Blog: My Clem Burke Story Story

With the recent sad news about the death of the amazing Clem Burke, lots of people have come out with STORIES about the great man. I don't have a story about him, but I do have a story ABOUT a story that was vaguely related to him, which I should like to recount for you now.

Like so many of the gentle folk we know as "drummers" he LOVED drumming, to the extent that he had ended up playing GIGS with a Blondie tribute band called Bootleg Blondie. Here he is talking about it, and also another project he was working on with them.

As stated above, such was his enthusiasm for ROCK that he had also got involved with Bootleg Blondie writing some NEW songs of their own and they ended up writing LOADS of songs about London In General for a proposed ROCK OPERA. However, what the video above doesn't tell you is that they did this BEFORE thinking of an actual STORY to go with it, and that is where I very very slightly entered the scene.

For LO! Clem Burke was pals with someone who works at UAL, and they were pals with somebody else that I know there, and this person knew that I'd done some WRITING in the past so suggested that they get in touch with me to see if I had any suggestions about a STORY. To be clear, I sadly never met Clem Burke or Bootleg Blondie (which is a SPOILER for how this all turned out!) but I DID have a couple of chats with the lovely UAL person, and came up with some THORTS about how the story might work.

The main issues, as far as I could see, were that a) the songs were all generally about London itself, without anything to link them and b) neither Clem Burke nor Actual Blondie were involved in their writing, so there wasn't a particular HOOK for Producers. However, I thought there MIGHT be something in the whole idea of COVER VERSIONS and revisiting the past to learn about the future and so I came up with the following PITCH which I am DELIGHTED to finally share with people!

HISTORICAL RECORDS*

This is a story about how exciting it can be to discover the sounds of what's gone before, but also about the dangers of trying to cling slavishly to a vision of how things used to be. The "hook" here is that this is also the story of a Clem and The Booties - coming together through something wonderful from the past, but then creating something new for themselves out of the experience.

Earth in the far future. After centuries of flooding the oceans have finally receded and a team of alien archaeologists have arrived to excavate the ruins of the strange civilisation that was buried by the rising sea.

They discover a series of ancient relics from "London", which they don't understand. A tube roundel is clearly "for religious purposes", declares Professor ZPENG, their leader.

Young researcher FNONG scans it with a Retrovibatron, an alien device which restores the item by reviving its core essence - in practical terms, it generates a song related to it which makes object like new. So here, the roundel is returned to its old glory, and a song about London emerges.

Excited by this discovery they keep digging. They find a street sign for Denmark Street and then a Mary Quant dress and do the same process. For every item ZPENG comes up with a theory about its religious significance, and then FNONG uses the Retrovibatron to tell the real story whilst making the object like new.

As they interact with these songs and stories the aliens are gradually changed. ZPENG becomes obsessed with accuracy, trying to exactly recreate the past and always getting it wrong - wearing clothes upside down, using a guitar for the religious ceremony "Cricket" and so on. FNONG falls in love with the joy of the songs and the humans who made them.

ZPENG insists his version is correct, and so FNONG decides to prove him wrong. She finds an urn marked "Dave" - could this be the original "humans" who lived here? She uses the Retrovibatron and, to her surprise, the urn smashes and an actual human emerges. DAVE.

Unfortunately DAVE is a bit of a twit, who knows almost as much about the real world as ZPENG. He's also a climate sceptic, who insists the whole world being flooded was just a bit of bad weather.

FNONG keeps coming up with items and songs that reveal the truth, and ZPENG and DAVE fight back, each finding their own items to use the Retrovibatron on. DAVE is particularly keen on getting a working toilet going.

Finally they come to blows and, in the heat of battle, turn the Retrovibatron on each other. Suddenly whole new songs emerge about them - the adventures they've had together, the discoveries they've made, and who they are themselves.

Reunited by the power of this realisation - that they have their own stories to tell which have as much value as anything from the past - the aliens leave the earth in search of new adventures. The spaceship takes off full of anticipation and happiness.

There's the sound of a toilet flushing, and DAVE wanders in. "Where is everybody?"

*better title needed!

What's that you say? "Space aliens? WHO WOULD HAVE THORT?!?" Yes, I know, it is a radical departure from my usual OUVRE but I thought it might work!

It will come as NO surprise to anyone to discover that this was NOT what anyone was after, which is more than fair enough, but I was still disappointed that I never got to go to the pub with Clem Burke to talk about it. Still, it was lovely to have very slightly brushed up against a genuine ROCK LEGEND, especially as an adjunct to a project born out of that MOST wonderful and DRUMMERLY instinct to Just Make Some Music. We should all do more things like that!

posted 8/4/2025 by MJ Hibbett

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