My thanks to Net Galley and St Martin s Press for allowing me to have this arc.

If you were a fan of Blondie and the early NY music scene, this is a must read. The author, Debbie Harry's musical and life partner at the time paints a clear and nostalgic picture. Very enjoyable.

I highly recommend Chris Stein's memoir to anyone interested in New York City music history. The book reads as if dictated by the author and then edited. Stein's down-to-earth voice well for the reader. His writing is entirely unpretentious and often funny. Readers will enjoy the many stories about Stein, Deborah Harry, and many other New York City music people.

My favorite era of music is 70's. I've never been what you'd call a Blondie fan, but did buy the single 45 disc of "Heart of Glass". I also read at least one biography about Blondie in recent years and knew that Deborah Harry was in a very long intimate relationship with fellow band member Chris Stein- so of course I was interested in reading his memoir. However, it wasn't quite what I expected. I was initially swept away by his wide swath of remembrances growing up in the fifties which gave me a warm feeling. However, he continued in a never-ending stream of consciousness with a lot of minutiae I couldn't care a flip about. It reminded me of another rock bio I read (and abandoned) last year for the same reason ("Scattershot" by Bernie Taupin). This was a very self-indulgent and somehow remote plethora of memories that just didn't resonate with me and left me cold.

Thank you to the publisher St. Martin's Press who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher St. Martin's Press for an advance copy of this memoir about a man who found his soul mate, changed music, and can look back and see what he did right, what he did wrong, and his own legacy.

Over the years I have read a lot of memoirs about people in the entertainment business. Most are books that are written by others to help make money. Or they say they are telling the real story, and its more of an airing of grievances. Or a settling of scores. Or just plain hagiography. Few of these reflect on events, how situations could have been better handled, how an argument was allowed to fester ruining things later. How a friendship could have been saved, or even a life. Under a Rock: A Memoir by Chris Stein of the band Blondie is one of these books. Stein tells of his life, the things he did wrong, did right and got away with. Stein also talks about music, what he loved, and what he had a hand in creating with his soul mate Debbie Harry.

Chris Stein was born in Brooklyn in 1950. As a child he loved movies, music, comics, and roaming the city and seeing what he could. Stein's father passed away when Stein was young, a hole that messed him up for quite a while. Soon he was growing his hair long, hanging out with early hippies, and taking drugs. Tossed out of school for his long hair, Stein was able to get into art school, where an interest in photography began. Soon his roaming instinct took him to San Francisco, Europe and to a cheap room in Manhattan. Stein was getting more into music, and soon was hanging out with many of the early players who would create the music that would be called punk. The New York Dolls, meeting Iggy Pop, member of the Ramones before the were the Ramones. Everything came together when he met a young woman, Debbie Harry who was interested in music and even more interested in Stein. One day after dyeing her hair Harry was catcalled in the street. Instead of being annoyed she thought it would be a great band name. Blondie was born, and musical history was made.

Chris Stein has lead an amazing life, and knew many amazing people, who make appearances in this book. David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Andy Warhol. People who Stein learned from in different ways. The book is very well written with a nice style, one that really lets his voice show, and one that even Stein is amazed that all of this stuff happened too. There is a lot of sadness, the loss of people close to him, including his daughter, which for some reason hit me very hard in the writing. Stein is older and is able to look back at many of these things, bad music deals, fights in the band, disappointing people, and relate them in way that shows he wishes he had handled it better, and has learned a lot from his mistakes. Stein has a lot of interests and shares many of them, music of course, photography, even a bit about the occult. And of course much about the biggest character in the book the City of New York. Oh and Ms. Harry, of course.

Recommended for fans of the band, and music of the time. Also for those who love to read about New York when it was fun and dangerous. This is a really well-written tale about a young man, finding his soul mate, making music, and staying friends.

Note: Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Chris Stein for the advanced reader copy of the book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

After reading Debbie Harry’s memoir Face It, when I saw Chris Stein’s memoir available on NetGalley, I simply had to read it. There are no great reveals here that weren’t covered in Debbie’s memoir, but Chris seems to have a better memory of happenings during the punk scene in New York City.

Chris was a City boy, having been raised there by parents who were once part of the Communist Party. His youth would seem to be completely alien to how we parent today, with a lot of freedom to venture out and figure things out for himself. He tells his story in a stream-of-consciousness style, with the memories flowing as he remembers them. I was actually surprised he was able to remember so much and in such detail. I don’t think I could have done it, and I didn’t have the drug issues he did.

The punk scene in New York was unique, and the band Blondie came out of that. However, they were not known necessarily as a punk band. Chris shows how they grew out of the scene, surrounded by so many punk icons and playing at CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City. I loved all the details about The Ramones, having grown up in the late 1970s and 1980s and been a fan of theirs. David Johanssen and the New York Dolls figure prominently as does David Bowie. Chris and Debbie were also part of Andy Warhol’s Manhattan scene.

He’s honest about the drug use and abuse that cost him so much, almost including his life. It started with pot but grew into just about every drug available throughout the 1970s and 1980s. He doesn’t get into the whys of his drug abuse; it was just something they did. He wasn’t trying to escape, or if it was a means of escape he doesn’t admit it. For much of the ten years prior to Blondie finally hitting it big, Chris and Debbie lived in abject poverty in a Manhattan that doesn’t exist anymore. The buildings they resided in have been gentrified and cleaned up. I don’t know that this new Manhattan can produce characters like Chris details here. It’s become much more like the suburbia I grew up in in many ways, with much higher prices.

His relationship with Debbie Harry ran its course and died out eventually around the same time the first incarnation of Blondie died out. They remain close friends. Chris says she’s the closest friend he’s ever had. When they started touring again and were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, there was friction among the original members. Some of that is due to lawsuits and some of it is just time changing things. Chris and Debbie are still the core of the group that has been touring and making records.

I found Under a Rock to be an easy read for the most part. The style of writing might be hard for some as at times there’s no clear separation from one story to another. Having known the New York he writes about is a big help, I think. The tragedy for him comes in the epilogue, which I guess he wrote after the book was finished. Although he takes the reader up until the current time, the epilogue contains the information that he and his wife lost his older daughter to an overdose in 2023. Having lost a child to drugs myself, I felt his pain as he brushed the surface of grief and the guilt he has over his own drug use and whether he impressed how bad it was on his daughter.

I really enjoyed this read and I recommend it to people who are interested in the history of rock music, particularly the New York music scene in the 1970s. There’s also a good deal in here about rap and hip-hop as the first time Chris and Debbie heard it they were astounded they hadn’t come upon it before. Really, Under a Rock covers so much territory that it’s a must-read for any music historian.

An exciting historical document that made me laugh out loud. Stein has a compelling narrative voice and eye for detail, and he conveys New York's 60s-80s music scenes well.

I would say I'm a middle-of-the-road Blondie fan - not diehard, but I know all of their singles and grew up listening to the band. I don't know a lot about the members, but I knew that Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were together and that they had a connection to Andy Warhol. I thought this would be an interesting read and it certainly was that. Stein talks not only about his time in the band but his life before and since the band's inception.

I expected it to be a bit more polished but it of course is an unedited copy. I'd be interested to see if it turns into a more finished product or remains a stream-of-consciousness type of story. Either way, this book was both hard to read and hard to put down at times.

Chris Stein, the longtime guitarist for Blondie and boyfriend of Debbie Harry, is a real New Yorker, having been born and raised in the city, like myself. For that reason alone, I love this book. We're about the same age and he remembers his time growing up in a city that's disappeared much as I do. It's fun to hear him reference the same places I used to visit. He makes an interesting observation that I've long thought but never put into words--that the New York city of the late '70s was closer to a time 100 years before than it was to the 30 years to come. He's so on the money with that comment.

As for the story of his band Blondie, that's fun to read about also. Chris was a pure punk guy who did every drug known to man and lived the life of a hard rocker before he became rich and famous. His travels around the city with very little money harken back to a time that might not still be possible but, in my heart of hearts, I think it still is. Chris didn't exist on much and, if you're willing to live that type of wild life he did, I bet you still can do that.

Here's the crazy part. I read this book not long after reading Barbra Streisand's memoir and their early lives in the city mirror each other in some ways. She too didn't have a full time apartment. She took lived on the kindness of strangers while polishing her talent. And of course, she made it just as Chris did.

Creation stories are the best and my guess is, if you're even slightly interested in late '70s New York--the last unvarnished era of the city before social media and snarky behavior took over--you'll love this memoir as much as I do.

Blondie's album Parallel Lines was one of the first (if not THE first) albums I received as a kid and I wore it out on my little turntable so I was excited to be approved for this ARC. Unlike a lot of popular bands/musicians at the time, Blondie has only grown in stature and legend since its chart topping run in the late 70s, early 80s. It is often credited with having the first number one song to feature rap.

Chris Stein was a founding member and his long-term girlfriend was none other than lead singer/icon Debbie Harry. (If you're a Debbie fan please check out her amazing memoir, Face.) It's absolutely astonishing to me that Chris, drug-addled as he was most of the time, has such a sharp memory for his entire life, starting with his childhood in Brooklyn (I had no idea I live about 5 minutes from where Chris Stein grew up on Coney Island Ave! Hi neighbor!) and ending with his post-Blondie/present life.

The most interesting part for me was Chris and the band's poverty-filled grind living in the enormous, rat-filled lofts of 70s downtown NYC - lofts that now sell in the millions. It's a real snapshot of old school NYC with its burgeoning punk scene, composed of CBGB bands like The Ramones, Television, Patti Smith and Blondie. Blondie was considered the "joke" band- it has a sexy blonde girl lead singer and its songs were more ballad-y and accessible. It would go on to be the most popular group. The times are so tough that Debbie is r*ped by an intruder to their loft while Chris is tied up in another room. They are repeatedly robbed. People overdose and die. Their cats kill huge rats. All stuff that would have sent most people running back to the burbs and who could blame them? (A moment of silence for poor kitty Sunday Man, who disappears from Debbie's sister's house. I was worried about the 3 cats the entire book).

Sadly, like most bands, bad business decisions and drugs conspired to rob these creatives of their money and Chris Stein ended up basically broke (though I'm assuming he's not now? Hard to tell.)

Occasionally the book veers into continual name dropping (X came over, then Y dropped by, then Z said hello, and I ran into A on the street... etc) and I did not recognize the majority of the names. So I found myself skipping over various portions.

If you love Blondie, music, or the 70s NYC punk/New Wave scene, this memoir is required reading. I just reviewed Under a Rock by Chris Stein. #NetGalley

Thank you Chris Stein, NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I hoped we would get Chris Stein's memoir after his longtime friend and bandmate (& ex romantic partner) Debbie Harry's book No Exit was released in 2019. It's called Under a Rock and it's great. Chris is a quintessential New Yorker. He grew up in Brooklyn and has lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan since the 60s. I loved hearing about the NYC of the 60s and 70s.
I think Chris knew everyone in the CBGBs scene in the mid 70s. There's lots of stories and encounters with people who hung around there.
There is also a lot of interesting stuff to do with the band: the people, the songs, recording, and touring.
There was also stuff about his relationship with Debbie. He also detailed his marriage and kids in the 2000s.
Chris is also well known as a photographer, there's a lot about that in here too.

I have been a fan since 1978 when I first heard Heart of Glass. Blondie remains my favorite band 45 years later. This book was incredible.! Thank you Chris Stein for allowing us a peek into your life and Blondie. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I loved Blondie as a kid in the 80's and still do all these years later and was very excited to be able to read an advance copy of Chris Stein's memoir.

A life well lived is always fascinating to me, and Stein’s memory for small details is incredibly impressive. The writing is fantastic and lends itself to allowing the reader to really visualize the experiences. Not all parts are easy to read, but I appreciated his forthcomingness.

A veritable who’s who from music and art in New York, Under a Rock is wildly engaging. This is a must read memoir that will keep readers turning the pages (I’m also confident that it will be excellent in audiobook form).


*Some of my own favorite Blondie songs include ‘Dreaming’, ‘Out in the Streets’, ‘Will Anything Happen’, ‘Atomic’, ‘Union CIty Blue’, and ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ (also, the very first 45 my husband picked out and got as a kid was ‘Heart of Glass’).


Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for the DRC

Chris Stein, a founding member of the late '70s new wave band Blondie, reveals a large part of the his life as well as providing insight into the early history of the band in his autobiography Under a Rock. The book opens the reader's mind not only to Stein's personal experiences but also into a period of time in American pop culture that influenced the direction of music, fashion, and the art world. In many ways, also, a time that influenced the medical treatment of people addicted to narcotics, a veritably new field for medical professionals then.

There are moments in Stein's book where the reader is so engaged in the narration that it is like actually being there. His descriptions about growing up in Flatbush, Brooklyn with his parents, who then relocated to Midwood in Brooklyn, is relatable to readers who underwent growing pains through their youth. His challenges, with both his parents and school mates, expose a human side to him. His perceptive nature and poignant observations about the people around him personalize his story. Really giving the reader insight into the person Chris Stein is and became.

His telling of his experiences while living as a hippie in the communal collectives and drug dens that riddled San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood during the period of 1966 to 1968 is both creepy and revealing. Stein, at times, will ramble about the people he encounters inside the art world during his time, living and roaming through the Manhattan neighborhoods of Cooper Union, Greenwich Village, Soho, and the Lower East Side during the late '60s and early '70s. Oftentimes losing or overwhelming the reader with the various threads of information he presents to the audience.

He shares with the reader several artists who shaped the direction of music, fashion, poetry/the written word, and art during this renaissance period of pop culture. Such notables in his narration include Vivienne Westwood, Andy Warhol, Halston, Stephen Sprouse, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Robert Fripp, and the Ramones, to name a few. Many times, Stein pressumes the reader knows who he is talking about, when he mentions people that were popular while his fame was rising. It is a different time, and some readers will need to look up these figures on their own because Stein does not explain what made these figures popular.

It is not until half way into the book that reader's discover how Stein met Debbie Harry, and they formed the world acclaimed, popular art rock/punk pop/new wave outfit Blondie. He shares his experiences with the band he founded with Harry, explaining them in a gritty form that shows the time was both stressful and fun. He imparts his wisdom about how he learned to identify con artists, and what is the criteria that helped him to make smart choices for himself.

Under a Rock is a whirlwind read that will open the reader's eyes to a world so unlike the one in present day. But also shows links that readers will discern connect modern day to the heyday of Blondie. Stein's autobiography allows him to step into the spotlight, permitting audiences to connect to him and not just be known as the guitarist in Blondie. He shows he is more than simply the guitarist, part-time bass player and co-writer of songs in the iconic Blondie. His story is very revealing and oftentimes very engaging on a human level.

Founded in 1974 by Chris Stein and Debbie Harry, Blondie was in many ways one of the bands that defined my growing up years as a disabled weirdo with a unique body, larger than life emotions, and a desire to express myself.

"Under a Rock" is Blondie co-founder Stein's memoir, a nothing-spared autobiography that takes us through Stein's early life, through his early creative years, the founding of the band, the band's ascension to the heights of punk/pop/new wave success, and the hazards of having experienced that success.

Stein, who in many ways, probably most ways, was the architect of Blondie's sound, is a natural storyteller with an almost jarring yet always sincere matter-of-factness and naturalness that leaves you occasionally thinking back about a story and being struck by its depth and poignancy and emotional resonance.

Until "Parallel Lines," the band's third album, Blondie was mostly an underground success. While Stein infuses "Under a Rock" with familiar names long before this point, it's about the time that Blondie catapulted to #1 and sold 20 million copies of "Parallel Lives" that we begin to realize the dizzying yet chaotic world in which Blondie lived. Song's like "Heart of Glass," "Rapture," and "One Way or Another" filled households and dance clubs like Studio 54. Throughout all of this time, Stein and Harry with both lovers and best friends whose lives intersected in just about every way. While they would eventually part ways romantically, they remain closest of friends and collaborators to this day even as Stein continues to record with the band yet stopped touring in recent years due to health issues.

For those who grew up during this period, the names will be enchanting from Bowie to Basquiat, Warhol to Ramone. Stein tosses these names out during his storytelling, not in a way that feels like name-dropping but in a way that feels like genuine storytelling with a tone of awe and appreciation and bewilderment. It's the storytelling that truly makes "Under a Rock" such a joy to read, though there are also moments in this book that truly took my breath away as the costs of fame are often high and Stein's own current life, including recent family experiences, can't help but tug at the heartstrings.

A uniquely written tour-de-force, "Under a Rock" is no doubt a memoir that will leave its mark in 2024 and will prove to be mighty popular for anyone whose life found its rhythms in the punk/new wave/pop stylings of Blondie and bands just like them. Stein gives us the inside glimpse, all its glories and all its downfalls.

Refreshing in every way, "Under a Rock" features a foreword by Debbie Harry and commands our attention from beginning to end.

Under a Rock by Chris Stein is a memoir of not just a person but but of Blondie, the band. I was fascinated by the behind the scenes peeks into the soundtrack of my youth and the author's tumultuous relationship with Debby Harry. A truly engaging read. Highly recommend!

Chris Stein, member of the band “Blondie,” has written a page-turning, no holds barred autobiography. He’s not only a talented musician, but a gifted storyteller transporting the reader back to the 1970’s and 80’s. While Debbie Harry defined the band’s look, it was Chris who defined the band’s path and sound, creating one of the most iconic groups in music history. The book drops lots of names, everyone from Andy Warhol to David Bowie, but more than that it brings to life the defining moments of the band’s formation, success, and the pitfalls of superstardom, as well as the time this all took place. Anyone interested in music or the 70/80’s era would enjoy this glimpse down memory lane, but it is an absolute must-read for any Blondie fan.