Blondie : Against The Odds 1974-1982 (4LP Boxset)

Theres a certain un-assuming barn just outside Woodstock, New York. Its easy to picture; the deep mythology of pop music history assures that much. For nearly two decades, the bulk of Blondies audio and visual archive sat inside.

One hundred reel-to-reel tapes, half a dozen cassettes, a few storage tubs crammed with records, bits of promotional flotsam, flyers, a stray Warhol print, and mirrored dressing room signage from four sold-out January 1980 nights at Londons Hammersmith Odeon. All of it lay silent through twenty humid summers, twenty frigid winters, and 20,000 rodents.

There were knives collected in Asia and sex worker advertisements pilfered from the UKs red telephone boxes of the late 1970s. In a corner, a dust-caked RIAA-certified gold record for Eat To The Beat reclined against a wall, its protective glass scarred by a bullet hole.Iggy and I were shooting guns at a wall in my basement one night, guitarist Chris Stein told