The Sex Pistols and Frank Carter paid tribute to Clem Burke last night when they dedicated their show in Sydney to the Blondie drummer, who sadly died earlier this week.
“Good evening Sydney,” Carter said at the beginning of the show. “Very quickly I just want to take a moment to dedicate this show to an amazing man and a friend of the lads, Clem Burke. An incredible drummer who sadly passed away yesterday.”
He continued: “Tonight is for Clem and it’s for friendship.”
Of course, one of the Pistols – Glen Matlock – was a long-time colleague of Burke’s. The bassist played in a later Blondie line-up and both men were in Iggy Pop’s band for a while. In 2011 they were in a group called The International Swingers, a kind of alt-rock supergroup that also included members of Generation X and Twenty Flight Rockers.
Matlock paid tribute to his friend with an Instagram post: “Such a sad news couple of days. What a drummer, what a friend, what a guy. Will miss you big time mate,” he wrote.
Burke’s death from cancer was announced on Monday. Not just another member of Blondie, he was one of the greatest drummers of his era, a musician with a powerful style who always placed his talents in service of the song.
In a 2023 interview with NME, Matlock remembered that he first met Burke when he played a one-off gig with Sid Vicious at Camden’s Electric Ballroom in August 1978. “Blondie turned up as a band, and I think that’s when I met Clem and Debbie (Harry) for the first time.
“What I thought was quite sweet about them was that when bands go on tour and have a night off, everyone tends to filter off somewhere – but they always seemed to be out and about as a band. I thought that was good.”
The drummer was the one who recruited Matlock to the Blondie line up back in 2022. “He said, ‘We need a bass player’, I said, ‘I thought you got one’, he said, ‘It’s not working out, can you come over?’ I thought he meant in a couple of months but he said, ‘No, next week’. I said, ‘Ah, let me think’.
“I did overnight and I knew I should. I’ve worked with Clem on loads of things over the years – some alright, some a bit hair-brained – but we play well together and I love Blondie’s material.
"They’ve got a great body of work and they always seem to push the envelope somehow, slightly. They also have good basslines.”
