Information AboutRichard Hell |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT RICHARD HELL | |
| 1949 births | |
| living people | |
| american singers | |
| early punk groups | |
| pre-punk groups | |
Richard Hell (born October 2 , 1949 ) is a professional name of '''Richard Meyers''', an American singer, songwriter, Bass Guitar ist and writer. He is probably best-known as frontman for the early Punk Rock band Richard Hell & The Voidoids . Their 1977 album, '' Blank Generation '', influenced other early punk bands. The title song is cited as being among the top ten punk songs, for instance, in the book ''Rough Guide to Punk'' (2006), by all the various early British punk figures polled in the book. These British punk-scene figures were: Glen Matlock, original Sex Pistols bassist and composer of most of their music; Mark Perry, founder and editor of the first British punk fanzine, ''Sniffin' Glue'', as well as founder of punk group Alternative TV; Geoff Travis, founder of Rough Trade, the main British punk record shop and early label; and Kris Needs, editor of ZigZag magazine and its famous Rock Family Trees. "Blank Generation" was the only American song listed by all four polled. Hell was an originator of the Punk Fashion look, the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with Safety Pin s. “Kentucky born Richard Hell deserves credit (or blame) for originating much of the punk imagery and style associated with the London scene” --The New Rolling Stone Album Guide by Nathan Brackett, Simon and Schuster (2004), p 373 "He Hell even gave an artistic spin to his torn shirt and cropped hair look, soon to be imported to England as the emblem of punk." --Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club: Popular Music and the Avant-Garde By Bernard Gendron, University of Chicago Press (2002), p. 252 Extensive documentation of Hell’s ripped and drawn-on and safety-pinned clothing, spiky short hair, and “punk” musical style as it existed in 1974-1975 (one-two years before English punk existed), with descriptions of Hell by Debby Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie, and Richard Lloyd of Television as well as the book’s author--From the Velvets to the Voidoids by Clinton Heylin, Penguin Books (1993), pp. 120-125 Malcolm McLaren , manager of the Sex Pistols , has said Hell was of some inspiration for the Sex Pistols ' look and attitude, as well as the safety-pin accessorized clothing McLaren sold in his London shop, Sex."I came back to England determined. I had these images I came back with, it was like Marco Polo or Walter Raleigh. I brought back the image of this distressed, strange thing called Richard Hell. And this phrase, 'the blank generation.' {Link without Title} Richard Hell was a definite, 100 percent inspiration, and, in fact, I remember telling the Sex Pistols, ‘Write a song like Blank Generation, but write your own bloody version,’ and their own version was Pretty Vacant.’”--Malcolm McLaren in an interview in Please Kill Me, the Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain, Grove Press (1996), p. 199 (Members of the Sex Pistols dispute this.) Since the late eighties Hell has devoted himself primarily to writing, publishing two novels, as well as several other books. He was the film critic for '' BlackBook '' magazine from 2004-2006. BIOGRAPHY Early life and career Hell grew up in Lexington , Kentucky in the 1950s . His father was an Experimental Psychologist , researching Animal Behavior . He died when Hell was seven years old. Hell was raised by his mother, who, after her husband's death, returned to school and eventually became a Teacher . Hell attended Sanford Preparatory in Delaware for one year (the 11th grade) where he became friends with Tom Miller (later Tom Verlaine )."We'd met at a little school right outside of Wilmington. It was a mediocre boarding school, co-ed, called Sanford Prep. I'd been sent there because I'd been getting in trouble in school since I was fourteen, and things were looking pretty dire {Link without Title} I arrived a little after the start of the school year of 1965-1966, when I was in the 11th grade."--Richard Hell (describing how he and Tom Verlaine met) in the first chapter of Hell's autobiography-in-progress, as published in Vanitas magazine #2, 2006, p. 153 They ran away from school together and were arrested in Alabama for Arson vandalism a short time later. Hell never finished high school but moved to New York City to make his way as a poet. In New York he bought a used table-top offset Printing Press and began publishing books and magazines under the imprints ''Genesis : Grasp'' and then ''Dot Books''. Before he was twenty-one his own poems were published in numerous periodicals, ranging from Rolling Stone to the New Directions Annuals. The Neon Boys, Television, and the Heartbreakers In 1969 , Verlaine joined Hell in New York and they eventually formed the Neon Boys . Their 1973 demo tracks of "Love Comes in Spurts" and "That's All I Know (Right Now)," later released by Shake Records, were arguably the first punk recordings. In 1974 the band added a second guitar player and changed names to Television . Television's performances at CBGB helped kick-start the first wave of punk bands, inspiring a number of different artists including Patti Smith who wrote the first press review of Television for the ''Soho Weekly News'' in June of 1974. She had an affair with Tom Verlaine, and formed a highly successful band of her own (the Patti Smith Group ). Television was the band that convinced CBGB owner Hilly Kristal to book rock bands at his club, and they built its first stage. Hell started playing his song "Blank Generation" during his stint in Television. In 1975, Hell split (or was fired from) Television after a dispute over creative control. Hell claimed that he and Verlaine had originally divided the songwriting evenly but later Verlaine favored his own songs. Verlaine remains characteristically silent on the subject. Hell left Television the same week that Jerry Nolan and Johnny Thunders quit the New York Dolls and the three of them formed a band called The Heartbreakers (not to be confused with the later Tom Petty band). After a few shows Walter Lure joined as a second guitar player. The Voidoids A year later, in early 1976, Hell quit The Heartbreakers and started Richard Hell & The Voidoids with Robert Quine , Ivan Julian , and Marc Bell . The band released two albums, though the second, Destiny Street , was a less successful lineup that retained only Quine from the original group, and suffered from Hell's distractions, narcotics especially, during recording, as he himself has described. Richard's best known songs with the Voidoids were "Blank Generation" (the title track of the group's original album), "Love Comes in Spurts," "The Kid With the Replaceable Head," and "Time". Dim Stars and Hell's books and further life Hell's only other album set to date was in the band Dim Stars , for which Richard came out of retirement for a month in the early '90s. Dim Stars was considered something of an Indie Rock Supergroup , featuring as it did guitarist Thurston Moore and drummer Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth , Gumball 's guitarist Don Fleming as well as some guitar playing by Voidoid Robert Quine. They formed only to record the one album (written and recorded in three weeks) and one EP, both called ''Dim Stars'', and they never played in public. Hell played bass and sang lead vocals and wrote the lyrics for the album. In 1996 Hell wrote a novel, "Go Now", that was drawn largely from his own experience, and released a collection of short pieces (poems, essays and drawings) called ''Hot and Cold'' in 2001. His second novel, ''Godlike'', was published in 2005 on Dennis Cooper 's Little House on the Bowery Series on Akashic Books. Hell's archive of his manuscripts, tapes, correspondence (written and email), journals, and other documents of his life was purchased for $50,000 by New York University 's Fales library in 2003. Hell was married to Scandal's Patty Smyth for two years, 1985-86, and they have a daughter, Ruby. (Smyth is now married to former tennis star John McEnroe .) Richard married Sheelagh Bevan in 2002 and lives with her in the East Village, New York City. DISCOGRAPHY The Voidoids:
Richard Hell:
Dim Stars: TRIVIA Hell had a non-speaking cameo role as Madonna 's murdered boyfriend in the 1985 film '' Desperately Seeking Susan '', but he starred in director Susan Seidelman's prior movie ''Smithereens'' ( 1982 ). Richard Hell & the Voidoids covered 'Walking on the Water' by Creedence Clearwater Revival on their debut album Blank Generation . In turn, Hell's 'punk' version of 'Walking on the Water' became an inspiration for a new generation and was covered in 1984 by Hedda Gabler . REFERENCES
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