richard hell - pioneer or silly old fool

xxxpost
Japanese trailer for a 1980 film by Ulli Lommel? Starring Hell as a punkrocker, haha. Never heard of it before.

xpost there ya go :)

cartoon review of recent dvd issue. really makes me want to see it :)

yah

Okay, I used to have the DVD. The Japanese trailer was confusing because it titled it Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation as if it was a documentary.

I saw him "host" the 5 under 35 Festivalin Brooklyn last fall. He seemed pretty damaged and it was sort of hard to understand what he was saying.

Libby Edelson at Ecco has acquired the memoir of Richard Hell, the punk icon who retired from music in 1984 to focus on his writing. It is called I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp.

Mr. Hell is the man behind such tunes as “Blank Generation” and “The Kid with the Replaceable Head.” He was co-founder of the band Television, but left in 1975 after creative disputes with fellow songwriter Tom Verlaine. He went on to found the Voidoids with former members of the New York Dolls.

Since 1984,he has written the novels Go Now and Godlike, as well as the essay collection Hot and Cold.

“Writing this book was complicated and fraught,” Mr. Hell said in a statement, “and took a long time, but all that melts in my pleasure at being taken on by this great publisher.” He also mentioned Ecco’s “do-it-yourself” roots. The press release about the memoir mentions “endless nights with club denizens,” “encounters with literary luminaries like Susan Sontag” and “a long procession of vividly evoked girlfriends.” And heroin.

Rain Taxi published a chapter of this as a chap book earlier this yr (or late last yr) and it was very good, I have high hopes for this book.

Can't believe this is the only thread him, christ on a crutch.

That DVD was worth seeing for footage of the Voidoids but the movie overall was kind of lame. RH complains about the director for pretty much the entire length of his commentary.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dNaY%2BPmQL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
looks like this is finally coming out. next march. will read!

first chapter: http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/HARPE-Image/idreamediwasaverycleantrampexcerpt.pdf

Ooh cool. I loaded that on my phone for my train ride tonight!

*prepares self for verlaine bashing*

*though probably not in the first chapter*

dean wareham reviews the new memoir - http://thetalkhouse.com/forum/view/dean-wareham-richard-hell
anyone checked the book out yet?

it's a good read. lucky in love, that guy. he personalized my copy at an in-store: "I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp Panhandling From Jeff."

I saw him read from it just as he was finishing it at Cake Shop. With Colson Whitehead and a few other people. He was all humble about doing a reading, feeling out of place in this literary world, regardless of how small the event was. And he got really choked up, read two passages about Tom Verlaine and was in tears.

wow no kidding! those guys should just hang out and get a cup of coffee or something. they probably live two minutes away from each other.

there is a passage at the end of the book about them bumping into each other recently at a used book store.

The book is really great & maybe in a strange way, what all of his work has been leading to

Yeah, that passage about them at the bookstore is what he read. He was literally crying. Totally not punk.

punk rock died the day richard hell cried at a book reading

what, in his telling, happened at the bookstore?

(i am assuming tv was a cold dick to him)

Meaning to read this soon. Perhaps will vacate the thread to avoid spoilers.

OK, hung around to read the Dean Wareham review since I recently read his book and figured he'd be kind of the perfect person to weigh in and he is.

i saw hell cry once too. they had a memorial event for robert quine at the cbs gallery. hell sang his song "time" accompanied by ivan jullian. very emotional moment; tears down his face. at heart he seems like a nice guy.

Yeah, his relationship with Quine is kind of telling. Obviously they had their ups and downs but he really seemed to like the guy and when Quine passed away, I remember reading Richard's reminiscence in which he really made an effort to paint a portrait of his old buddy, whereas Quine's other famous collaborator, well...

whereas Quine's other famous collaborator, well...

??who?

Hint: It's not Andre Williams to whom I am referring

oh duh lou unless matthew sweet is an unheralded asshole i guess

It's a really good rock memoir - really forthright and honest and self-aware and mostly surprisingly humble. Nice clean writing too.

There's a bit in the book where he becomes aware of the Sex Pistols - "Four guys who look just like you" someone tells him - and I expected him to go into a rant about how he was robbed, but he goes on to articulate exactly why the Sex Pistols became huge while he's something of a footnote.

It fizzles a bit toward the end, naturally.

What a horndog though. Jeez louise.

totally gonna buy this

At Book Court tonight

Report back if you are going, please

Was walking right by when I typed that but I couldn't make it.

there are 2 films titled Blank Generation. How is the one RH wrote/acted in?

http://www.bam.org/film/2015/blank-generation

Not great, but good performance footage if you dig the Voidoids.

Lots of scenes of RH broodily walking around NYC at night, iirc.

Reading at Book Court in about half an hour.

Did you go? How was it...

Walked by beforehand but couldn't go unfortunately

so in the great destiny street v destiny street repaired debate - for a first timer with this rec its obv going to be the first one right? repaired got some decent reviews

There's a bit in the book where he becomes aware of the Sex Pistols - "Four guys who look just like you" someone tells him - and I expected him to go into a rant about how he was robbed, but he goes on to articulate exactly why the Sex Pistols became huge while he's something of a footnote.
― brio, Thursday, March 21, 2013 8:09 PM (three years ago)

I thought Malcolm Mclaren had wanted him to come over and front the band before Johnny Rotten turned up. So surprised he'd only hear about them once they were up and running. Obvioulsy his priorities at the time might have been different and he might have been more focused elsewhere.

Is it in England's Dreaming where several of the first wave UK punk bands are trying to make the direct nicks from Hell material in their songs once he's turned up in the UK?

I know i read it somewhere anyway.

What a timely revive, as I just read this 1997 PFS interview with Quine where he talks about the McLaren offer (talking about '75-'76):

After about a year, he'd come over to my house and listen to records. He was quitting the Heartbreakers at that point. He wanted to have his own band. He had an offer from England from Malcolm McLaren. We would have been the Sex Pistols. He wanted us to go there to start a band. I don't know why that didn't happen.

I was not aware of a repaired Destiny Street! Will check it out. At 220 grams, the Munster reissue of the original is the heaviest album I own.

Err, the "he" in that first line refers to Hell, to be clear.

Yeah I think the story is that Mclaren had these 2 yobboes i.e. Steve Jones and Paul Cook coming into his clothing shop to attempt to shoplift clothing. They'd been playing together for a while and wound up with the shop's Saturday boy Glen Matlock joining them on bass but they didn't have a frontman cos Jones didn't like his voice. But Mclaren was interested in seeing what he could do with them.

So even with it just being Hell, as I thought, there would have been some duplication of instrument players. Hadn't realised Quine was supposed to be part of the same deal

Can't imagine Malcolm McLaren wanting someone looking like Robert Quine anywhere near any band he was involved with.

Looks like the sourcce for taht info is an interview with Quine for Perfect Sound Forever that's been up for years.
I don't remember taht bit of it but it has been about a decade plus since i remember reading it.

That interview is an ur-text.