Wow! I'm in print! Check out this article with quotes from yours truly here:
http://www.springfieldnews-leader.com/life-times/0225-Drurylibra-30236.html
(Link has since disappeared, here's the text from Archive.org.)
Feb. 25, 2003
Drury librarian writes book about Blondie.
By Michael A. Brothers
News-Leader
What happens when you combine the thoroughness of a librarian with the zeal of an avid rock fan?
The answer can be found in the 500-plus pages of "Blondie, From Punk to the Present," a new book exploring the history and impact of the seminal rock group that was compiled by Allan Metz, a reference librarian at Drury University.
Metz, 52, is a native Rhode Islander and a longtime fan of the New York rock quintet and its lead singer, Deborah Harry. Metz isn't a musician, but considers himself a music historian, with women in rock being his biggest area of interest.
"Women have more obstacles to overcome than men do," Metz says. "You're never going to hear about men in rock because it's so commonplace."
When it comes to women in rock, it's impossible to ignore the influence of Harry, one of the first women to front a highly visible and successful rock band. The group began in New York in the mid-1970s and broke onto the national scene with their 1979 disco-influenced hit "Heart of Glass."
Metz has been a fan from the beginning and has seen the group in concert. Although the massive volume he has compiled has an almost academic look and feel, it is culled from the writings of fans, magazine interviews and reviews.
It has a preface, a prologue (written by Blondie guitarist Chris Stein), a foreword, an introduction and editor's notes, but it also includes articles written by ordinary fans about their encounters with members of the band.
It features an extensive bibliography and six indexes for cross referencing (a quality that has helped the book get into libraries around the country, Metz says), but it also features dozens of candid photographs of Harry and the band through the years.
Ultimately, it's all material any avid fan would want to read and it's all placed within the context of '70s and '80s pop culture and the New York punk scene of the time.
"I'm a fan above and beyond everything else, but I try to also say I'm a music historian," says Metz, whose office at Drury's F.W. Olin Library is filled with colorful posters of artists such as the Bangles, Blondie and Madonna. "The book has been getting good reviews and it is fan-based, I think."
Metz's editor for the project was Robert Betts, who lives in Connecticut and publishes a quarterly fan magazine, the Blondie Review. Metz contacted Betts about helping him with the book after he had already spent a year gathering data. In all, Metz spent 3 1/2 years putting the book together.
"It was monumental, to say the least," Betts says of the effort. "But we did get a lot of support from a lot of fans. People literally came out of the woodwork to help."
The book begins with background articles about American culture and pop music of the "Me" decade with pieces like "Visions of the Seventies: The Rise and Fall of a Cultural Challenge," by Victor Bockris, a New York author and biographer.
The book's extensive punk section deals with the emergence of the genre, its connection with New York City and how punk rock's attitudes helped shape pop culture in the late '70s. The 10 articles in this section are written by Jessamin Swearingen, who teaches in New York and has written an honors thesis on punk.
Then the book goes into detail about how the band formed, their rise to fame, their break-up and Harry's subsequent solo career.
"It's a great book for new fans, too, because it explains where Blondie came from and the whole attitude of the country before the band got there and what was gong on," says Louis A. Bustamante, who lives in Phoenix and is the webmaster of www.blondie.net and manages a fan club mailing list of about 1,000 subscribers.
"I think a lot of new fans, when they see a rock band, they take a lot for granted," Bustamante says. "A female singer fronting a rock band, it wasn't commonplace like it is now."
Readers will also take away a good idea of what the other four members have done in their careers and just how dynamic Blondie really was, Betts says.
"I've been an archivist of their material from the beginning and I learned a lot from this," he says.
The third part of the book explores the band's reunion and artistic resurgence in 1997 through today. It includes album reviews, concert reviews and a complete discography of the group's recorded material.
Today fans are awaiting a new album, due to be released this spring, says Bustamante.
Metz has accurately captured the current mood of the Blondie public and their appreciation for the band, he says.
"It's got coverage from all different kinds of Blondie fans," Bustamante says. "There's so many different kinds of Blondie fans out there -- all different age groups. You've got the kids that grew up with Blondie from the '70s, young kids that are just now discovering the band, gay, straight, all different races and nationalities.
"It seems like he got a good cross-section of people to contribute to the book, which is an amazing feat in itself."
Metz has also included some materials that haven't been seen before, such as an interview Harry did with High Times magazine. The marijuana advocacy publication edited out portions of Harry's interview pertaining to heroin addiction. The unedited interview appeared in the book.
"Allan Metz is about as serious a person when it comes to a project as I've ever met," Betts says. "Allan starts and doesn't do anything else until he's finished. ... There is no side-tracking Allan Metz."
Metz hopes his efforts will help reawaken interest in the band and maybe garner interest in lauding their contributions.
"That's one of my motivations for compiling this book," he says. "I'm not sure they're getting their due. I think they're overlooked sometimes and I think they should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."
