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Foreign Double Elvis. Guys, you're music fans just like I am. You listen to a ton of music, I'm sure. Like me, it's not often that you consume media, be it a book, an interview in a magazine, perhaps an article on an artist, a podcast. Say the change is the way that you hear music. But that has absolutely happened to me because of this great podcast that I've discovered called you'll hear it. You guys are going to love this show. It's hosted by two jazz pianists, Peter Martin and Adam Manis, who take one legendary album per episode, and they show you exactly what's going on with the music on that record. Not just the stories behind it, but the actual music itself. These guys are great musicians. There's two episodes in particular that blew my mind and gave me way more insight into albums that I thought I knew. Carole King's Tapestry, for one, and Sinatra Live at the Sands, the record that he did with Count Basie. This is one of my favorite records of all time, honestly, like, top five. And I realized in listening to the you'll hear it episode on this record that I barely know about what's actually going on on this album. I had this sneaky take about this record that it was one of the heaviest albums ever made, like, on par with, like, a helmet record or something like that. But I couldn't really articulate why. And after listening to you'll Hear it now, I can. Specifically, the way that Count Basie on Sinatra at the Sands utilizes space in silence to deliberately make everything sound bigger and more full in a way that goes way beyond what was happening when the record was made in 1965. As music fans, we know that what we're listening to is magic. This podcast goes a long way in explaining how that magic ends up on record. If you've ever picked up a guitar or sat at a piano or wanted to pick up a guitar or sit at a piano or any instrument just to mess around, this show will transform how you listen. And if you just love music deeply, like I know most of you do, like I do, it's going to give you a whole new dimension to what you're already hearing. I listened to, like I said, that Carole King episode was great. The Frank Sinatra episode on Live at the Sands is also great. There's an excellent episode on Prince. There's a lot of great episodes here. I could go on and on and on. Check out. You'll hear it. You'll never hear music the same way again. You'll hear it. Music explored Follow the show on Apple, Podcasts, Spotify, or subscribe on YouTube. Hey, Sal. Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy. Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price, and it got delivered the next day. It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about being there, about showing up early, about standing close enough to history that you can feel the heat coming off of it. This is about a woman who found herself in the future watching bands form, watching cultures collide in the world, being remade in real time. Not as a star, not yet anyways, but as a witness and a survivor. This is also the story of an unprovoked attack, about studded belts, bicycle chains and a gun stashed underneath the bar. It's about two marriage proposals and a woman who wasn't about to be tied down. A woman who responded to the chaos, violence and loss surrounding her by making a lot of noise. This is a story about Chrissy Hine from the Pretenders. So of course it's a story about great music. Unlike that clip I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called Are you ready girls mk2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Le Freak by Chic. And why would I play you that specific slice of stranded outside Studio 54 Cheese. Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on January 20, 1979. And that was the day that Chrissy Hines band the Pretenders released their first single, a hard fought, hard won victory for someone who had spent years lurking on the sidelines as the Clash, the Sex Pistols and UK Punk at large were busy being born on this episode. Punk at ground zero. Chaos, Violence, Loss, Survival. The origins of the Pretenders and Chrissy Hyde. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. She was there. She was there in 1972 when the Starman Ziggy Stardust first fell to earth and landed somewhere in Ohio. She was there. In London, 1976, she watched Mick Jones and Joe Strummer meet and play together for the first time. She heard Joe say to Mick, don't do it that way. You'll Never make a dime and she was there when the Clash rehearsed for the first time. The Damned too. Anyone could see they were born to kill. She was there when two members of the Sex Pistols agreed to marry her so that she could get her citizenship in England. And she was there in 1977 at the Roxy when Don Letts, the rebel dread spun reggae and dub records at a punk show. She watched as the culture clashed in real time and in stereo. She was there in 1981 in Milwaukee when the Violent Femmes were just buskers on a dirty street corner waiting to be plucked from obscurity. Chrissy Hein was there when punk rock and new wave took their first steps. But first she was here on the campus of Kent State University in 1970, tin soldiers in Nixon's coming when the crack of discharged National Guard rifles echoed nearby. The scene was chaos, thousands of students refusing to leave. They were thinking of Cambodia as flanks of olive green reflected in the whites of their eyes. Rocks and tear gas soared to the air. Car windows smashed, American flags burned. Garbage cans rolled into the middle of the street, their contents in flames. The ROTC building smolder in the near distance. The guardsmen were up on the hill now. They were outnumbered, but they had the power. They had the M1s. They turned and faced the angry, confused student body. Clarity was coming in the form of a bullet. The guardsmen raised their weapons and then they fired. For 13 seconds, shots rang out, nearly 70 in total. Kent State freshman Chrissy Hein, who was then still going by Christine or Christy or just plain Chris, ran her hands across her arms and legs, assuming she'd be shot. But she was lucky, unlike the four who now lay on the university campus dead, or the nine others who'd been injured by the guardsmen's gunfire. Chrissy Hine was there, but she couldn't comprehend what she was seeing. The disorder, the violence, the death, none of it made sense. And weeks later, it still didn't make sense. But Crosby, Still's, Nash and Young had released a new single, Ohio, a fiery piece of protest music that memorialized the unspeakable things Chrissy and thousands of others had witnessed. The song didn't bring those dead kids back, but it brought a feeling of catharsis to those who had been there. Rock and roll was by definition cathartic. It defended you, it supported you. It didn't impose its will with brute strength or bend you into conformity. And it gave you freedom, if only for 2 minutes and 58 seconds at a time, as was the case with the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song. Even better than a 45 spinning on a turntable was live rock and roll. Later, Chrissy Hine would write, when a band played Time Stood Still. A band was time. It was a big bang. One song after another, these sequential eras or periods of history. Being made a band was creation. The it was life. A life made in God's image. Because God was absolutely a rock n roller. God wore his hair in a quiff and wrapped his tattooed deltoids in a biker jacket. Except on Sundays when he put on a proper suit and tie. But he did it all casual, like the top button of his pressed white shirt unbuttoned, his tie loosened. A band was not only the way of the world, but it was how the world began and how it would end. And Chrissy Hine, for one, would not rest like God on the seventh day. Not until she had a band of her own. Until she was the one making time stand still. Even before she was an adult. Bands were all Chrissy Hine cared about. The other girls could have their boys and their Revlon and all that white picket fence stuff. Chrissy just wanted a Gibson Melody Maker and a copy of the Stooges Funhouse to play along to. But this being in a band business would never fly in Ohio. Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, Cleveland. They all felt like they were stuck in the past. The future was across the pond in London. The only place on planet Earth where somebody like Ziggy Stardust could be conceived. It was September 1972. 21 year old Chrissy found herself walking next to the Starman himself. Immediately after his American debut at the Cleveland Music Hall. Was it fate? Was it luck? It didn't matter. It was opportunity. An opportunity to observe, to absorb, to see firsthand how far freedom simply took style and attitude and badassery. She wasn't one of those groupies. Ziggy knew that. He knew that as he slipped into the passenger seat of Chrissy's mom's Oldsmobile Cutlass. And Chrissy, just 21 years old, took the Starman and his Spiders from Mars to one of her favorite local spots for dinner. Months later, she was still thinking about it. About Ziggy, about English bands, about England, period. She felt the island called to her. The restlessness brewing at her core was switched on. Here in Ohio, she was a known quantity. She was attracted to rock and roll, which meant she was attracted to toughness, to danger, to trouble. Quaaludes were trouble, as were the gang of bikers that circled around her one night like wolves sizing up their prey. But she was nobody's prey. She was no lamb. She was a pack animal just like the rest of them. She could run with the toughest of the tough. She just needed her own gang of outlaws. A gang to get you through, to help you endure and become strong. But Chrissy Hine wasn't here just to be strong. She was here to be free. And soon she was. She was there in 1973, London. All it took was a one way ticket. I remember a time in my life a few years back, really rough patch for me, for my family. We were going through it and it was tough and there was a loss and a lot of us were looking for therapy. We were looking for some help and it was hard in the moment to actually go through the machinations to get the help that we needed. So not only is it hard to find a therapist, it can be extra hard to find a therapist when you're in crisis, because let's face it, most things are hard in those periods. But then finding a therapist who actually takes your insurance, that can be difficult in and of itself as well. That's where most online therapy platforms fall short. Many don't work with insurance at all, which means you're stuck paying the full cost out of pocket, or paying for a massively expensive monthly subscription or something like that. Rula does things differently. They partner with over 100 insurance plans, making the average CO pay just $15 per session. And you're going to get real therapy from licensed professionals at a price that actually makes sense. So think about it. You use your insurance benefits to maintain your physical health, like going to the gym or what have you. So why wouldn't you do the same for your mental health? And Rula, they're not just affordable, the experience is tailored around you. Other online therapy platforms might match you with the first available provider. Whether or not they're the right fit, that's a huge thing when you're going through the process of finding somebody to talk to is making sure that you feel like you're being heard, you're understood, and making sure that you vibe with the therapist. Rula considers your goals, your preferences, your background, and they provide you with a curated list of licensed in network therapists who are actually aligned with what you need. Because Rula knows that finding the right therapist can make all the difference. And they're absolutely right about that. Rula makes it easy. There's no wait list, no frustrating back and forth. They make it easy to find a mental health provider who's accepting new patients and appointments are available as soon as tomorrow. Plus, Rula sticks with you throughout your whole journey here, checking in to make sure that your care is helping you move forward. Thousands of people are already using Rula to get affordable, high quality therapy that's actually covered by Insurance. Visit rula.com disgraceland to get started. After you sign up, you'll be asked how you heard about them. Please support our show and let them know that we sent you. That's all. R u l a.com Disgraceland. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Co. No matter how you do game day on the couch, in the crowd or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non alcoholic beer styles you can enjoy. Bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stock the fridge for tip off with a variety of non alcoholic craft styles. Available at your local grocery store or online@athleticalbrewing.com your beer fit for all times. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home with agents who close twice as many deals. When you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started@redfin.com own the dream Chrissy Heim pushed open the door of the liquor store and stepped outside. Slim button down shirt, vertical stripes open at the collar, untucked. Lived in low rise jeans, metal studs glittered down the legs, dark ankle boots below, and a Keith Richards shock of hair above. Her androgynous second hand attitude was all confidence as she made her way down the sidewalk, the stolen bottle of cheap wine stuffed under one arm. From there she caught the tube, rode it from one stop to the next, wrote it just because there was nothing like it to ride back home in Ohio before finally arriving at where she was now living, a small rented room in a house in Clapham, southwest London. Inside her room she found the few things she'd brought over from the States, a change of clothes, a couple hundred bucks, give or take, and her copy of the Velvet Underground's White Light, White Heat and Iggy and the Stooges, Fun House and Raw Power. She listened to the records for the millionth time and imagined she was fronting the bands. If only it were that simple. Like how some things in the life were right place, right time. That simple twist of fate that another of Chrissy's heroes, Bob Dylan, was writing about somewhere at this very moment. But fate didn't lead her to a band, not yet. Instead, fate led her to the next best thing. Journalists. Music journalists, that is. The kind who fancied themselves a bit like Hunter S. Thompson, fearing little and little loathing only the music they couldn't stand. And who, in 1973-1974 were diligently plying their trade long before Elvis Costello or Frank Zappa or whoever. It was said writing about music is like dancing about architecture. I believe it was actually Charles Bukowski, but there was no dancing around it. Writers at the New Musical Express, aka the NME, aka the premier weekly rock paper in the UK, writers like Nick Kent and Ian MacDonald, were drawn to Chrissy's passion for music and her acerbic American tongue, which would gladly lash out at any fool, Charlton or pompous ass. And in print, no less, it didn't matter if you were Neil diamond or Brian Eno. Nick Kent was drawn to more than Chrissy's tough attitude. The two had barely met when he moved into her place place and they began a relationship. And this happened simultaneously with Chrissy getting hired as a music writer for the nme. But the critic thing was never meant to be. She wasn't one to skulk on the sidelines, to simply observe and report. She was built for the front lines. She just needed to get herself closer to the real action. So when Malcolm McLaren and Vivian Westwood offered Chrissy a D job at their cutting edge fetish boutique on Kings Road, she took the gig in a heartbeat. The shop had been known as Let It Rock, a haven for teddy boys. Soon it would be rebranded simply as Sex. But at the moment they were calling it Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die. The shop was frequented by Chrissy's kind of people. Creative types, outsiders, restless oddballs and schemers. Susie Sue, Adam Ann, John Lydon. If you wanted a psychedelic suit, something Keith Richards would wear, you went up the street to Granny Takes a Trip. But if you wanted leather, rubber or vinyl, if you wanted studs, chains, tip clamps and stilettos so sharp they could slice open an envelope, then you went to Malcolm and Vivian's place. Their shop was ground zero for what was coming. But before punk actually broke, before it was called punk, Malcolm and Vivian's shop was also ground Zero for where Chrissy Hines first major professional and personal relationship in London came to a loud, violent end. Nick Kent was pissed. He burst through the front door at 430 Kings Road, dramatically enough for everyone inside Malcolm and Vivian's boutique to notice him. Heads turned and eyes went wide. Here comes the NME guy making a mad dash for the counter for his girlfriend. Or should I say ex girlfriend, seeing as she had just dumped him like yesterday's news. To Chrissy, Nick was fish and chip paper. Now, Chrissy Hine didn't owe Nick Kent anything. The only thing Nick Kent had given Chrissy Hine, other than a byline, was an std. In fact, she didn't owe anyone anything. Because here in London, in Malcolm McLaren's shop, Chrissy Hahn was a person of her own creation. She was becoming someone that no one back in Ohio would recognize. She was becoming free. And now here came the jilted lover, upset about the breakup or about her leaving the paper, whatever it was. And he was ready to punish her for that freedom. A bewildered customer inside of Sex looked on as Nick Kent reached the counter. Nick's face went beet red. He grabbed at his belt buckle with his hands, fumbling to undo the clasp. And when he did, he then yanked on the belt, pulling it clean off his waist in one fell swoop. The belt was cheap, but it was studded with large coins that could inflict maximum damage if wielded like a whip. He wrapped one end of the belt around his fist and began to swing and the leather smacked the counter and the noise it made was shockingly loud. Malcolm McLaren freaked out and hit the deck, yelling something about a madman. And Nick Kent swung again, this time whipping Chrissy with the weight of the heavy coins on the belt. And Chrissy screamed. She could already feel a welt forming in her periphery. She could now see the bewildered customer mobilizing himself. The customer's fists can came quickly barreling into the melee, and it caught Nick Kent in the mouth. There was a sound of bone and flesh, a flash of blood, and in a blink, one of Nick's teeth tumbled from his gums as he fell backward and hit the floor. He was out cold, but Chrissy wasn't waiting around to see what would happen next. She was already out the door, her heart pounding, running toward the western end of King's Road, where the ghosts of old, old Victorian slums haunted what was known as the World's End. The next morning, the world was still there, but Chrissy Hines role in it had changed again. For a guy who trafficked in shock. Malcolm McLaren didn't quite know what to say, so he said it as best he could. It's too confusing, you working here. It was his roundabout way of saying, you're fired. Vivian Westwood agreed. Too much drama. Chrissy found herself back where she'd started. When she'd first arrived in London. She had no money. She'd made great contacts, but she had no prospects. Worst of all, she had no band. But the stakes were higher now. She could no longer afford rent, which meant she was sleeping on the desks and floors of friends. She had no permit, which meant her very status in Europe was now illegal. She had no other choice. So she went round to all the record labels in town, and because her split with the NME had yet to really be broadcast, she used her press credentials to procure a stack of promotional albums, which she then took to a record store in Soho, sold them all, and then used that money to buy a plane ticket that took her right back to the belly of the most uninteresting, least happening beast. Ohio. You know how to use one of these? The fat man had his stubby little fingers wrapped around the handle of a revolver which he'd just pulled out of a drawer behind the bar at the Hotel Garfield in Cleveland. Like this, right? Chrissy Hines said nothing as the fat man cocked the gun with his leathery thumb. God forbid you ever have to use it. But then again, God help any of these fucking wackos. You have to pull it on. Chrissy's eyes scanned the room and saw a few of these wackos at work, nursing rounds of Johnnie Walker Red well before noon, maxing out their credit lines at a table in the corner with the Garfield's resident bookmaker. It wasn't just the hotel. The whole city was crawling with dangerous types, all of whom had their own itchy fingers on the trigger. She wasn't crazy about the necessity of a gun to 10 bars, but it was a job. The job that paid her 100 bucks a week, A job which also allowed her to sing in Jackrabbit, a local R and B covers band she'd recently joined. They played stuff by the Isleys and the Commodores. Not a dream gig by any stretch, but it was a gig and a band, which is better than nothing. And then fate blew in off the Cuyahoga River. Chrissy was fired from the Hotel Garfield after one of the regulars sold her some grass in the apartment building she lived in, a den of squalor in which one had to climb into the sink to bathe because the actual bathtub was busted, burned to the ground. And then Jackrabbit fell apart like most small time cover bands do. Chrissy was drifting, a complete unknown. Like her guy Dylan would say. Oh, and this is where fate comes in. It came in the form of a telegram. And the telegram read, come to Paris. We'll send ticket, sing in band. We'll be right back after this. Word, word, word. Your little one grew three inches overnight. Adorable. Also expensive. Sell their pint sized pieces on Depop and list them in minutes with no selling fees because somewhere a dad refuses to pay full price for the clothes his kids will outgrow tomorrow and he's ready to buy your son's entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growth, Bird. Budget secured and start selling on Depop where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details. Paris was a red herring. The gig was real. The band was real. It all came as advertised. But this particular gig, this band, this moment, it wasn't right. It turns out that it was just fate's way of luring Chrissy Hine back to Europe. Because as soon as she bounced from the City of Light and went back to London town, that's when everything started to happen. That's when Chrissy Hine found herself nearly becoming a member of not one, not two, but three seminal English punk bands, only to miss each opportunity to just slightly. She had no one to blame or thank for it all other than her old boss, Malcolm McLaren. It was 1975 or thereabouts, and McLaren knew that Chrissy Hine had it all. The fuck you attitude, the get fucked swagger, the fuck off fringed miniskirt and the tongue in cheek fuck men. Valerie Solana's scum manifesto T shirt that she'd cribbed from his store. He never knew if she'd actually paid for those things, but that vibe of the badassery was part of her allure. Just months earlier, when Chrissy was back in Ohio, all pathetic and pitiful like a dog with a tail between his legs, McLaren had actually written to her. He offered to pay her airfare if she returned to London to join a new band he was forming. But if Chrissy was one thing, besides being tough and restless, she was loyal. And at that moment, she was loyal to the podunk R and B cover band that she was in. And now here she was, watching the band that Malcolm McLaren had assembled, the Sex Pistols, as they began their noisy crusade of anarchy across the uk. And that, my friends Is band number one that Chrissy Heim maybe woulda, coulda, shoulda been in maybe if she hadn't been almost 4,000 miles away at the time. Now onto band number two. McLaren was nothing if not a man of opportunity. Following the creation of the Pistols, he presented Chrissy with a new opportunity. He introduced her to the guitarist Mick Jones, who was looking for a songwriting partner. Chrissy and Mick went to his apartment, guitars in hand, trading chords, trading vocal lines. Chrissy came into her own, with Mick sitting across from her. She was finding her voice, finding like minded souls. And maybe, maybe it would have worked, Chrissy and Mick in a band together, if only John Graham Mellor, AKA Joe Strummer, had not walked into the picture and changed everything in an instant. Joe Strummer couldn't even play guitar as well as Chrissy. But even she had to agree, the chemistry, the way that Joe's grittiness balanced Mick's sweetness, was undeniable. And that, folks, was the Clash band number two that Chrissy Hine nearly helped launch. Which brings us to band number three. Malcolm McLaren was persistent. Next, he introduced Chrissy to a bass player named Ray Burns and a drummer named Chris Miller. The trio called themselves Masters of the Backside, which. Yeah, I know. And they jammed in a church hall for some friends, mostly the Sex Brain Boutique crowd. But no sooner was that performance over than Ray Burns started calling himself Captain Sensible and Chris Miller was now going by Rat Scabies. And before she knew it, Chrissy had been dropped by the guys who were about to be known as the Damned. So as Punk Band 3 soldiered on without Chrissy Hine in their ranks, Chrissy was feeling that familiar sting of deja vu. No work, nowhere to live but an illegal squat. Trying not to take it too hard that she was always the bridesmaid and never the bride when it came to banns. But wait. Oh, shit. That was it. The Bride. What if she could literally be the bride? The bride of an Englishman, that is, so that she could be granted citizenship and could therefore prolong her time abroad. It was a goofy enough proposition that John Lydon, AKA Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, agreed to do it when Chrissy asked. But that was just a few days before the Pistols blew up. Now they were the talk of the town, courtesy of a scandalizing, profanity laced appearance on British television. John now had a reputation to protect, or something like that, which was the excuse he gave Chrissy when he backed out of the whole thing. No matter. Chrissy knew she could convince Sid to Do it. Sid vicious was 19, not yet a member of the Sex Pistols. But everyone who went to shows knew Sid. Sid had the look, he had the sneer. He was skinny Elvis on skid Row. Sid walked the walk at a pistol show. Again, before Sid was in the Sex Pistols, Sid walked that walk right up to one Nick Kent, Chrissy's ex, and also also in ex Pistols of sort, having allegedly rehearsed with an earlier version of the band only to now talk shit about them in the nme. Sid was a staunch defender of his friends in the Sex Pistols, especially when some failed musician turned hack writer had to go. So Sid looked Nick Kent right in his eyes. I don't like your trousers. Kent laughed. Was that supposed to scare him? Nah, thought Sid, scaring him. Well, he. That's what this was for. Sid then produced a bicycle chain which he proceeded to use to beat Nick Kent with mercilessly. Chrissy had to admit it was pretty funny watching Sid Vicious tune up the guy who once attacked her at her place of business. So she took the wiry punk down to the local office to tie the knot. But the place was closed. Bank holiday going back the next day was out of the question because Sid was was due in court to answer for his involvement in another violent altercation, this time for throwing glass that shattered and cut a woman's eye during a show by the Damned. And so it continued. Living illegally, living unfulfilled, living in neutral while the rest of London's movers move forward. At this point, Chrissy knew all the players moving around, even if she wasn't one herself. There was DJ Don Letts spinning reggae and dub 45s for the punks down at the Roxy. There was Lemmy Kilmeister, leaving Hawkwind, forming Mortarhead, shifting into a higher, meaner gear and getting higher not through sheer ambition alone. Amphetamines helped. Lemmy was the only one in town tougher than Chrissy. But how, Chrissy wanted to know. How do you stay tough when you couldn't get anything going? She laid out her sob story to Lemmy like he was some kind of guru on the mountaintop. She had all this opportunity, all this right place, right time, but no simple twist of fate. Lemmy didn't sugarcoat it. Who told you it was gonna be easy? Tough was tough. That was the message. The soft are all back in Ohio. Chrissy watching the city slowly turn into parking spaces. Lemmy told Chrissy what she needed, needed to hear. He also told her the name of a drummer she should track down, a Guy called Gas Wild tell him, let me send you. And with that, time was no longer in neutral for Chrissy Hine. Time was about to stand still. All right, discos. Earlier in this episode, I mentioned how Chrissy Hine discovered the Violent Femmes back when they were an unknown band busking on the streets of Milwaukee. Some say that it was the Pretender's guitarist, James Honeyman Scott who actually did the discovering. But it doesn't matter. The story of how the Violent Femmes were given their first shot at the big time by Chrissy Hine is wilder than you think. And I just didn't have enough time to get into it here. But if you want to hear that story, you can do so right now in this week's brand new Disgraceland mini episode, which is available exclusively for our All Access members. To become a member of All Access, where you can not only hear this mini episode, but also get ad free listening and other exclusive content like our video podcast, this film should be played loud. Just go to disgraceandpod.com for more details and sign up today. All right, now back to our regularly scheduled programming and the conclusion of our Chrissy Hines story. The drummer known as Gas Wild did not share Chrissy Hines toughness. He did share her fondness for the high life. Uppers, downers, coke, smack, weed, whatever was going around. But he tended to let the high life get the better of him more often than not. Luckily for Chrissy, Gas Wild also shared something else before he was sacked. The name of a bass player he'd once toured with, Pete Farndon. He looked like Dwayne Eddy by way of the Hell's Angels. Well, maybe that's a bit hyperbolic, but he looked the part. And he was as much an in the pocket bassist as Gas Wild was a loose cannon. Pete also happened to know a guitar player looking for a gig, James Honeyman Scott. Jimmy was tight, fast in this futuristic rockabilly thing or whatever his style was. It didn't sound like anyone else. And both those guys just so happened to know a drummer who could fill the empty stool left by Gas Wild. A human rhythm machine with great new nuance named Martin Chambers. The moment that Chrissy, Pete, Jimmy and Martin got in the same room together and tore through one of Chrissy's original songs, Precious, Chrissy had to turn and face the wall so as not to betray her own toughness and show her hand. She was laughing. She was laughing because she had never heard such a beautiful, perfect sound in her life. She was laughing because she knew she had finally gotten what she'd wanted ever since she'd left Ohio for the first time five years prior. A band, her band and her band was playing her songs, songs she'd written while trying to get something going with Mick Jones and Captain Sensible and all those other guys. Songs that weren't built around traditional verses and bridges and choruses. Instead, Chrissy songs were built around attitude and defiance up the neck, the weight, private life. They were confident songs, songs written by a person who knew her place, even if that place had been denied her for years. They had hooks as heavy as a coin studded belt or a bicycle chain. And mostly they felt real, even if the band performing them were now calling themselves the Pretender. Pretenders. With the connections Chrissy had built up over the years, the Pretenders went into the studio first with the great Nick Lowe, who produced their version of the Kinks deep cut Stop youp Sobbing. The song was released as the Pretender's first single in early 1979, just weeks before Chrissy's one time near husband Sid Vicious died of a fatal hotshot. But I digress. Stop your Sobbing did Well, cracking the UK top 40. But it didn't yet reveal the true power of the Pretenders. Soon the band were back in the studio, this time with producer Chris Thomas, whose stacked resume included the debut album by Chrissy's friends, the Sex Pistols. By the end of that year, the Pretender's self titled album was ready but first. In November of 79, ahead of the album's January release, the band put out another single, An Earworm called Brass in Pocket. The song was an instant hit in the uk, riding up the charts where it was still gaining traction on Christmas Day, when for the first time in nine years, tragedy struck too close to home. The house was on Endel street in Covent Garden, London's West End. It was a proper house, not a squat with a shared filthy kitchen or a sink that doubled as a bath. She had a mattress and she had order and routine. She paid rent each month. Chrissy lived on Endel street with two housemates, two fellow creatives, a typesetter, Steve Mann, and an artist, Kevin Sparrow, who designed album artwork for bands like the Stranglers and Eddie and the Hot Rods. Chrissy wasn't home on Christmas Day that year. She was at a friend's house where she was celebrating the holiday and also the fact that the song that she had written and performed was actually heating up the charts. Kevin wasn't at home either. He was at another friend's place and it was at that other house that Kevin Sparrow's body was found on Christmas, dead with lethal amounts of whiskey and heroin in his system. Only two weeks later, Brass in Pocket hit number one in the uk. For Chrissy, the achievement was bittersweet. Trying to wrap her head around all this sudden success after years of trying, years of lurking on the sidelines, and now once again trying to make sense of something that made no sense. Disorder, death. It was like Kent State some nine years prior, a moment of crisis turned cathartic by the music of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. And now Chrissy was creating her own outlets for catharsis, her own music, her own words. The music promised freedom for the feelings she couldn't explain away. Eventually, Chrissy would express her own catharsis in a song for Kevin. But that would be years later, after the losses had begun to pile up, after the pretender's original lineup had been reduced from 44 to 2. But that's another story. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. All right, thanks for checking out this Chrissy Hine episode of of Disgraceland. This is an easy question of the week for us guys. Who's the most badass female musician in rock and roll? I mean, it's hard to think of somebody other than Chrissy Hine, although there are a ton of candidates. But Chrissy kind of broke the mold. Get at us and let us know your choice. 617-90-666638 voicemail and text or Disgracelandpod on the socials. You might hear your answer on the upcoming episode after party. If you want to support the show, you can do so very easily by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, and you might win some free merch by doing so. And if you want more Disgraceland, you know where to find it. Become an All Access member. Get exclusive content and ad free listening, including our new video podcast. This film should be played loud. Go to Disgracelandpod.com to sign up. All right, here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member. 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