Now the B-Side to Blondie’s take on The Doors’ Strange Days track “Moonlight Drive,” “Mr. Sightseer,” another rare track off their upcoming, and first-ever, comprehensive box set collection, Blondie: Against The Odds 1974-1982, out Aug. 26, is revealed.
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Newly mastered by Grammy Award-winning engineer Michael Graves at Osiris Studio, “Mr. Sightseer” was originally recorded by Blondie’s Chris Stein and Debbie Harry in 1978 with TEAC TCA-43 four-track reel-to-reel.
“The lyric is not good at all,” joked Harry of the track. “The song’s not too bad. It’s just a little simplistic. It didn’t ever get really developed or finished.”
Slowly brushing through psychedelic, mellowed guitar and drum machine, Harry sings If you take me for a ride / I’ll be your undercover spy / Get you things you only heard of / A high rise of love on “Mr. Sightseer,” which follows the recent release of Blondie’s “I Love You Honey, Give Me a Beer,” pulled from an old demo that later became the band’s countrified Autoamerican track, “Go Through It.”
Pulled together over six years and with the involvement of every member of Blondie—past and present—Against The Odds is an extraction of early demos and rarities from the bands that were sitting in founding member and guitarist Chris Stein’s Woodstock, New York barn for decades, along with remasters of the band’s first six albums from the original analog tapes with vinyl cut at Abbey Road Studios.
The collection will be available in four formats, including a Super Deluxe Collectors’ Edition of 10 LPs and an additional 7″ and 10″ vinyl, and features 124 tracks and 36 previously unissued recordings, including ones from the band’s first-ever basement studio session to other outtakes, demos and alternate versions recorded by Harry and Stein, along with drummer Clem Burke, keyboardist Jimmy Destri, bassist Gary Valentine, guitarist Frank Infante and bassist Nigel Harrison.
Against the Odds also includes liner notes by Erin Osmon, track-by-track commentary from all seven of the original band members, essays by producers Mike Chapman, Richard Gottehrer, and Ken Shipley, a 120-page illustrated discography, and hundreds of period photographs.
Photo: Bob Gruen / Courtesy of Shore Fire Media
