Dec 14

Richard Hell

RICHARD HELL
 
 
Richard Hell  (born Richard Lester Meyers) is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist, and writer.  Richard Hell was an innovator of punk music and fashion.  He was one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins.  Hell was in several important, early punk bands, including Neon Boys, Television, and The Heartbreakers, after which he formed Richard Hell & The Voidoids.  Their 1977 album Blank Generation influenced many other punk bands.  Its title song was named “One of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock” by music writers in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listing.  Since the late 1980s, Hell has devoted himself primarily to writing, publishing two novels and several other books.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Punk and new wave were almost interchangeable terms before long, and some of these bands definitely had a foot in both camps:  The hotbed of punk rock in the early days was the CBGB club in New York City, but the house band there almost from opening night, Television (one of the great guitar bands) is now viewed as one of the earliest new wave bands, even though their original vocalist and bass player Richard Hell would leave the band to form one of the punkiest bands of the time, the Voidoids.  
 
(April 2010)
 
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Allmusic gives The Richmond Sluts 4 stars and says of the Richmond Sluts that “they explored the glam-slam-thank-you-ma’am side of punk”.  Jo-Ann Greene comments about their inventiveness on the album in ways that are a little beyond my capacity to figure out:  “Since categorization is a necessity in this age of overspecification, punk rock will do nicely, but doesn’t begin to encompass just how cleverly the group churns other genres through its blender.  The Sluts connect the dots between ’60s garage punk and old school ’70s style, then toss just a dash of new school into the mix.  Variations on this recipe reverberate across the album, and answer a slew of niggling questions along the way.  Ever wonder what the [New York] Dolls would sound like covered by a psychedelic band?  Kept up at night trying to imagine a cross between the Cramps and the Velvet Underground?  Curious what the result would be if a time warp sent Richard Hell circa 1978 a decade into the past?  And what if Eddie & the Hotrods were really the Ramones with English accents?  The Richmond Sluts answer all these brain teasers and more you’ve yet to even imagine, and they do it without an ounce of pretentiousness or braggadocio.” 

 

(June 2014)
 
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In seemingly no time, the music scene was crowded with top bands and artists whose work has held up well over the decades since, among them Patti Smith Group (whose debut album, Horses came out before Ramones, in December 1975), Television, Richard Hell, the Heartbreakers (the punk band not Tom Petty’s group, though he was a part of the scene as well), Talking Heads, the Dead Boys, Blondie, the Clash, the Cars, Elvis Costello, Pat Benatar, Joy Division, the Specials, the Go-Go’s, the Police, etc., etc., etc. There were so many that rock critics and others began distinguishing bands in the safety-pin set as “punk” and others that were less confrontational as “new wave”.  
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After New York Dolls broke up in 1977, David Johansen released the well regarded “Animals Medley” and later reinvented himself as Buster Poindexter. Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan left New York Dolls in the spring of 1975 and formed the punk rock band the Heartbreakers with future Voidoids frontman Richard Hell,  
(December 2016)

Last edited: April 3, 2021