UNCUT
August 2025
Pages 8 & 9
Picture this!
Photographer Martyn Goddard reveals what it was like to shadow Blondie on the cusp of superstardom in 1978
Interview by Sam Richards
With David Johansen after a show at The Palladium
“I’d done a deal with The Telegraph to go out to New York and photograph Debbie Harry for a Sunday Magazine cover story. Blondie had a gig at The Palladium, which was kind of a homecoming show, having been on tour in Britain and Europe for so long. There were various parties going on before and after the gig, and I just photographed what happened. To be honbest, it was like a punk cocktail party! It was the normal rock’n’roll thing, but with spikier chat. Blondie also had a close link to the whole art scene of New York, so we went to another party with Andy Warhol and [the next day] we ended up at Studio 54 with Tony Curtis!”
Mooching around Union Square
“I was staying at the Gramercy Park Hotel, where Debbie and Chris were living at the time, so we just went out one Sunday morning and wandered around the local streets. The band seemed to know a lot of the buskers and musical freaks who’d congregated in Union Square. It wasn’t a particularly upmarket area at the time – glamorously sleazy! Debbie was totally relaxed with the camera. Chris Stein was a photographer, so she was in front of the camera all the time – she was really attuned with it.”
Backstage before supporting Alice Cooper
“Parallel Lines is a masterpiece, but the amount of work that went into it was huge, and they’d never experienced that before. So getting dragged out to go and support Alice Cooper in Philadelphia was a blessed relief. We went on the tourbus, the band brought their girlfriends – it was a beano, almost like we were going to Margate for the day. I always thought that was an interesting mix, Blondie opening for Alice Cooper, but we got to meet his snake and all sort of other interesting things. The shame is, we were all back on the bus before Alice Cooper’s set, so I never saw the snake perform!”
Parallel Lines recording session at Record Plant
“Six weeks after my first visit, I was back in New York shooting Blondie for Chrysalis, the record company. My brief was to produce as much material as possible, so I was able to spend some time with them in the studio. To be honest, Blondie were not a band that particularly wanted to be produced by Mike Chapman, because he’s such a perfectionst. They were recording little tiny chunks, which were all going to be chopped together. Debbie was frustrated. There’s a contact sheet in the book of all her different faces and expressions. It’s almost like she wanted to grab hold of the microphone and chuck it against the wall.”
Out in the Streets
In other news, the band’s founding bassist Gary (Valentine) Lachman has helped put together a new fold-out map and guide to more than 50 of Manhattan’s punk hotspots. Fear City: The New York Underground 1974-1981 is available now from Herb Lester Associates.
Martyn Goddard’s Blondie In Camera 1978 is out now, published by ACC Art Books. A free exhibition of his Blondie photos opens at the Barbican Music Library in London in early August.
