Join us in September as we celebrate 40 years since the release of Blondie’s third studio album Parallel Lines.

Originally born out of the New York punk rock scene of the mid-1970s, the band made a surprising shift toward more pop-oriented material on this album, a deft mix of new wave, pop and disco produced by Mike Chapman.

In a sense, that time has long passed: Blondie, like contemporaries such as the Cars and the UK’s earliest New Pop artists specialized in whipsmart chart music created by and for adults, a trick that has all but vanished from the pop landscape. Parallel Lines, however, is practically a blueprint for the stuff: “Picture This” and “One Way or Another” are exuberant new wave, far looser than the stiff, herky-jerky tracks that would go on to characterize that sound in the 80s; “Will Anything Happen?” and the band’s cover of the Nerves’ “Hanging on the Telephone” are headstrong rock; “11:59” does run-for-the-horizon drama, while “Sunday Girl” conveys a sense of elegance. The record’s closest thing to a ballad, the noirish “Fade Away and Radiate”, owes a heavy debt to the art-pop of Roxy Music.

Join us to experience this album as never before.

Buy the album here

London

Time & Date: Sunday 16th September 2018 16:00 – 18:30

Venue: Giant Steps, SWAN WHARF, Dace Rd, London E3 2NN

Tickets: £10 plus booking fee in advance here

Presenter: Kris Needs

Audio Menu: Dynavector D17D3 MC CartridgeRega P9 TurntableRega IOS Phono Stage Audio Note Jinro Integrated AmpChord Signature Speaker CableChord Signature Tuned Aray interconnectsISOL-8 Substation Integra Power Conditioner and Klipschorn Loudspeakers

Washington DC

Date and Time: Sunday September 16th 2018 1:00pm – 3:00pm

Venue: Songbyrd Music House and Record Cafe, 2477 18th St NW, Washington DC 20009

Tickets: $5 – $7 in advance here

Presenter: Joe Lapan

Audio Menu provided by Audioism.

REGA Planar 3 turntable with Elys MM CartridgeREGA Fono MM Phono PreampAudioism MicroZOTL Preamp (David Berning Design), Audioism Venue-Class Playback SystemXcilica HD System ProcessorAudioism ZOTL Amplifiers (David Berning Design), Class AB Hybrid Amplification for Subs, WyWires Audio Interconnects

Sydney

Date and Time: Sunday September 16th 2018, 6 to 11:45pm

Venue: The World Bar

Tickets: $15 in advance here

Presenters: J.P. Ducharne (The Mancusian Circus), Jim Poe (Deep House Australia)

Audio Menu: Turntable: Rega RP6, Cartridge: Rega Exact, Amp: Accuphase E-202 Integrated Amplifier, Speakers: Klipsch Heresy, Subs: Klipsch R-10SW