<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0R.I.P. Clem Burke (nee: Bozewski), the longtime drummer for the band Blondie.\u00a0 Born in Bayonne, New Jersey on November 24, 1954, Burke succumbed to cancer on April 6, 2025.\u00a0 Having read that he was finally getting around to finishing his biography (<\/span>The Other SIde of the Dream – My Life In and Out of Blondie<\/span><\/i> (Harper Collins Books, 2026), I had been on the lookout for it when word came of his passing.\u00a0 The one comment he had made prior to publication was something along the lines of, \u201cIt has only taken me twenty years to get it all together,\u201d but it was worth the wait.\u00a0 Burke gets into the details of how he was able to make his dream of becoming a professional drummer come true without overexplaining any particular chapter in that journey.\u00a0 He rubbed elbows with a lot of the big stars in the music world from Pete Townsend to Nancy Sinatra to Bob Dylan;\u00a0 enough to write a long chapter of each encounter.\u00a0 Instead, Burke provides enough details to tell interesting anecdotes without making it all about him.\u00a0 Of course, it is his biography and it is all about him, but he is also a big music fan who lets his awe of these encounters shine through.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clem\u2019s father played drums in local clubs and got Burke started early.\u00a0 He was a well rounded percussion player who learned his chops both in school marching band and as a member of the St. Andrew\u2019s Bridgement Drum and Bugle Corps in his home town.\u00a0 He began drumming in his own local bands in the late 1960s.\u00a0 Burke\u2019s style was influenced by Ringo Starr and The Beatles, super session drummer Hal Blaine, and The Who\u2019s drummer, Keith Moon.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In the opening chapters, Burke paints a vivid picture of the New York City club scene that led to the formation of Blondie.\u00a0 The trip to and from the city by train gives credence to his drive to become part of the music scene there:\u00a0 \u201cOur home was at the southernmost point before the land touched the water.\u00a0 If I wanted to reach Lower Manhattan, I hiked across town from my house to Judson (now John F. Kennedy) Boulevard and caught a bus to Journal Square in Jersey City.\u00a0 From there, I\u2019d take the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) train into Lower Manhattan.\u00a0 Trains ran through the night, but the service was patchy.\u00a0 If I played a show at Max\u2019s Kansas City or CBGB and got out of there at four in the morning, it was back on the train to Jersey City, where I\u2019d face an hour\u2019s wait in the darkness for a bus to take me home.\u00a0 It seemed odd to be so close (to NYC) and for the journey to be so arduous, but that was the lay of the land.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bayonne was a very blue-collar town and Burke grew up surrounded by a large extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins from his father\u2019s Polish American roots and his mother\u2019s Italian clan.\u00a0 When he saw ‘<\/span>The Sopranos\u2019<\/span><\/i>, Clem said, \u201cDavid Chase (the creator of \u2018<\/span>The Sopranos\u2019 <\/span><\/i>who has the same North Jersey background), I recognized all the references immediately.\u00a0 The way people looked at things, the vernacular, the mindset – all of it reminded me of my upbringing in Bayonne.\u00a0 When I see a film like <\/span>Goodfellas,<\/span><\/i> I always get reflective and nostalgic.\u00a0 That was the way people were where I grew up.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Before The Beatles and the British Invasion hit this side of the Atlantic, Burke\u2019s first love was Top 40 radio hits, particularly from those other Jersey Boys, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.\u00a0 After the ten year old Clem saw The Beatles on <\/span>The Ed Sullivan Show<\/span><\/i>, his musical world view began to shift.\u00a0 He describes taking two buses to get to his after school music lessons in Jersey City and then rushing out to purchase his first 45 RPM record, <\/span>I Want To Hold Your Hand.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>He picked up a paper route so he could afford to buy all the new records and plaster his bedroom wall with posters and pictures of British bands. \u00a0 His father\u2019s Slingerland Radio King drum kit with a 26 inch bass drum and calfskin head was a good starting point but seemed a little \u2018big band\u2019 and \u2018old fashioned\u2019.\u00a0 He finally laid his hands on a Rogers kit like Dave Clark played and made the life altering choice.\u00a0 The Drum and Bugle Corp was out and forming a rock band with his friends was in.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Burke was playing Top 40 music covering the hits of the day at the age of thirteen.\u00a0 His folks were supportive (as parents who let a band rehearse in their living room would have to be) and Clem instinctively knew this was the parth he was destined to follow.\u00a0 His story about having to change the \u2018suggestive lyrics\u2019 to The Zombies <\/span>Time of the Season<\/span><\/i> so they could play at a Catholic High School dance was interesting.\u00a0 The band played it with the altered lyrics suggested to them by one of the Catholic brother\u2019s to get the gig.\u00a0 When they decided to play the original version at the dance, one can only imagine what followed.\u00a0 The Zombies\u2019 Rod Argent and Colin Blumstone heard Burke tell this story at the South by Southwest festival many years later and\u00a0 enjoyed hearing how a bunch of high school kids made a stand against censorship.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Lower Manhattan has a certain image about it as the birthplace of the Punk movement in the United States, but the transition wasn\u2019t as glamorous as it is portrayed today.\u00a0 When Burke and his gang of friends began hanging out there, the Bowery area was more ghetto than glam.\u00a0 Being somewhat isolated from \u2018the real world\u2019 (which included Son of Sam, the anti-war movement, and politics), Burke\u2019s posse felt more kinship with the drug addicts, gay club crowds, and the \u2018Bowery Bums\u2019 that inhabited the scene.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t take a lot of money to maintain their underground existence there.\u00a0 The clubs were rarely dangerous but walking the streets required keeping one\u2019s head on a swivel and knowing where one should not be after dark.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The eventual ground zero for Punk, the club known as CBGB was not a Punk venue at all.\u00a0 It was rather grubby at the outset and owner Hilly Kristal envisioned it as an environment for all kinds of Americana music.\u00a0 The initials came from \u2018Country, Blue Grass, and Blues\u2019.\u00a0 The gradual change in tone came about because of Kristal’s willingness to let anyone perform.<\/span><\/p>\n In 1975, there were no CBGB tee shirts and none of the patrons were calling themselves \u2018punks\u2019.\u00a0 Before the straight world discovered CBGB, Burke described the vibe:\u00a0 \u201cThe place was set up like a folk club or cabaret, with candles flickering on little round tables and waitress service.\u00a0 The audience was mostly made up of people from other bands, mostly rock and roll guys and very few women in attendance.\u00a0 Certainly, there was no mania – it was all very laid back and cozy.\u00a0 Right from the start, Hilly was catering for a broad spectrum of music fans.\u00a0 I think that\u2019s why he opened his doors to people like us.\u00a0 So long as you weren\u2019t playing covers, he didn\u2019t care what you played.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The crowd vibe was more \u2018beatnik\u2019 than anything.\u00a0 The dress code was leather jackets and sunglasses.\u00a0 Burke and his band of buddies would congregate in his dad\u2019s car and watch what he called \u2018the ongoing street theater\u2019 until it was showtime in the club.\u00a0 As the music scene changed, Hilly finally put in a larger stage and better sound system with the help of guitarist Biran Eno.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t long before the Ramones, Television, Blondie, Patti Smith, and the Talking Heads were transforming CBGB\u2019s into the USA\u2019s first \u2018punk palace\u2019.\u00a0 When the Sex Pistols blew up overnight in England and spawned hundreds of copycat bands, the New York scene was different.\u00a0 \u201cNone of the core NYC bands had\u00a0 much in common, musically,\u201d Burke remembered.\u00a0 \u201cIt was more like a shared sensibility.\u00a0 We were drawing from a diverse range of influences, trying to figure out what kind of bands we were going to become.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0While kicking around the NYC music scene,\u00a0 Clem kept his ear to the ground for any potential opportunities.\u00a0 On March 10, 1975, he spotted an ad in the <\/span>Village Voice<\/span><\/i> that said, \u201cFreak energy Musical Experienced drummer needed, female fronted estab. working NYC rock band.\u00a0 Excel oppty. Money. Fun. Call NOW 925-0531.\u201d\u00a0 The voice that answered the phone told him the name of the band was Blondie and gave him the address of their rehearsal studio with instructions to be there the next day.\u00a0 He recognized guitarist Chris Stein and singer Debbie Harry from the band The Stilettos.\u00a0 He had seen them open for the New York Dolls some months earlier and also from seeing them at Club 82.\u00a0 The first meeting turned out to be more of an informal interview where they talked about music and their mutual interest in various musicians like the Dolls, Velvet Underground, and The Stooges.\u00a0 Having sized each other up, they concluded they would like to get together again and play some music.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It took Burke a couple of days to haul his drum kit to the rehearsal space in piece meal fashion via bus and train.\u00a0 The first jams were \u2018unpolished\u2019 but from the get go, Burke could see Debbie had all the right elements to be a star.\u00a0 Fred Smith, their hold over bass player from their earlier band Angel and the Snake,\u00a0 rounded out the line up.\u00a0 They were already writing original songs and started up the long road they would travel to become Blondie.\u00a0 The money and fame were not at the forefront – just the question:\u00a0 \u201cWe have these songs, do we want to play music together?\u201d\u00a0 Chris and Debbie were self managing the band but neither were \u2018business people\u2019.\u00a0 They did have connections around town and a couple of gigs lined up at CBGB.\u00a0 Clem told them, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s go,\u201d at which time he quit his current band (Sweet Revenge) and made a full time commitment to Blondie.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clem\u2019s first gig with Blondie took place at CBGB on April 7, 1975, followed by Smith telling the band he was quitting to join the band Television.\u00a0 The unexpected blow shook them a bit but Burke mentioned his friend Gary Lachman as a replacement.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t a true bass player, but he was a good fit.\u00a0 He changed his name to Gary Valentine and he and Debbie collaborated on what would be one of their first notable songs, <\/span>X Offender.\u00a0 X <\/span><\/i>got them signed to a record deal and things began to gel.\u00a0 Hilly let them play at CBGB anytime they wanted and they had enough low rent jobs to keep them in spending cash.\u00a0 A piece in <\/span>Rolling Stone<\/span><\/i> magazine about the CBGB scene and their first headlining gig at Max\u2019s Kansas City told Burke things were beginning to roll for them<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Andy Warhol\u2019s influence on the NYC scene helped Blondie a lot by raising their profile and pushing the punk scene forward.\u00a0 It was one of Andy\u2019s friends who started the trend away from the colorful disco duds to the black leather jacket and sunglasses chic adopted by a lot of the city\u2019s bands (see The Ramones, for example).\u00a0 Some minor parts in theater productions put them in contact with more movers and shakers in the music biz and as Clem states it, \u201cWe were doing things our way and people were beginning to take notice.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Though Burke doesn\u2019t remember actually getting paid for many of their early gigs, they had enough to live on and pay the rent at their headquarters.\u00a0 The musical connections they made, however, were elements that were key to their future success.\u00a0 Their acquaintance with a glam\/punk band called The Fast brought in their new keyboard player, Jimmy Destri.\u00a0 The head of the label they signed with had planned to record a live album featuring Blondie and the other\u00a0 bands who regularly played at CBGB.\u00a0 When that idea fell by the wayside, he decided to concentrate on Blondie and get their self-titled album recorded and pressed to vinyl.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Their first two records, <\/span>Blondie <\/span><\/i>(1976) and <\/span>Plastic Letters <\/span><\/i>(1978), got a lot of attention in the United Kingdom and Australia.\u00a0 Appearances in <\/span>Top of the Pops<\/span><\/i> in England pushed their songs up the chart and everyone on that side of the pond thought they were big stars in the states.\u00a0 Truth be told, lack of radio airplay and zero television appearances made them an underground band whose popularity was confined to the east and west coast markets until the release of their third album, <\/span>Parallel Lines <\/span><\/i>(1978).\u00a0 Even as the album shot to No. 1 in the UK, poor decisions on what singles to release by their US label (Chrysalis) held them back on their home turf.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Once Blondie began topping the charts, there was a two year period when they claimed the No. 1 spot on both sides of the Atlantic.\u00a0 The No. 1s included <\/span>Heart of Glass, One Way or Another, Dreaming, Call Me, The Tide is High, <\/span><\/i>and<\/span> Rapture.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>A relentless touring schedule took them all over the world and put them in front of large audiences in the biggest halls available before stadium shows became vogue.\u00a0 The constant pressure and Chris Stein\u2019s battle with the autoimmune disease pemphigus saw them call it quits after a hectic five year run.\u00a0 It would take fifteen years before Burke, Stein, and Harry would reform the band in 1997.\u00a0 It did not take long for them to hit their pre-hiatus stride when their 1999 album <\/span>No Exit<\/span><\/i> put <\/span>Maria<\/span><\/i> on the top of the UK charts exactly 20 years after their first UK No. 1, <\/span>Heart of Glass.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i>Burke was never idle during Blondie\u2019s fifteen year break.\u00a0 He did a couple of short stints with The Ramones (as Elvis Ramone) and was a member of the Detroit band The Romantics (<\/span>What I Like About You<\/span><\/i>) from 1990 to 2004.\u00a0 He added his drumming skills to albums by Eurythmics, Bob Dylan, and Iggy Pop, to name just a few of the numerous artists he worked with.\u00a0 Clem was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the other members of Blondie in 2006.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 2008, Burke told interviewers that he had taken part in an eight year study about the physical and psychological effects of drumming.\u00a0 It takes a lot of stamina to play the drums at the professional level (and at the semi-pro and amateur levels as well) so Clem worked with both the University of Gloucestershire and the University of Chichester on the study.\u00a0 Burke was awarded an Honorary doctorate from the U of Gloucestershire (2011) for his participation in their research.\u00a0 He also founded the Clem Burke Drumming project (2008) to further study the physical and mental-health benefits of drumming.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Outside his extensive work with Blondie, Burke performed with too many artists to list in this short space.\u00a0 One of the oddest was a 2019 stint with a Blondie tribute act called Bootleg Blondie.\u00a0 He also subbed for the Go-Gos drummer, Gina Schock, at a celebratory gig at the Whisky a Go Go after they were inducted into the RnR Hall of Fame in 2021.\u00a0 Being part of The Eurythmics touring band when their star began to ascend reminded him a lot of Blondie\u2019s journey in their early years.\u00a0 He voices both his joys and regrets in a balanced way because he notes, it isn\u2019t all \u2018great\u2019 nor is it all \u2018bad\u2019 – he truly \u2018<\/span>Looked at life from both sides now<\/span><\/i>\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The two biggest regrets he had revolved around his good friends from Blondie\u2019s early days.\u00a0 The first was not getting Debbie and Chris to let Frank Infante, Nigel Harrison, and Gary Valentine back on board for their 1995 reunion.\u00a0 The second was the snubbing the same three endured when Harry and Stein refused to let the same three participate in Blondie\u2019s induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame.\u00a0 Burke felt powerless whenever he was at odds with Debbie and Chris so there was not much he could do.\u00a0 The RnR Hall debacle he rates as the third worst day of his life after the death of his parents.\u00a0 The fact that he kept playing during Blondie\u2019s down time and the fifteen year hiatus (the \u2018<\/span>Other side of the dream\u2019 <\/span><\/i>in the title) meant he didn\u2019t let the politics of the band get him down.\u00a0 Clem Burke was happy to live the dream he chased for many years.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When I learned about his death, my book finder wife was able to track it down.\u00a0 It says a lot about Clem\u2019s affinity for the U.K. as she had to order a copy from across the pond.\u00a0 Burke was very private about his cancer battle before he passed away on April 6, 2025.\u00a0 He picked up the pace so he could get the book finished before he passed.\u00a0 Clem\u2019s former girlfriend, Go-Go\u2019s bassist Karen Valentine added a touching postscript before it was published in 2026.\u00a0 Blondie\u2019s original bass player, Fred Smith, followed Clem to the great gig in the sky in 2026, leaving Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, and Jimmy Destri as the only original band members still standing.\u00a0 R.I.P. Clem Burke and Fred Smith.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0R.I.P. Clem Burke (nee: Bozewski), the longtime drummer for the band Blondie.\u00a0 Born in Bayonne, New Jersey on November 24, 1954, Burke succumbed to cancer on April 6, 2025.\u00a0 Having read that he was finally getting around to finishing his biography (The Other SIde of the Dream – My Life In and Out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3966"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3968,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3966\/revisions\/3968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}