For Your Long Weekend Listening Pleasure: Frank Zappa, Blondie Do Dallas Way Back When

With an extra day this weekend, an extra night: Blondie on December 1, 1979, from an unspecified Dallas venue; and Frank Zappa at the Dallas Convention Center Arena on October 17, 1980. Both, revolutionary in their own right.They're both flawless recordings -- Blondie because it was for radio. As for...

By Robert Wilonsky

July 3, 2010

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With an extra day this weekend, an extra night: Blondie on December 1, 1979, from an unspecified Dallas venue; and Frank Zappa at the Dallas Convention Center Arena on October 17, 1980. Both, revolutionary in their own right.

They're both flawless recordings -- Blondie because it was for radio. As for the Zappa show, which is by request (our first!), it's been adored and analyzed for years by the fetishists. This guy's particularly interested in the quality and quantity of solos -- and, hey, Steve Vai! Fireworks.

The Blondie set, much shorter and sweeter, was done for a King Biscuit Flower Hour broadcast -- ah, those were the days. The set list is a bit of a hodgepodge: "Sunday Girl" and "Dreaming" (immortal) and even an Iggy Pop cover, but no "Heart of Glass" or "One Way or Another" that made the August '78 trip to SMU's McFarlin Auditorium with The Kinks (and, speaking of, wow). By now entirely pop-punk, the early touch-song "punk" of the first record sounds forced -- this was the band's heyday.

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