Friday March 29th 2024

RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS

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RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS

 

Richard Hell & The Voidoids, along with The Avengers from San Francisco, are my two favorite punks band from the early era and probably of all time. Richard Hell was and is, as he still lives in the same East Village apartment, a New York based musician/writer/poet. I think of him as the second coming of Lou Reed in a way. Both New York based, both literate, both kind of tough, city writers.

Hell gave up music long ago and The Voidoids only made two studio albums in their time but the first one, “Blank Generation” is one of my favorite albums. Hell was originally in the band Television who also created a very influential first album from the era.

Hell did not record on that album but was the original bassist who sang a little and wrote some songs but clashes with the leader Tom Verlaine who he founded the band with caused him to leave.
He was briefly with The Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunders band, but soon realized he had his own vision and did create a band that was quite different from either of his two previous bands.

The Voidoids might sound a little odd to someone today but the music certainly had punk spirit, punk vocals and punk lyrics (which meant at the time, “we’re all gonna die and the world will explode but who cares”). The music though was more avante-garde, almost like Captain Beefheart if you’re familiar with him with lots of twists and turns, rhythm changes and the wild and adventurous guitar of Bob Quine (one of my favorite guitarists of all time).

The band also featured Ivan Julien on guitar who ended up with the Patti Smith Group and Marc Bell on drums who later became Markey Ramone.

I supposed I should mention that Television was the first punk band to play CBGB’s and get the ball rolling. And though, musically, it was The Ramones, that started punk- visually and in style it was Hell.

Malcolm McClaren, who managed The Sex Pistols, was always involved in fashion and owned a shop in England selling clothes. He had visited New York City for fashion business was blown away by seeing the New York Dolls and ended up managing them in their last days. After the band broke up he returned to London with the idea to start up his own band, really with no more ambition than to have a band wear his shop’s clothes as advertisement. He “borrowed” the whole safety pin with clothes from Hell and in fact, wanted Hell to come to England to be the lead singer in his band but was turned down. One can only imagine if it was Hell and not Johnny Rotten leading that band!

Richard Hell was always a literary/poetry kind of person and returned to that which he still creates in. He has a website richardhell.com if you want to check out what he’s been up to. But he had great lyrics, great delivery, gutsy bass playing and his band was talented with lots of energy and the songs had the nihilistic, who gives a fuck attitude that fit the times.

Probably his most popular song at the time, “Love Comes In Spurts’ starts with a great, totally dissonant guitar lick and then some propulsive drums rolls. Some great lyrics: “And it murders your heart they didn’t tell you that part,” Meaning if you were lucky enough to be told “the facts of life” all the drama and pain is never explained- that’s for you to experience and learn. Great solo which sounds like what Jimi Hendrix would have sounded like had he lived and became a punk of which I’m certain.
“Oh, no! It hurts!

RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS
Love Comes In Spurts

 

“Who says it’s good to be alive? Same ones who keep it a perpetual jive.” Hell questioning the validity and worth-fullness of life. I love how he equates life with being addicted, “Users can’t just see the horror/Tell one if you want to bore her.”

RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS
Who Says?

 

“Though we assume sublime poses, deep in passionate hypnosis.” “New Pleasure” though thriving with energy almost has a drugged languid quality because of the vocals. It also features a rather tame Chuck Berry-ish solo by Mr. Quine.

RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS
New Pleasure

 

Actually I wrote too soon, “Blank Generation” is probably his best known tune. “I belong to the blank generation/ and I can take it or leave it each time.” This song fits in well with the “I don’t believe in anything, I don’t care about anything” vibe of the time. Though as he would explain it, he meant it be left as an open question- meaning you could fill in the blank with whatever you want.

It does feature a familiar chord change which you can hear in “Hit The Road Jack” by Ray Charles and “The Passenger” by Iggy Pop and countless others. Not one of my favorite tunes by him but kind of an anthem from the time. Here’s them live from a movie.

RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS
Blank Generation

 

“Down At The Rock N Roll Club” which is my favorite song by him and which I’ve written a complete essay about which is on our site so I’ll be short. I just want to reiterate that this song always reminded me of The Rat and I recently found out he wrote it about CBGB’s. This is the original which is faster and far superior to the later version that is now put on the album.

RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS
Down At The Rock N Roll Club

 

These are all songs from the first album though the second album has some great stuff, too. If you listen to the live “Fun Hunt” which is on youtube you can hear fun versions of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by Iggy Pop and “Crosstown Traffic” by Hendrix (yes, a punk rocker he would be).

Richard Hell was a founder of punk and like our great forefathers of America, like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, he has spread his seed across the land to inoculate all the growing stems of freedom, to fertilize the eggs of liberty.

You see, this is the kind of nonsense and worse that my Aussie friend has to put up with on-line who I met through Richard Hell’s site.

Ariel is a young musician/singer who is influenced by some of our mutual artists we love such as Hell, Lou Reed, The Cramps and so on but she has a different style she can call her own.

I want to publicly apologize to Ariel for my drunken transgressions. And I urge you all to check out Hell. Or as we’d say back then, “Who cares.”

 

(Slimedog)

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