richard hell - pioneer or silly old fool

Maybe one day I will read his memoir, which I was reminded of again on one of the other threads.

It's really good, in maybe even preferable to Patti Smith's Kids. For the most part, I enjoyed her book, but I didn't like the mythologizing and Hell's memoir felt like a good antidote for it.

There's a new version of Destiny Street that's just been released on vinyl - Nick Zinner remixed it I think?

Has anyone heard that?
The reissue on Munster Records that I bought 20 odd years ago is the heaviest album in my possession, 220 grams!

lol I already bragged about that >4yrs ago I see

ha, i think i have some other Munster release thats 220, what was up with that?

's really good, in maybe even preferable to Patti Smith's Kids. For the most part, I enjoyed her book, but I didn't like the mythologizing and Hell's memoir felt like a good antidote for it.

yeah, Kids left me cold for just that reason. Hell's is lighter on the self-mythologizing, although in a few places he goes too far in the other direction - theres some demeaning stuff about his sex conquests that i found unnecessary. but its a good read. I actually got a bit more out of his crit collection Massive Pissed Love though.

looking at this thread i see i missed the 40th anniversary blank gen set? i never thought richard hell of all people would be one of those artists where i would be buying copy after copy of their same releases over and over

He seems like a smart guy but the music leaves me cold and I hate hate hate the sound of his voice. Maybe I should give one of his books a chance.

The Blank Generation deluxe edition contains a song named "Oh", recorded with the reunited group in 2001. It must have the worst vocal I've ever heard on an official release by anyone, I can't believe he thinks it was adequate. Not that his singing was ever his selling point.

I didn't like "Oh" either, just as I didn't like Destiny Repaired but it's kind of understandable. I can't be too optimistic when he suddenly comes back decades later and cuts a record.

Anyway, he's a great figure in rock, but he wasn't necessarily a great recording artist. I think his first EP, the Blank Generation LP, and a handful of additional recordings collected on Spurts: The Richard Hell Story are genuinely great records, but they didn't come easy to him - it's still debatable as to whether he actually improved Blank Generation when he chose to re-record a part of it. His only other LP was compromised by his poor health. I wish he had a larger body of work, but I don't blame him for getting out of music because he's lucky to have survived. The only times I've ever seen him around NYC were for film-related events, and he's a good film critic - for a year or two, he had a film column in magazine that may not be around anymore. At the time, I didn't know much about him outside of his musical career, so when I first saw him, I was kind of taken aback by how happy and healthy he looked. Charming and hilarious, it actually made me happy that he was in a much better place.

Blank Generation is a favorite record of mine, but a lot of what makes it great for me comes to those players and that moment - its Quine's best moment as well as Hell's imo

It's interesting, there's an Ivan Julian documentary on Amazon Prime (kinda low budget, not amazing but an interesting look into the guy's life) and I was reeeaaallly surprised that a good amount of the really memorable guitar parts I credit Quine with in my head were Julian

in 1993, while working at Razor & Tie, I supervised a reissue of Destiny Street and got to know him a little bit… he retained 0 rights with respect to anything that could be done with it; the label licensed it from Red Star, i.e. Marty Thau, who possessed the deepest, most pronounced Noo Yawk accent I've ever heard to this day… Hell viscerally despised Thau, but not so much that he wouldn't cooperate with us in putting this thing together… one time I met with him at De Robertis, that bakery on the east side of 1st avenue, where he pitched me on putting a tentacle porn comic he had written in a fold out of the reissue…"uh, that's quite an idea Mr Hell!" I stammered/chuckled, "but I think he need to pass on that! would you be interested in writing some notes about the songs?" He did.

He was super pleasant and friendly the entire time. I also went to his apartment a couple of times; he lived in the same building on 12th street as Allen Ginsberg…he did indeed look very healthy at that time, in fact he was quite handsome, and when I saw him for years after —although I lived on 4th and 1st ave, very near where he lived, for 16 years, I never decided to engage him, and he never recognized me— almost every time he was with a very very beautiful woman many decades his junior. I guess he is pretty singular as a guy that really doesn't feel any motivation to be a performer…I don't remember very much about Dim stars…and it does seem that he stayed clean since the very early 80s.

I have never listened to Destiny Repaired, i.e. the result of his decision to replace the work of Bob fuckin' Quine of all fucking guitarists with that of Frisell and Ribot, and for that matter am bewildered that Ribot and Frisell would consent to do such a thing in the first place. It's not like there's something truly wrong with the initial record!

and before all this, growing up in misfits-besotted louisville, a few times I played Blank Generation in the presence of some of my buddies… and so, just cuz you wear your die die die my darling leather jacket everytime you leave the house doesn't mean you can handle Trout Mask Replica or The Modern Dance or indeed Blank generation.

oh wow awesome post thank you for that

WOW yeah great story - the comic idea is o_0. Agree that the destiny st repaired thing seems pointless and baffling, i never had any interest in it.

i had a friend in publishing who told me in the 2000s he used to throw proofreading & editing jobs Hell's way from time to time and said he was always super nice & easy to deal with and happy for the work, no matter how piddly or small the gigs were. he strikes me as one of those folks whose rep as a notorious curmudgeon is maybe overblown or out of date a bit.

i actually don't mind the repaired or remixed versions — but yeah, they are ultimately unnecessary. Destiny Street the OG album is great! Actually, the best thing about the newest Destiny Street collection is the inclusion of the 1978-1980 material (demos, singles etc). It's all shown up elsewhere I think, but presented as a whole it's like another awesome quine/julian lineup LP.

fuck man! i've spent the past two days listening to lou alums i never owned –I really like growing up in public, and take no prisoners is hilarious but I feel justified in not investing in Sally, R&R heart and Coney— but I'm gonna listen to that next! Reed/Quine/Saunders/Maher is one of my favorite bands to have ever existed…

aw man those are all great! I've been immersed in them as well this week, coincidentally

(Sally, R+R H, and Coney)

My friend argued that Sally Can't Dance is the best Bad Album of all time, but that discussion should maybe wait for a Lou thread.

ooh yes please, revive

I re-watched Desperately Seeking Susan recently, and recognized Hell as the sugar daddy in the opening scene; guess I didn't know who he was when I saw it in the past, cool cameo.

(wow, some other cool people also turn up in it - I knew about Ann Magnuson, but not some of these others.)

in 1993, while working at Razor & Tie, I supervised a reissue of Destiny Street and got to know him a little bit…

great story, thanks for sharing!

ok just cracked my copy of the new destiny st restoration/remix and seeing that 3 of the tracks are still the 'repaired' ribot & frisell versions, wtf? liners explain that he only found most of the original multitrack tapes... this fuckin guy, he got me again...

i dont even have a problem with the frisell/ribot guitars themselves, i like them, but the 2009-era vocals sound super out of place when mixed into the context of the other 1981 cuts. here are these wild feral tracks of a "small combo playing real gone rocknroll", interrupted every so often by a 60something man with a completely different vocal range and his adult daughter stepping in for a karaoke interlude. its just so weird that hes so obsessed with replacing those original guitars at any cost - he's got to know thats not a winning trade. i guess i can make a playlist slotting in the old tracks, but man, didnt see that coming.

Yeah, it's frustrating, but at least the original mix is on there. Before this, the album in general was OOP, so it's nice to have it all in one go and (hopefully) not have to buy it again...or maybe they'll find the last multitrack and finish remixing the whole thing?

Quine's guitar work on the OG title track is so goddamn good, what kind of savage reworks that? SO baffling.

I know I've posted elsewhere about how this promo sampler EP changed my life. Two songs apiece by Dead Boys, Talking Heads, Saints, and Richard Hell. I was living in my first apartment, with a roommate whose favorite band was Pure Prairie League, when I discovered it. He hated everything about it, but especially "Betrayal Takes Two." I don't know if he hated the vocals or the guitar more.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FWave-Rock-Roll-promo-sampler%2Fdp%2FB002TDWXNI&psig=AOvVaw0r0qyymHVlEgj10bKCNRCw&ust=1613681934943000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCLjYvPDn8e4CFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

Stupid Amazon. This:

https://jamesostafford.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/new-wave-gatefold.jpg?w=829

I used to own that!! I think I mentioned that previously as well, I remember you bringing that up

What’s the easiest way to listen to Destiny Street (Unadulterated) these days if one’s physical copy has long gone missing? Asking for a friend.

Get the new double CD reissue from Omnivore. The original album is on there and it's never been mastered better in the digital age.

The "repaired" version is on there too, and the new mix which (though better mixed) unfortunately uses a few "repaired" cuts for the songs that didn't have the multi-tracks available, and it has a demo version that's nice to hear...you may not want any of those, but for the original album, Omnivore's reissue is still the best place to hear it.

Thanks!

I see. First it’s the original album then repaired then remixed and then finally the demos.

Great thread, thx. Omnivore also has DS Remixed and the Hell-inclusive CBGB Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (alas not a doc, but soundtrack might be good?) http://omnivorerecordings.com/richard-hell/

Also, somewhere I prob still have something, legit, I think w live RH x VoidOids in London---liner notes say that the encore-demanding chant is led by Rotten, and sure sounds like him in there.
Also, I hopefully still have his ROIR tape, described by xgau (basically right, except the limitations might well have more to do w notoriously iffy ROIR normal-bias Radio Shack cassette quality, bearable though it is) :

R.I.P. [ROIR, 1985]
Supposedly the farewell of annotator Lester Meyers to his alter ego Hell, this fourteen-song all-previously-unreleased compilation begins with Johnny Thunders in New York, ends with Ziggy Modeliste in New Orleans, and preserves seven new songs and eight new Robert Quine cuts. What could be bad? you ask perspicaciously, and yet I'm a little disappointed. Only Fats Domino's "I Live My Life" and a painful lament for a masochist groupie called "Hurt Me" would improve Blank Generation or even Destiny Street, and the alternate versions alter nothing. Recommended to Walkpeople. B+ Fuck grades, it ain't bad.

Haven't read the memoir, but I better, judging also by xgau's take:This counterpoint of modesty and self-regard is the essence of Hell's charm. He's an embodiment of hipster cool who explains why he isn't cool at all: "I'm cranky under pressure, I'm a mediocre athlete, I get obsessed with women, I usually want to be liked, and I'm not especially street-smart." Immediately after declaring himself king, he qualifies the claim: "the crown was mine largely by virtue of my appreciation of the realm and because I hated royalty." In this second instance, I should add, Hell's modesty is false flat-out even if you extend the "appreciation of the realm" part to his immersion in the neighborhood and its artist denizens--he was especially devoted to the New York School poets, in particular such second-generation obscurities as Bill Knott, Tom Veitch, and future uber-agent Andrew Wylie. Basically, Hell was king because he'd generated a sensibility so many could emulate and run changes on. Only the Ramones were as seminal, and they were half cartoon. https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bn/2013-03.php

the Hell memoir? it's superb, def recommended

Yeah, just finished “Tramp” & wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in Hell, the 70s NY scene, or punk in general. I don’t know how reliable a narrator he is, but it feels almost overly even-handed & def added some colour to my understanding of the milieu.

News update from Hell's site:

http://richardhell.com

JANUARY 2022: There's now up an astounding video from 1974 of the original Television lineup, playing Tom Verlaine's "Hard on Love" on a tiny stage in a New York club (not CBGB), when Richard was not only in the band, but singing and writing many of the songs and heavily influencing the group's style. This period lasted about six months before Verlaine had fully succeeded in changing the direction of the band, dropping Hell's songs from the setlist, insisting that band members stand still on stage, and reverting to ordinary hipster thrift-shop streetwear, rather than the various stylistic concepts Hell had conceived. No denying that Verlaine is stunning in the clip though. What a band. There's speculation that the gig is from late May at the Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. (The band's very first gig was in March.) What we do know is that John Lennon saw it in September because he remarks on it during an interview in Melody Maker as he watches it on local TV that month (Sept. 14 issue). This is also the version of the band that initiated CBGB, thrilled Malcolm McLaren and Patti Smith, and made Robert Quine think that perhaps there was a place for him in rock and roll after all. You can see the clip (and read what Lennon said, in the uploader's intro text) at YouTube. Pair it with the veryearly Ork loft rehearsal tapesand you can see what the excitement was about in 1974, and where punk began...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLlhYiN4gmU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcGEcB5M4es

Warner/Rhino has just released a new limited edition (5000?) of the 2017 remaster of the Blank Generation (1977) album, now on translucent blue vinyl...

https://earwaxrecords.net/UPC/603497842681

Richard's writing some additional booklet-text for a new release of the Blank Generation on CD, which will use the original album's cover and the original album's tracks (the 2017 remasters), but present a mixture of the original CD booklet's contents and newer text and graphic material. It will be released by org music in late spring or early summer...

https://orgmusic.com

please tell me "newer graphic material" = his tentacle porn comic from upthread

incredible, thanks so much xp

Hell's notes for the 2017 reissue spelled out the narrative behind the lyrics to The Plan, which I'd never really cottoned on to before, and which is boundary-pushing to a degree that is, for me, a colossal turn-off.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/how-richard-hell-found-his-vocation?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Interesting interview about his whole life, Tom Verlaine, visual art, poetry (new book of his coming ),

from New Yorker

New York was in such bad shape that it was a Wild West frontier town, and lawless, and no one was supervising anybody, but at the same time there was an endless fund of jobs and cheap apartments, and it still had all the cultural things—great movies, bookstores, bars, music. But the ironic thing is, in a way, that situation of New York as the Wild West in the seventies and early eighties is libertarianism, where it’s every man for himself. You look at John Lydon and he’s a Trumpist, so in a way being nostalgic for that is wishing for the strong to survive.

Now, after a long hiatus, he is publishing a book of new poetry, “What Just Happened,” written during the lockdown months of the covid-19 pandemic, with original images by Wool. (A reading and signing event pegged to the book’s release will take place on July 6th at White Columns gallery, in Manhattan.

Does the article address how he has supported himself for decades? I've honestly always wondered.

Not really. Mentions his books and his living situation. Hell has written two novels (1996’s “Go Now” and 2005’s “Godlike”), and an autobiography (2013’s “I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp”). He also published a collection of his early journals (1990’s “Artifact”), an anthology of critical essays (2015’s “Massive Pissed Love”), a compendium of early poetry, short essays, and drawings (2003’s “Hot and Cold”), and a collaboration with the painter Christopher Wool, a friend of Hell’s (2008’s “Psychopts”).

Hell, who is now seventy-three, still lives in the same East Village walkup tenement he has been occupying since 1974, with his girlfriend, the novelist Katherine Faw.

he owns his apartment, for one thing -- he made a wise choice to buy it when it was cheap. also he sold his archives to NYU for a nice chunk of change.

How these fringe acts earn a living fascinates me.

Indeed.

Katherine Faw's homepage does not sport your typcal author's photo.