The Pretty Babies Present:
The Rapture: A Night of Transcendent Blondie Songs
Tuesday, April 7, 9:30pm
At Joes’s Pub (425 Lafayette St., NYC)
Per-Person Tickets are $30 (inclusive of advance phone/web service fee; door price). There is a 2 drink or 1 food item minimum, per person.
For Reservations & Info, Click Here
Hark! The herald angels sang–or, in this case, recent press materials professed: “The Pretty Babies, NYC’s own fabulous and fairly glamorous Blondie Tribute Band, returns to Joe’s Pub after a triumphant tour of the 48 contiguous states of mind in order to present BLONDIE: THE RAPTURE to the discerning Joe’s Pub patron saint.”
Curious to know more based on that provocative missive, we reached out to the band via the modern miracle of email, posing a few questions to Tammy Faye Starlite, the Pretty Babies vocalist who appears on stage in Debbie Harry form. Starlite’s answers yielded the below Q&A. Full Disclosure: Starlite, a fave of ours we’re quick to rave about, shares vocal duties with Rob Paravonian on the awesome LGBTQCommunityNews.nyc theme song, which you can listen to by clicking here.)
Scott Stiffler, for LGBTQCommunityNews.nyc (Scott): Pardon my ignorance, but I’m unaware of the origin story. How did the Pretty Babies come to be, and how was the concept honed to its present state?
Tammy Faye Starlite, for the Pretty Babies (Tammy): We actually started in 2007 as a Runaways tribute band called The Stay-At-Homes, which was tremendous fun, pretending to be 1970s L.A. teenagers in our middle-age; but at some point, we decided be a New York Dolls cover band (not sure why, maybe just for fun or cheekiness) called Prima Ballerina (from a phrase in “Personality Crisis”), then ultimately we switched to Blondie in 2009, and have been delving into their canon ever since. (I think it was an insane, all-pervasive Blondie obsession that pushed this direction.)
Scott: Talk about yourself and the other members of the ensemble; who does what, and in what way does their “character” (??) reference stuff having to do with Blondie, music, pop culture, etc.?
Tammy: Essentially, we’re a tribute band, but as a theater lunatic, it’s fun to have the conceit that we are the members of the band (manque, bien sur!). The lineup is always morphing, but the longtime band members are Heidi Lieb on guitar (“Chrissie Stein”), Monica Falcone on bass (“Nigella Harrison”), Jill Richmond-Johnson on guitar (“Fran Infante”), and myself (“Harry, Debbie”). Heidi and Monica have a band called Sit-n-Spin, and Jill and I had The Mike Hunt Band (a Stones tribute band) for many years.
Scott: What’s next for the Pretty Babies? Might they take flight to heretofore unexplored territory: Horrendous 1970s variety show? Trapped-overnight-in a-meat-locker-clip-show? Underbudgeted streaming service Dramady that posits a multiverse of narrative arcs split off from when the Babies quit music, moved back to their small hometown, and opened a muffin shop endangered when a rival band opens their own muffin shop roughly perpendicular to theirs? Other aspects of Blondie output not explored thus far?
Tammy: One never knows! Not sure if we’re quite the baking types–maybe we’ll just go macabre cabaret, or maybe not. Those gorgeous songs are perfect in their original states. And the late 1970s/early 1980s is such a beautiful time to go back to. Halcyon New York.
Scott: The press material says Tammy is playing Blonde. Without getting too meta, is that the Tammy we know of NICO and other shows, touching down in this new format/band/genre?
Tammy: It’s essentially just me jumping like a lunatic. I’m too dorky to actually be Debbie, who is the essence of cool and beauty.
Scott: How does this show–or does this show–walk the line between satire, parody, sincere tribute, and great performances by musicians and singers with legit chops?
Tammy: I think just having the conceit that we are the band trying to evoke the magic and glamour of an era gone by, disco and glitter and CB’s and studio and sparkling prisms of refracted light, a time that still exists in the lateral universe of our minds.
NOTE: On April 7, The Pretty Babies are:
Monica Falcone
Steve H.
Heidi Lieb
Jill Richmond-Johnson
Tammy Faye Starlite
Featuring David Nagler
With Special Guest Steve Wynn
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