’s bursting shelves, which lean into contemporary fiction and current events, while one of Tom’s personal, yet zeitgeist playlists spins the Feelies or Jackie Mittoo or early Fleetwood Mac. Tom, entering the day’s numbers on computer while stationed at his disheveled absent-minded-professor-nook behind the counter, inevitably looks up and makes the perfect, customized recommendation, such as his inspired pick for my City Canon syllabus: 1933’s Business as Usual, Jane Oliver and Ann Safford’s young-woman-moves-to-London send up of sexism in the city.

Though Tom’s store is relatively small, 1,200 square feet, Phinney Books’ browsing path—”True” on the north wall, “Made Up” on the south (“Cities,” “Poetry” tucked in along the way)—manages to feel akin to the 20,000 square foot circuit at Elliott Bay, a magic trick that reflects Tom’s deceptively sleepy brain waves.*

* I guess not too deceptive; he did have a star turn as a Jeopardy champion.

If you don’t live in Seattle, may I point you to Phinney Books’ Bookshop.org link.

An appropriately delightful footnote: As the event wound down, I didn’t want to call it a night. Stuck far afield in Ballard, I wasn’t sure what to do, so I started strolling into the fine evening weather south on Phinney Ridge. After walking about a mile, I landed at The Tin Hat Bar and Grill, a cozy dive in the small commercial cluster on NW 65th and 5th. Despite evidence to the contrary—lively conversations at all the tables, a line at the bar, food orders in play—I assumed last call was at hand. “How late are you open?” I asked. “Til 2 am,” the slammed, yet friendly young woman behind the bar said to my pleasant surprise.

I took the last seat at the bar, ordered a whiskey, and settled in to write. I also texted my pal Dan B., aka David Byrne; he lives a few blocks away, and since he’s always trekking to Capitol Hill to hang out with me on the Drag, I let him know I was in his neighborhood this time. He showed up about an hour later for a night cap.

2) I was reading at the spot across the street from my apartment (Monsoon) a few weeks ago when a gorgeous, lo-fi pop piano ballad came on the sound system.

The playlist at Monsoon usually goes with abstract R&B, World Music, and Jazz, so this heart wrenching bit of indie pop rock leaped out. I shazamed it, and it came up as art-hardcore rockers Fugazi. I thought, No Shazam, you are mistaken, and I shazamed it again, as did the (my age) bartender. We were both bewildered: What the hell? This is Fugazi?

I’m not a big Fugazi fan; too preachy and aggro for me, though I was appropriately awed when their first LP, 1989’s 13 Songs, came out because: 1) While I was never into hardcore, it was comforting to know that punk still had lots of battery left; 2) the athletic musicianship is startling and the catchy songwriting seems gifted from the punk rock gods above; and 3) as I’ve written before, despite having zero history as a punk rocker, I was a beatnik suburban D.C. teen during the Flex Your Head/Minor Threat/Dischord Records/anti-Reagan salad days, and I felt an affinity with all the commotion on local radio, in the City Paper, and blaring from posters around town.

Decades later, Fugazi has stunned me again: This otherworldly piano ballad is a track called “I’m So Tired” from a demos and instrumentals album they put out in 1999 called Instrument Soundtrack; it’s the soundtrack to a Jem Cohen documentary about the band. (Who knew, on all counts?)

“I’m So Tired” stars Fugazi front man (and straight edge patron saint) Ian MacKaye channeling his inner Ian Curtis in adagio gloom (think Joy Division’s “The Eternal.”)

Looking for a new song to learn on piano this week, it occurred to me that “I’m So Tired” would be a lovely tune to have in my set. I found a straight-forward youtube lesson (it’s a straight forward, four-chord song to begin with), and I’ve been lovingly settling into it all week. Along with its elementary melody, it reminds me of 1950’s “Earth Angel” doo-wop.

I have to admit, part of this minor obsession has to do with the youtube tutorial; the woman teaching the song, who has the inspiring words “create” "art” written in pen on her left and right hands, respectively, has a delightful marble-mouth lisp. When she says “two, three, four, …, C, B, G, …., A, B” it fits right in with the sedative magic of the piano ballad itself.

3) Blondie’s Eat to the Beat was the first New Wave album I ever bought; it was such a momentous occasion that I started a separate row of LPs by my K-Mart stereo, setting the New Wave records apart from the rest of my albums. (I did a similar thing with my poetry books decades later in 2017 when I flew off into my current poetry expedition.)

I came to Eat to the Beat like this: Down in the basement rec room (where my older brother’s stereo system was), the two of us disliked New Wave; we even wrote a derisive anti-New Wave song flaunting my brother’s Funk #49 ripoff electric guitar riff and my 8th grade lyrics about how the “Knack, Devo, Blondie, and Talking Heads/ were dead/ got no soul/ New Wave Music/’aint rock and roll.”

This was 1979, I was 12. And evidently, I doth protest too much, because one week later, I was all in on the new vibrations. “Accidents Never Happen,” a song by New Wave’s premiere messengers, Blondie, came on the car radio (Mom was driving). I was mesmerized by the cool clipped electric guitar and the aloof vocals. Only remembering the lyric “in a perfect world," a few weeks later at the record store (at the mall), I looked for the song on the track listings of all the Blondie albums. Eat to the Beat, their latest record, had a song called “Living in the Real World,” which I figured must be the track. I bought the record, rushed home, and eagerly dropped the needle on “Living in the Real World” (the last song on Side 2.) It didn’t sound familiar, but I convinced myself it was the song I’d heard on the radio because, in fact, it was a taut electric guitar driven New Wave banger with a soaring melody.

I can do anything at all
I'm invisible and I'm twenty feet tall
Pull the plug on your digital clock
And it all goes dark and the bodies stop

Hey, I'm living in a magazine
Page to page in my teenage dream
Hey, now, Mary, you can't follow me
Without a satellite, I'm on a power flight
'Cause I'm not living, I'm not living

Then, I lifted the needle and started properly at the beginning of the side.

First up, “Die Young Stay Pretty” knocked me out with it shrapnel reggae disco rhythm, a melody line in its own right playing counterpoint to the perfectly vain lead vocal.

Next up, “Slow Motion,” an upbeat cascade of catchy pop hooks.

And then “Atomic,” an obvious strobe light hit wherein Debbie Harry intones "Atomic/Your hair is beautiful/tonight,” against the radiating space age orchestration of pulsing polka bass, warbling keyboards, and alien guitars.

Song after song—the minimalist and lush twinkle of “Sound-A-Sleep,” the monster-mash punk attack of “Victor”—I couldn’t believe how good this record was turning out to be. And then the showstopping teen drama of “Living in the Real World,” again.

I flipped the LP over and listened to Side 1.

First up… Oh. I know this unstoppable pop song, “Dreaming.” It had been on the radio too. Those big beat Buddy Holly drums. Those jet plane guitar hook contrails. And, the booming plaintive melody, sung as if 21-year-old Katherine Deneuve had been transported from 1964’s teen movie musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg to the stage at CBGB circa 1975.

Vite vite, walking a two-mile. Meet me, meet me at the turnstile
I never met him, I'll never forget him
Dream, dream, even for a little while. Dream, dream, filling up an idle hour
Fade away (woo), radiate

I sit by and watch the river flow
I sit by and watch the traffic go

Next. “The Hardest Part.” More shape shifting discotheque rhythm section melodies intertwined with siren guitars. And swoon, Debbie Harry’s nitro come ons were making me woozy.

Then tracks 3 and 4, the melodramatic whoa-whoa retro ‘60s pop of “Union City Blue” and “Shayla.'“

As a kid who preferred mid-60s power pop like the Kinks and the Who and the Troggs, along with late 1960s psychedelic lyrics (much more than the contemporary hits that my junior high peers liked), I suddenly felt seen thanks to Blondie’s meta teen mag beat club jams and sci-fi poetry. (Hearing the B-52s cover Petula Clark’s 1965 hit “Downtown” later that year, I officially confirmed I was in on New Wave’s secret handshake, although I certainly had unofficial confirmation when Debbie Harry channeled the Supremes on the aforementioned “Slow Motion,” calling out “Stop!” drenched in echo to emphasize the allusion.)

Next, the joy ride rock & roll title track, “Eat to the Beat,” a nod to the band’s punk days, pizza, and masturbation.

Now it was on to the last song.

That portentous, dampened guitar intro? Wait. Those detached vocals?

So I won't believe in luck
I saw you walking in the dark
So I slipped behind your footsteps for a while

Caught you turning 'round the block
Fancy meeting in a smaller world

After all accidents never happen

Could have planned it all
Precognition in my ears
Accidents never happen in a perfect world

This was the song I’d heard on the radio! I was giddy. Yes, “Living in the Real World” was exciting , but “Accidents Never Happen” (written by Blondie’s keyboard player Jimmy Destri) was transcendent.

I’m currently reading the new memoir by Blondie guitarist Chris Stein, Debbie Harry’s then boyfriend, and it prompted me to revisit Eat to the Beat this week; I’ve never stopped listening to the tracks on their own over the years, but it’s been decades since I cued up the whole album.

Besides the absurd blues (?) harmonica solo (yikes) on Side 1’s otherwise wonderfully raucous title track—”Hey, you got a tummy ache and I remember/Sitting in the bathroom drinking Alka-Seltzer/Eat to the beat”—there isn’t a less-than heroic moment on this record. Combining mod mid-‘60s guitar power, disco and reggae rhythms, Giorgio Moroder synth programs, in-the-style-of Philip K. Dick lyrics, and a girl group doo-wop sensibility, Eat to the Beat is a meteor shower of music.

Cocky songwriting swagger aside, there are three common denominators to this set’s seemingly disparate CBGB versus Studio 54 impulses.

FIRST, there’s the production.

Made in 1979 with it’s eyes on the future, Eat to the Beat leaves the ‘70s behind. This is not a stoned LP. No swampy guitar distortion. No groovy funk jam session. There’s not even the transistor burn of Sex Pistols or Clash late ‘70s punk here. Nor, thankfully, does Eat to the Beat lean toward the boxy, gated production aesthetic of the 1980s when all records would sound constipated.

Each instrument on Eat to the Beat—the punchy bass, the Bay City Rollers guitars, the Mersey Beat drums, the outer space synths, and the Greta Garbo vocals—is delineated in bright relief, while collectively casting a halo.

Mike Chapman was at the control board for Eat to the Beat; he also produced 1979’s equally fine-tuned New Wave masterpiece Get the Knack by one-hit-wonder sensations, the Knack.

SECOND, the star of the this expert mix is Blondie’s drummer Clem Burke.

Every track on Eat to the Beat, from pop dynamos like “Dreaming,” to sexy disco rock like “The Hardest Part,” to insouciant pop like “Union City Blue” is driven by Burke’s rolling tympani fills and non-stop trap kit assault.

THIRD, and most important: Debbie Harry’s vocals.

Standoffish, aloof, dispassionate. All true. Whatever motivated Debbie Harry’s artistic drive, even after her 2019 tell-all memoir, remains a mystery. However, the juxtaposition of her blasé vocal style with her radiant, note-perfect arias elevate Eat to the Beat’s well-crafted pop strains into late 20th Century classics. The vocals on Blondie songs are not simply a medium for the musicianship of the band. Harry’s singing is expert musicianship in its own right. You can hear this on all Blondie records, including on the earlier ones when the production was slapdash, and the later ones when the songwriting was diminished. On Eat to the Beat, their 4th album out of 6 total from their original 1970s/80s heyday, both the production and the songwriting were blazing. Alongside Harry’s effortlessly golden voice, the meteor showers aligned.