Book review: Under a Rock, Chris Stein

Rock autobiographies, at least the ones prepared to honestly tackle the seamier side of the industry, are one literary genre that rarely leaves us wanting more. 

However, Under A Rock by Blondie guitarist Chris Stein is an exception – but not for straightforward reasons.

Stein is at the very least an entertaining as well as thoughtful raconteur and manages to capture the excess, mess and vibrancy of the musician’s peripatetic existence and the rock scene with wit and wisdom. 

But while there so often isn’t more than meets that eye when it comes to other rock stars’ encounters with the high/lows of fame, Stein’s book is as interesting and somewhat frustrating, for what it doesn’t say, as for what it does. 

This makes it a something of a curiosity – albeit an extremely compelling, even fascinating one – rather than a definitive statement of the era or indeed, it seems, Blondie. 

For the novice, Blondie is the (still existent) archetypal New Wave band, who rose from the churning New York punk scene of the 70s, and ultimately became probably best known for an edgy yet hugely popular sound that fused their raw garage rock with the pulse of sleek modernity in hits such as ‘Heart of Glass’, ‘Call Me’ and ‘Atomic’. 

Through a complicated history of changing personnel (and a band hiatus that began in 1982 and ended almost 20 years later), the constant has been the musical link between legendary vocalist Deborah Harry and Stein. For a significant period, this was also a romantic bond – making this, as per the book’s marketing material, with a due sense of rock-mythology, potentially a ‘love story’. 

However, for a book where the same marketing copy says ‘Chris lays it all bare’, it keeps the emotional substance between him and Harry – whatever inexorable forces kept them bound together through the highest of highs and the most despairing of lows (including heroin addiction) – mostly at an insouciant arm’s length. The facts are certainly laid bare, but the emotions often aren’t. 

Maybe he feels as if he can’t speak about it too much, or he just doesn’t want to go there. And, of course, to be clear, he’s not obliged to – especially as they are still, after all, friends and collaborators, even if they haven’t been in a romantic relationship since the 1980s (and he’s been married to Barbara since 1999). Harry even wrote the foreword to the book and did it very well and compassionately (although it’s notable that Face It, her 2019 autobiography, is also similarly pretty guarded on the emotional details). There’s also the obvious fact Under A Rock exists in the context of a vast amount of other Blondie media as a reasonable way to understand why Stein expects us to join some dots.  

Still, while punk and new wave drew caustic power from minimalism and harsh, choppy simple statements, it’s hard to not feel like there’s something left backstage here. 

As it is, at face value, especially for those relatively unfamiliar with the Blondie phenomenon, the text keeps the relationship enigmatic – including its finish. His terse line ‘Maybe you want more details but there aren’t many’, about as sentimental as ‘Heart of Glass’, concludes the brief explanation for the break-up. 

OK yes, there’s potentially something poignant (and common) about a complicated long-term relationship ending for simple, even banal, reasons. But because we haven’t really got a sense of that complexity – we’re left with a similar cool shell, to some extent, and perhaps some of the same intriguing tension, that will recall the band’s musical catalogue.

In a way, it’s doubly beguiling because Stein’s book is otherwise very detailed and perceptive – including his insider take on the East Village and New York scene more broadly. Having rubbed shoulders easily with everyone from Jean-Michel Basquiat to the Ramones, Stein has a unique insight, one which he offers with flair, if in an often hilariously scattershot fashion that nevertheless adds up to a rich tableau. 

Stein’s is an enjoyably curious mind, that of an exploring wanderer and tangential thinker. The element of randomness informs quirkier musings, including encounters with poltergeists in a loft space at the Bowery, to reflections on the Jungian implications of the “astral projections” he may have experienced post-heroin recovery.

It also means that we are often hit starkly out of the blue with the tragedies that have informed his life – including, without wishing to give too much away, one that occurs right in its final pages. It’s here where he’s forced to acknowledge a personal legacy – and its relationship to drugs, in particular – that troubles him and how he should speak to it without glamourising it. 

Perhaps, we are left wondering, this is some key to understanding why he’s so reticent about a lot of things that came before or inclined to dive off into tangents – including when it comes to his relationship with Harry, which was tangled up with heroin. 

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This all adds up to something strange and beguiling in its way, and it’ll undoubtedly fascinate a lot of music fans – particularly those who are interested in the New York scene during the 70s and 80s. But especially within a genre that often trades in confession, if not “too much information”, the cagier, cooler aspects of Under a Rock will intrigue and frustrate the reader in equal measure. 

Under A Rock, Chris Stein
Publisher: Hachette
ISBN: 9781472157645
Format: Paperback
Pages: 283pp
Release Date: 11 June 2024
RRP: $34.99