Blondie have released a new festive three-track EP featuring ‘Yuletide Throwdown’, a rare track that was co-written with hip-hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy. Check out Cut Chemist’s new remix of the title track below, along with our interview with Blondie’s founding guitarist Chris Stein.

Blondie famously gave a shout-out to Fab 5 Freddy (real name Fred Brathwaite) on their 1980 song ‘Rapture’, with frontwoman Debbie Harry commencing its rap section with “Fab 5 Freddy told me everybody’s fly”. Freddy later appeared in the song’s accompanying video.

READ MORE: Blondie on their historic Havana trip: “It could have been a disaster”

Blondie and Freddy then linked up in 1981 to record ‘Yuletide Throwdown’, with Harry and Freddy rapping Christmas-themed lyrics over the original backing track for ‘Rapture’.

The festive track was only released on a special flexi-disc that was given away by the UK music magazine Flexipop in 1981, but it was recently rediscovered by Blondie when they raided their personal archives for a new box set which is set for release in August 2022.

In a statement about the rare song, Harry said: “It has been an impossible amount of time since I believed in Santa Claus, but I could very well believe again if he was Freddy Brathwaite!! Some of my best times have been making music with Chris Stein and Freddy B.”

Freddy added of ‘Yuletide Throwdown’: “In the beginning of my journey into pop culture, Chris and Debbie were among the first to take me and my ideas about hip hop culture seriously and were like mentors to me shining a light along the road and assisting my quest.

“I’m happy after all this time the world can now hear this fun holiday tune we did way back then!”

To celebrate the arrival of ‘Yuletide Throwdown’, NME caught up with Stein from his New York home to talk about collaborating with Fab 5 Freddy, working on new Blondie music and why he may no longer be able to tour.

Debbie Harry and Fab 5 Freddy (Picture: Press)

NME: Early holiday greetings, Chris! Tell us how ‘Yuletide Throwdown’ originally came about.

Chris Stein: “The first time we recorded the basic track for ‘Rapture’ we decided it was too slow, so we sped it up and that’s the final version we released. I had the master tapes and took a copy of the tape of the first version home, overdubbed on top of it and put Debbie and Freddy’s vocals on it. It was originally for Flexipop magazine, and it came out with other Christmas tracks I’d produced by the bands The Brattles and Snuky Tate.”

What are your memories of recording Debbie and Freddy on the track? 

“They were in our home studio in the basement. Freddy just went for it. I still see him frequently, but the main thing I remember is that Freddy took us to our first rap event in 1977/78, so that was very exciting. It was the first time I’d seen something like that.”

That inspired Debbie and yourself to write your own rap track, ‘Rapture’. Did you face any resistance to recording or releasing it?

“I don’t remember much resistance to ‘Rapture’. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen with it. I’m always optimistic, but the only song we ever recorded that I ever knew 100 per cent was going to be a hit was ‘The Tide Is High’. With all of our other songs, I was never positive. We never knew what was going to happen. ‘Parallel Lines’ was floating around the charts for around six months before ‘Heart of Glass’ was released, and then it went up.”

‘Rapture’ was the first rap record to reach Number One in the US and the first rap track with its own original music. Have you ever had any feedback from rappers about its influence?

“When we did a little bit of work with the guys from Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang [they collaborated on Blondie’s 1999 single ‘No Exit’], those guys told us that it was the first rap song they ever heard, which was awesome. In 1998, XXL magazine recreated the famous 1950s photo of jazz musicians on a stoop in Harlem, but they did it with 177 rap people from that time. We were in that photo, and it was exciting to be accepted and asked to do it.”

‘Yuletide Throwdown’ was rediscovered in your personal archive for Blondie’s forthcoming box set. Can you give us any hints as to what other rarities it might include?

“I’m not positive what’s going to be in it, but there’s a ‘Sunday Girl’ demo, I think. We used to cover The Doors’ ‘Moonlight Drive’, so we did an unfinished version of that in the studio for our second album [1978’s ‘Plastic Letters’] which sounds pretty great, so it’ll be stuff like that.”

How is progress coming along on Blondie’s forthcoming 12th studio album?

“We were going to meet this week to try to go over some material, but it’s difficult with the logistics now because of the fucking plague and getting everybody together to do it. Debbie and I agree we can’t do it remotely: we’ve got to get everybody in the same place, so it’s tricky. We’re definitely working with producer John Congleton again because he’s great. Everybody’s close to him at this point. He has a great bedside manner, as it were. It’s all new songs and we have three cover versions, but I’m not going to say what they are because I’m not sure if they’ll reach fruition.”

Blondie’s Chris Stein (Picture: Press)

Is there any chance of any collaborations on it?

“We’ve been talking to a couple of people, but I don’t know yet. We wanted to get [Robert] Fripp on the last record [‘Pollinator’] and he was down for it, but our guitarist Tommy [Kessler] ended up doing the parts where we would have put Fripp. So maybe we can get him later on in this next project. We used to work with him all the time back in the old days.”

In Blondie’s recent short film, Blondie: Vivir En La Habana, you mentioned you had a spell of bad health. How are you feeling now?

“I don’t know if I’m going to be participating in touring going forward. I just have some heart bullshit. I take medicine for it that’s a little fatiguing. It’s an irregular heartbeat. It’s not super-serious, but it’s just tiring and I don’t have the stamina I did when I was 30 or 40. So I mainly deal with the recording at this point. I was actually sitting down for the last couple of tours: I figured if BB King could do it, I could! We’ll see.”

How did you spend the pandemic? Did you bury yourself in any projects?

“I wrote a memoir, which took about a year. I wrote the whole thing myself, which was interesting and challenging. It covers my whole life, and the whole book is nuts. It surprises me how much crazy shit I did! Apart from my memoir, I’ve got a photobook documenting the period where we were working with H.R. Giger that I’m working on. I shot a lot of photos, so we’re trying to get that in book form.”

Blondie’s ‘Yuletide Throwdown’ EP is out now, while a limited edition 12″ vinyl version in both magenta and black – which can be pre-ordered here – will arrive on November 5.

Last week Blondie postponed their ‘Against All Odds’ UK tour until next spring and confirmed that Johnny Marr will be supporting them on all of the rescheduled dates.

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New research that will explore mental health interventions for young people affected by racism as well as ways to level the playing field for POC musicians across genres has been launched.

READ MORE: ‘Am I depressed?’ – help and advice on mental health and what to do next

The initiative, funded through Sony Music’s Social Justice Fund, sees mental health charity, Mind and race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust partner with Sony Music UK to deliver important new findings.

Sony Music UK and Mind’s ‘Young People and Racial Trauma’ will investigate the best mental health interventions for young people affected by racism. Per a press release, the  new project will “seek to understand the best blueprint for interventions and support, given statistics show that people from racialised groups may be more likely to experience mental health problems but less likely to receive appropriate mental health support”.

And Sony Music’s work with The Runnymead Trust will deliver “ground-breaking research exploring structural barriers that may prevent black, brown and ethnically diverse artists from starting or succeeding within genres where such artists are less represented”.

Credit: Alamy

In June 2020 Sony Music Group launched the Global Social Justice Fund (SJF) to address racial injustice worldwide.

The UK arm of the Social Justice Fund has awarded more than $1million (£734,43) in funding across 16 beneficiaries since its founding.

Charlotte Edgeworth Director of Diversity, Inclusion and Social Impact for Sony Music UK said: “Sony Music UK has been working with Mind for several years, delivering training and offering support for both employees and artists. This grant signifies a deepening of this important relationship, built on our dedication to improving mental health support for people experiencing the trauma of racism.”

Marcel Vige, Head of Equity at Mind, said: “We are thankful for this grant which will allow research into how we can better support the mental health of young people who experience racism. Racism, in any of its forms, affects our mental health, whether direct racial abuse, embedded or institutional bias, or wider systems of oppression. It can affect the way we feel about ourselves and how safe we feel. And it can contribute to particular mental health problems, including depression and anxiety.

“It’s so important that the UK invests in mental health support for people who experience racism, whilst also working to tackle racism at every level. Mind is committed to being an unflinching advocate for racial justice and mental health, as part of our ambition to become an anti-racist organisation.”

Additionally, the charity OnSide will be supported through music mentoring programmes funded in three London Youth Zones: Croydon, Barnet and Barking and Dagenham. The charity seeks to help marginalised young people living in some of the capital’s most deprived and underinvested communities.

FOR HELP AND ADVICE ON MENTAL HEALTH:

YOUNG MINDS – The voice for young people’s health and wellbeing
MIND – For mental health support, advice and awareness
CALM – The Campaign Against Living Miserably for young men
Time To Change – Let’s end mental health discrimination
The Samaritans – Confidential support 24 hours a day

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Sigrid has performed her latest single, ‘Burning Bridges’, with backing from Germany’s RTO Ehrenfeld on ZDF Magazin Royale.

READ MORE: Sigrid – “There’s a part of me that comes out when I play live – it’s my superpower”

The Norwegian pop star, who is readying the release of her second album, enlisted the band to perform the song live on the German talk show, which is hosted by Jan Böhmermann.

Although the recording of the single is already packed with bold guitars, beats and strings, RTO Ehrenfeld helped bring the song further to life on the show broadcast last week.

Watch Sigrid and RTO Ehrenfeld perform ‘Burning Bridges’ below:

In other news, Sigrid spoke recently about the huge influence that Nirvana’s 1991 album ‘Nevermind’ had on her.

“‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was the first song I ever covered when I was in seventh grade,” Sigrid told NME. “Growing up, my brother was a huge rock fan and I listened to everything that my siblings were listening to. I was very shy growing up – I was the little girl playing piano.

“For one school play, I played ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ with a backing band of my classmates and everyone was shocked, like, ‘Where did that come from?’ It was great. I think that playing that rock song in front of 20 kids at school gave me a new confidence. From then on, I wasn’t just that piano girl. I showed another energy that I had.”

Sigrid has also been confirmed to play next year’s TRNSMT festival.

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Bobby Gillespie has spoken about his upbringing in a Glasgow tenement, saying that he constantly felt “like a failure” at school age.

READ MORE: From Primal Scream to New Order – the mighty Andrew Weatherall’s finest ever remixes

The Primal Scream frontman said in a new interview with Scottish Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh that he felt inhibited and disillusioned with the world at an early age thanks to judgements about his socio-economic standing.

He told Welsh in an interview published by The Guardian to promote his new memoir, Tenement Kid: “For the first 10 years of my life, I lived in a Glasgow tenement: me, my brother and my parents, sharing the same bedroom, that stuff stays with you. Kids like me were judged to be stupid because the educational structures designated us as such. We were set up to be labourers, or unemployed, on the scrapheap. I wanted to learn, but I wasn’t given anything to learn, and I didn’t know how to ask. I remember feeling like a failure at that age.”

CREDIT: Press

He went on to speak about punk rock becoming his saviour after not achieving anything at school. “I wanted to include stuff in the book that was outside rock’n’roll, but that helped shape me. For me, the late 70s/early 80s were a cultural revolution. Sex Pistols, the Clash… my cultural education came from reading music papers of that time. Malcolm McLaren talking about the Situationists. Tony Wilson, Factory Records – there’d be a Factory band called the Durutti Column, and you’d find out that it referenced a Spanish anarchist who fought against Franco. All these cultural markers.

He continued: “Punk was more of a state of mind than a dress code. Before Primal Scream, I was around people like Siouxsie and the Banshees and New Order, seeing how they treated either bands I was in, like the Wake, or my friends’ band, Altered Images. Just watching them work, it was heaven. We worshipped these people, truly.”

Elsewhere in the interview he said that writing the memoir was a welcome shake-up, suggesting that fans could see more deviations from his normal Primal Scream routine. “With this book, at first, I was, no, no, no, but a seed was planted. At the beginning of last year, I didn’t want to make another rock’n’roll record, I’ve done enough of them.

“I thought, I’m ready to write a book, that’s going to be my project for this year. I wanted to give a good account of myself and my family. I wanted to do something a bit different, something creative, challenging, something I’ve never done before.”

Meanwhile, Primal Scream have shared details of ‘Screamadelica live’, a selection of live dates where fans can hear them play their seminal 1991 album in full.

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The Wanted’s Tom Parker has shared an update on his condition following his cancer diagnosis, saying that he is “feeling very positive”.

Last October Parker revealed that he had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, saying that he and his partner were “absolutely devastated” but “are gonna fight this all the way”.

A new documentary about the band and Parker’s struggles aired on Channel 4 last night (October 10) and Parker spoke on This Morning about his progress with the condition.

Revealing that he has undergone 30 rounds of chemotherapy and 30 radiotherapy sessions, Parker said: “It’s been pretty full on. Chemo was very, very tough and [radiotherapy] is probably the hardest part.”

“I feel a lot more confident and a lot more in control of my emotions,” he added. “If I did do this five months ago, I’d be a crying mess to be honest. I’m feeling very positive.”

Back in January Parker revealed that the size of his inoperable tumour has reduced significantly.

Giving the update via Instagram, Parker wrote: “SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION – These are the words I received today and I can’t stop saying them over and over again.

“I had an MRI scan on Tuesday and my results today were a significant reduction to the tumour and I am responding well to treatment.”

“To everyone on here — your love, light and positivity have inspired me,” he added. “Every message has not been unnoticed they have given me so much strength. This journey is a rollercoaster that’s for sure.”

Tom Parker: Inside My Head is able to watch in full via All 4.

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Orlando Weeks has announced a run of intimate UK tour dates for next month – see full details of the gigs below.

READ MORE: Orlando Weeks talks ‘Big Skies, Silly Faces’: “I’m savouring and cultivating joyful things”

The former Maccabees frontman announced details of his second solo album ‘Hop Up’ last month and shared new single ‘Look Who’s Talking Now’.

‘Hop Up’ will be released on January 14, 2022 and features guest appearances by Katy J Pearson and Willie J Healey.

A full UK tour will follow the album’s release next March, but the album is now set to be previewed on an intimate run of dates that take place in November.

The short, small tour begins in Tunbridge Wells, with dates in London, Southampton and elsewhere before the tour concludes in Bath at the end of November.

See Orlando Weeks’ new UK tour dates alongside existing 2022 shows. Tickets for the new dates go on sale at 10am on Friday (October 15) here.

NOVEMBER 2021
14 – Tunbridge Wells, The Forum
18 – Ramsgate, Music Hall
20 – Southampton, Heartbreakers
21 – London, The Social
25 – Margate, Tom Thumb Theatre
26 – Bedford, Esquires
27 – Bath, Moles

MARCH 2022
10 – Leeds, Brudenell Social Club
11 – Edinburgh, The Mash House
12 – Manchester, Royal Northern College of Music
15 – Birmingham, O2 Institute 2
16 – Cambridge, Junction
17 – Portsmouth, Wedgewood Rooms
19 – Brighton, Concorde 2
20 – London, Barbican Centre

Speaking about his second album earlier this year, Weeks told NME: “My writing over the last 10 or 15 years has been trying to take something confusing, difficult or sad, and try and turn it into something positive.

“With this record and this song, I was just trying to make something positive without needing to explore difficult things. It’s just to savour and cultivate joyful things.”

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ISTANBUL – Valtteri Bottas hailed one of the best races of his Formula One career after ending a drought of more than a year with a dominant performance at the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday. The 32-year-old Mercedes driver, who is leaving for Alfa Romeo at the end of the season and may not have […]

The post F1: Turkey win one of my best, says Valtteri Bottas appeared first on Inquirer Sports.

Emma Raducanu’s defeat in her first match since winning the US Open was a “little bump,” fellow Briton Andy Murray said, backing the 18-year-old to deal with expectations and disappointment in a mature way. Qualifier Raducanu did not drop a set in 10 matches en route to the title at Flushing Meadows last month but […]

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Le Tigre have filed a civil lawsuit to counter cease-and-desist letters sent by Barry Mann, who alleges copyright infringement of his song ‘Who Put the Bomp (Bomp, Bomp, Bomp)’.

READ MORE: Soundtrack Of My Life – Kathleen Hanna

Mann, whose 1961 single was written with the late Gerry Goffin, claims that Le Tigre’s 1999 song ‘Deceptacon’ infringes on his work.

Now, Le Tigre’s Kathleen Hanna and Johanna Fateman have filed a complaint seen by Pitchfork in which they argue that Mann has no claim because ‘Who Put The Bomp…’ is not a wholly original work.

“Mr. Mann did not create these vocables or song titles; rather, it appears that Mr. Mann and his co-writer copied them from Black doo-wop groups active during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Specifically, it appears that Mr. Mann took ‘bomp-bah-bomp-bah-bomp’ from The Marcels’ distinctive version of ‘Blue Moon’, which sold over a million copies, and ‘rama lama ding dong’ from the Edsels’ then-popular ‘Rama Lama Ding Dong.’

“In short, the Bomp lyrics at issue are not original to Mr. Mann, and Defendants have no legitimate copyright claim in them,” reads part of the suit.

Additionally, the lawsuit argues that Le Tigre’s twists on the word “Bomp” qualify as fair use because the lyrics have “a new meaning that is directly at odds with and a clear criticism of the message in ‘Bomp’.”

Le Tigre made their comeback in 2016 with the single ‘I’m With Her’, which was released in support of Hillary Clinton’s US presidential campaign.

There has been no news of a follow up to their last album, 2004’s ‘This Island’.

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A new report from the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) has revealed that nearly 90,000 jobs have been lost in the UK’s nightlife sector due to COVID.

READ MORE: Gig, festival and nightclub bosses talk masks, testing and COVID safety for re-opening

CEO of the NTIA Michael Kill said that the data, which shows 86,000 job losses in the night time cultural economy sector since 2019, proves that “it is the worst possible time to introduce vaccine passports, which will further damage a sector essential to the economic recovery”.

In a foreword to the report, Co-Chair of the APPG for the Night Time Economy and Conservative MP Christian Wakeford said that the government “must not leave this vital sector behind” as the UK continues to recover from the pandemic.

Writing a statement following the publication of the report, Kill said: “We are pleased to be able to present today this important and timely piece of work quantifying, for the first time, the size of the night time economy in the UK.

“Important, because in my 25-year career working in UK nightlife, it has always struck me as so odd that we did not have a proper accounting of the value of this important sector. Today’s report puts that right, and is long overdue.

Businesses in Scotland are now obliged by law to check the vaccination status of everyone entering most pubs, bars and night clubs. CREDIT: Rob Pinney/Getty Images

Wakeford added: “It’s timely because at this moment, governments in Scotland and Wales are pressing ahead with chaotic vaccine passport plans, and the UK Government refuses to rule out their use in England. It is the worst possible time to introduce vaccine passports, which will further damage a sector essential to the economic recovery.”

“It is crucial the Chancellor use the upcoming Budget to support this beleaguered sector. We are calling for him to extend the 12.5 per cent rate of VAT on hospitality until 2024, include door sales in that reduced rate of VAT, because the present system punishes nightclubs that rely on door sales rather than selling tickets, and for him to ensure there are no increases in Alcohol Duties – our sector really cannot afford any additional burdens.”

Earlier this month (October 1) vaccine passports became mandatory in Scotland after a judge refused to delay the implementation of the scheme.

It came after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that the Scottish government would be delaying its plans for the implementation of the passports as a requirement for entry into the country’s nightclubs, after criticism from many establishments across the country.

In England, meanwhile, the plan for vaccine passports for nightclubs, sporting events and large live music events was scrapped last month.

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James Taylor has spoken about auditioning to join The Beatles‘ label Apple Records in the late 1960s.

READ MORE: Five great Apple Records releases that aren’t by The Beatles

The singer-songwriter said in a new interview that he believes his youth – besides his musical talent – helped him have the confidence to sell himself.

“I had some kind of competence and the arrogance of youth, without which nobody would ever do anything, because you’d hedge your bets,” Taylor recalled to GuitarWorld of auditioning in front of Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

“There’s a stage in our development where you’re allowed to do impossible things, which is why the military looks to people about that age. You can talk people into doing things that if you were asked when you were 35, you’d say, ‘No thanks, I’ll pass on that.’

James Taylor. Credit: Press.

“I also knew that it was somehow good. It worked for me, and I was a music connoisseur. I thought, ‘This stuff could go somewhere. I want somebody to hear this.’ I’ve had that feeling a few times, at different points in my life,” he said.

Taylor also explained what it felt like to release his 1968 debut self-titled album on The Beatles’ label.

“It was just otherworldly, because I was a huge Beatles fan. And they were at the very height of their powers. They just kept going, kept growing. So, to be in London, the first person signed to their label in 1968, was really like catching the big wave. It was unbelievable,” he said.

Meanwhile, Taylor is set to embark on a UK tour next year. He released his 20th studio album ‘American Standard’ in February 2020, with the album going on to win Best Tradition Pop Vocal Album at the Grammys.

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K-pop singer Sunmi has released her new digital single ‘Go or Stop?’ alongside a stunning accompanying music video.

READ MORE: Eight K-pop songs from August 2021 you need to hear, from Red Velvet to TXT

‘Go or Stop?’ is a special collaboration between the singer and reigning League of Legends world champions DWG KIA. The song was released to kick-off the team’s first game in the League of Legends World Championship 2021, which begins later today (October 11).

In the futuristic video, Sunmi performs against a backdrop of screens as they flash the words “legendary”, “rampage” and “victory”, in reference to the popular MOBA game. “You’d better go / Even faster, running, feelin’ myself / You can’t beat me / Your game is over now,” she sings.

‘Go or Stop?’ marks the K-pop veteran’s third release of 2021, following her February single album ‘Tail’ and her third mini-album ‘1/6’, which dropped in August. The latter included the synthwave-inspired lead single ‘You Can’t Sit With Us’, which dropped alongside a kitschy, action-packed music video.

In a four-star review of the record, NME’s Angela Patricia Suacillo praised Sunmi’s “ability to take the lively, upbeat elements of synth- and dance-pop and use them to confront her anxieties.”

Sunmi is currently a mentor on the Mnet reality TV show Girls Planet 999, alongside Girls Generation’s Tiffany Young. In a recent interview, Sunmi shared that she hoped to emphasise the importance of character to the show’s contestants.

“Having a sense of gratitude, cultivating empathy with other people, and not being arrogant or proud are important things to keep in mind if you want to stay in this business for a long time,” she said.

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