Clem Burke, multi-talented drummer and founder member of Blondie, passed away in April 2025. Posthumously-published autobiography The Other Side Of The Dream gives his side of the New York group’s story and expands on his extracurricular musical activities, including stints with the Ramones, Iggy Pop and more.
From Debbie Harry’s Face It to Chris Stein’s Under A Rock and early member Gary Valentine’s New York Rocker, we haven’t been starved of Blondie-related memoirs. Pleasingly, then, Burke’s book does add new meat to the bone regarding the band’s history, offering a droll overview of the highs and lows that came with their rapid rise. Assessing the Blondie catalogue, we discover that Burke regarded their “masterpiece” to be fifth album Autoamerican – less critically favoured than Parallel Lines and other earlier releases, though its embrace of both rap and reggae in hit singles Rapture and The Tide Is High chimed with Burke’s influences as a drummer.
Within The Other Side Of The Dream, Burke paints a self-portrait as the steadiest member of Blondie, dealing with intra-band politics, divisions and bad decisions, and generally doing his best to hold everything together. (While the band were in a state of flux during the 1980s, Burke had the opportunity to become a full-time member of the Eurythmics, ultimately declining out of loyalty to Blondie.) And the final chapters of this memoir, written while Burke received treatment for cancer and was still healthy enough to do so, are both sad and moving.
