richard hell - pioneer or silly old fool

For those who think McLaren, Rotten et al. invented Punk Rock, it should be duly noted that "Blank Generation" predates "Pretty Vacant" rather significantly.

Anyway, Richard Hell was New Wave, not Punk. Mad props for Go Now which I read at least twice a year to remind me why I don't want to be a musician.

There's a terrible "Deconstructing Punk" documentary that's the added attraction on the Filth and the Fury DVD, and he comes off as very intelligent, realistic, good-natured,. Not fogeyish at all. Unlike nearly everyone else in the film. But--The junkie beatnik routine was always a bit tiresome. And I find his vocals irritating now. I didn't back then. The band's great, though. Quine's a god.

Too bad they suck at it. *ducks*

You guys can have this dubious honour as punk is really credited with saving our beloved music industry. Thanks a lot.

I thought it had been conclusively established that, despite punk's arguable provenance, Hell at least invented the ripped-t look as a self-conscious "look."

By the way, don't sleep on Destiny Street from 1982. Lotsa covers, but they're pretty good covers (see "I Can Only Give You Everything"), and the album also contains Hell's best song/creative swan-song, "Time," and lots more tasty Bob Quine guitar strangling.

Oh, is *THAT* what makes someone "new wave"? The colors? Silly me, I thought it had something to do with the music and the people involved.

which is fucked up.

Next to Punk Rock, they WERE comparatively bland. That doesn't mean they sucked (at least not the Furs), it just means that they weren't quite as exciting as the Punks.

I originally said this joking, but kind of thinking there was something in it, but now I'm really believing it.

"stray cat strut" sounds a lot like "blank generation". maybe that fits in with your your colors/rockabilly/bomp/new wave free association experiment.

voidoids = sonically v.bland (on record) compared to "survivor", but so does all new york "punk" except dolls who are glam

no new york = difft matter, tho DC are rhythmically superior to all but bob burt era s.youth when i saw em at ica in 1982 (= best live show i evah saw)

the thing that makes me laff most abt "PLEASE KILL ME" is that Hell made (te prettier) RICHARD LLOYD wear the T-shirt!! Now that IS punk: more if someone actually had...

Or do I mean less?

Re: New Wave. Please, nobody quote Claude Bessy. Thanks.

Damn, no coke for me.

i kid you not bet Hell heard this and ripped if off

no that there's anything wrong with that...

i kid you not bet Hell heard this and ripped if off

There's an MP3 of "Beat Generation" here.

By the time Richard Hell got around to playing with the Voidoids, he'd already been in two of NYC's seminal punk bands; Television and Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers. The fact that he got kicked out of both bands before they put out records doesn't change the fact that the guy was punk to the bone, ur-punk, proto-punk, like Iggy or Joey Ramone. If ya can't dig that you need a bigger shovel, kid.

Track down Television or The Heartbreakers doing live versions of "Blank Generation" or "Love Comes In Spurts" - if the Voidoids' versions sound "new wave" to you, it was just Hell trying to keep up with the times. Matter of fact, The Heartbreakers' "One Track Mind" is "Love Comes In Spurts" with different lyrics. But you've probably never heard the original mix of L.A.M.F. (not Revisited, and not the Lost Mixes - the original mix on vinyl), one of the most perfect pieces of punk pooped out of NYC's steaming backalley... Plus Robert Quine is among the greatest guitarists, ever, so tread gently with the Voidoids slagging....

Good sources on Hell are Lester Bangs' Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung (couple of good essays, pro and con, on Hell there) and Clinton Heylin's From The Velvets To The Voidoids.

I bought Blank Generation when it came out and was somewhat nonplussed, those guitar lines sounded more like Beefheart than the Ramones, but eventually I learned to love it.

We discussed Hell's writing on a Lester Bangs thread last year, he wrote THE BEST tribute I guess on the 20th anniversary. Skimming the gruesome Go Now made me glad I never did heroin.

What's on that anthology?

ha, this!

yeah would love a R. Hell review of the new rolling stones, haha. He might convince me to listen to it!

Loved his latest book of poetry / musings.

https://naimapublication.com/issues/issue-1/richard-hell-tomverlaine

that feels honest enuf. not sure how else to aasess. i mean, i enjoyed readin it.

short and sweet — obviously he went into great detail about the relationship in Clean Tramp. amazing they never buried the hatchet and just went and had coffee sometime. they pretty much lived around the corner from each other for the past 50 years.

It is very much in the spirt & style of the recent book of poems in this sort of amazingly understated poetic voice he's cultivated

That’s great, thanks.

I was thinking about some variant of this kind of thing in my own situation recently, earlier today actually, won’t hijack the thread with the details, but really like his approach to talking about it.

in the spirit of the new beatles song, why don't they take the unfinished recordings for the 4th tv album, have hell write the lyrics and take the vocals (maybe using bootlegs as a baseline for melodies/lyrics), and have lloyd and ripp do the leads and backing vocals? you heard it here first. i claim a share of the profits. (joke, joke. what profits?)

lovely piece by Hell, you just want to put an arm round him and give him a hug, don't you?

am sure for years he just imagined there was no way tom would go first

It looks like a finished version of what he had at the reading I posted about, and yes, you kind of wish a friend would give him a big hug. The main body of the text was done when I saw him, and it had an immediate effect on him as soon as he started reading.

in the spirit of the new beatles song, why don't they take the unfinished recordings for the 4th tv album, have hell write the lyrics and take the vocals (maybe using bootlegs as a baseline for melodies/lyrics), and have lloyd and ripp do the leads and backing vocals? you heard it here first. i claim a share of the profits. (joke, joke. what profits?)

haha, if the goal is to make verlaine spin in his grave, it's a guarantee

just seems like a great way to reunite the clan. the whole mishpocha.

aw i love this

i like how messy their relationship is; that they started out being symbiotic & almost inseparable & became two opposable magnets

i hope writing about it like this at least gives hell some more peace somehow, as he alludes to in the final note

i sorta went thru life not taking hell srsly in ignorance and welp

I feel like I say this all the time but I always liked the way he talked about somebody like Robert Quine, as opposed to the way Lou Reed supposedly treated him.

Someone asked him about Quine at the reading, and it was clear they were close friends to the end, right through Quine's overwhelming grief over his wife's passing.

Speaking of Quine, there is a great poem in the new Hell book that mentions him and Thunders and some of his other CBGB friends, the piece is untitled but you can read it here https://caesuramag.org/posts/eight-poems-from-what-just-happened-richard-hell, scroll down to “I miss Sabel Starr and Elliot Kidd”

RH cut new vocals for some of Destiny street as part of the partial remix/recorded reissue. I'd pass on a new Television LP with his singing, lol

this is nicely put, and true (from I Miss Sabel Starr and Elliot Kidd)

I never thought a person’s
era was all that significant to consider
about them, but it is. There are things
only the people who were together
young, in the time, can understand. And
who else is there to laugh about it
with? No one. Maybe
it’s just as well — we do tend to kind
of get twisted with age.
Half of us would have problems with
most of the others. Did at the time.
It’s all a mess.

Hey there’s some heavy Lou Reed referencing in another of those poems.

i got Hell’s autobiography for xmas :D

i’m only halfway through but i don’t want it to end. dreamy and detailed and wistful (sidebar: also wow he is singularly obsessed with vaginas isnt he lol jeez)
the stuff about him and tom is so so good, as expected

yeah that book is great, pairs well with Patti Smith's "Just Kids"

yeah otm
god i love Just Kids, and def has the same vibe - i’m going to reread that next

i liked the autobio a lot but the sex stuff does become a bit ott. iirc there were a few bits towards the end where he goes a little too far in the telling imo, and appears to make a point of naming names in a way that seems to cross the line into being unnecessary and demeaning to the people in question. but that was my only quibble. wish he would do another one that picks up where it left off.

i think his overwhelming horniness overrides his sense of propriety in most cases

i don’t know why i am so forgiving in Hell’s case?

it reminds me of writer Danielle Henderson describing listening to Van Halen: (paraphrasing) the lyrics are total sexist garbage like any other glam metal group and SHOULD make me furious but somehow the personality and panache and sexiness is so over the top and the music fucking rocks so I have to crank it up louder please don’t make me explain why

richard hell is david lee roth i guess is what I am saying

*long loud record scratch*

As a dude of a certain age I can find it a bit crepey but not really going to argue with anyone who doesn’t seem to mind it.

i really can’t account for why it doesn’t bother me when it normally absolutely would

The book was really enjoyable and I especially liked what little he was able to write about his father - I knew little of his upbringing so it was all new - but it definitely threw me to see him write in a leering way. It reminded me of Nicolas Cage’s monologue when he hosted SNL - you kind of wish an editor would have also taken him aside and have a little talk.

i liked the autobio a lot but the sex stuff does become a bit ott.

Not read the memoir yet but I remember Go Now was steamier than I was prepared for as a teen (and also dark as fuck).

circling back after re-reading patti smith, one of the great throughlines of both Hell’s and Patti’s books is the whole subculture of ny booksellers and used books etc, they both talk about in a lot of detail & i really loved it

like patti finding flipping rare books to make rent etc

and of course tom verlaines book collection and ongoing sales kind of a post script for that whole world et.

Richard usually doesn't post about politics on his website's "What's New" section (it's usually about his own work or print appearances) but given the past two weeks, he's had to make a big exception. Succinct and straight-to-the-point.

Interesting

He's giving another reading, this time in his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky.

You need to get tickets, but they're only $12 and they haven't sold out yet. (FYI per Institute 193's IG account, last time they had a reading, tickets sold out pretty quickly.) He'll also do a Q&A and book signing afterwards.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/richard-hell-favourite-bob-dylan-song/

New post from his website:

Some more dubious and, in this case, illicit photos of Richard from his trip to Paris to walk for fashion house Enfants Riches Déprimés (Depressed Rich Kids), here at his fitting in the apartment of the fashion business's owner and designer, Henri Alexander Levy. Illicit because Hell agreed to the unplanned shoot only on condition that the pix couldn't be published without his permission. He did not grant permission. He likes some of the pictures though.

dude is still a handsome mfer

Forgot to post this, but Hell's doing readings and book signings on the West Coast to promote the New York Review Books Classics publication of his 2005 novel Godlike as well as his 2023 book of poems from Winter Editions, What Just Happened...

Should be March 9 at Elliot Bay Book Co. in Seattle, March 11 at Powell's Books in Portland, March 13 at Green Apple Books in San Francisco, March 16 at Stories Books in L.A., and March 19 at Beyond Baroque in L.A.

hey bird, did you see him last night in brooklyn? he read the first two chapters in godlike and a smattering of poems including the one on verlaine. he looked well.

Yes! He seemed pretty happy and so friendly. I mentioned him reading the poem about Verlaine 2 1/2 years ago but he was still grieving then - this time, he seemed very much at peace.

And you can tour his apartment:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/04/realestate/richard-hell-east-village-apartment-tour.html

apartment tour is fascinating. feel like I read that he bought another apt in the same building at some point and turned into a duplex. still looks like a classic east village pad, complete with bathtub in kitchen. his book collection is one of a kind, would love to spend an afternoon or two browsing. and he looks DAMN good, hope I'm half as well-preserved at 78 (which isn't all that long from now tbh.)

oops age 76 but still

Here's a bypass link I saw elsewhere for those of us lacking a subscription to the NYT

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/04/realestate/richard-hell-east-village-apartment-tour.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Q1A.3T2X.28da6nSoqJyx&smid=url-share

I definitely remember that duplex detail from somewhere as well

love the apartment article so much

I have been in that apartment, in the sense that in 1994, he buzzed me in, i walked up to whatever floor it is, he opened the door, I walked in, we conversed about the reissue for Destiny Street he and I were working on, he handed me something germane to the reissue, I said "thank you, talk to you soon" and went back to the office, or my own apartment on 7th street. Couldn't really scrutinize what it was like. But for sure I could tell it was unusually capacious for the neighborhood. Like, vastly so…

What I can infer is that he bought both units when the getting was good, but in terms of the maintenance that any other owner of such a property would keep up on w/r/t a sale at some point, he doesn't bother with it. He's not going to sell it, he's going to die there, and it does what he wants it do, he doesn't need to see to every crack in every corner…

"deferred maintenance" in real estate lingo, yes, haha I just fixed a broken (interior) window in our house after 25 years