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Richard Hell

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Richard Hell (born October 2, 1949) is the stage name of Richard Meyers, an American singer, songwriter and writer, probably best-known as frontman for the early punk band The Voidoids. Their 1977 album, Blank Generation, contained many elements that would become identified with punk, from the nihilism of the title track (a play off of Rod McKuen's 1959 spoken-word song Beat Generation) to the frantic energy of the anti-romantic anthem, "Love Comes in Spurts", though the album itself does not have what has come to be known as a punk sound.

Hell was an originator of the punk fashion look, one of the first to spike his hair and wear torn, cut and drawn-on shirts, often held together with safety pins. Malcolm McLaren, designer of the Sex Pistols, has said Hell was the inspiration for the Sex Pistols's look and attitude, as well as the safety-pin accessorized clothing McLaren sold in his London shop, Sex.

Since the late eighties Hell has made his living primarily as a writer, publishing two novels, as well as several other books. He's also the film critic for BlackBook magazine.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Hell grew up in Lexington, Kentucky in the 1950's. His father, who came from two lines of German Jewish 19th-century immigrants, grew up in Pittsburgh, and was an experimental psychologist (he didn't treat patients, but did laboratory research on animal behavior). He died when Hell was seven years old. Hell's mother came from Welsh and English, Methodist, farmers around Birmingham, Alabama.

Hell attended a private boarding school in Delaware for one year (the 11th grade) where he became friends with Tom Verlaine of Television, who was known as Tom Miller then. 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 become a writer. In the late 1960's, Verlaine joined Hell in New York and they eventually formed the Neon Boys. Their 1973 self-titled single is arguably the first punk song. Not long after, they changed their name to Television.

Television's performances at CBGB helped kick-start the first wave of punk bands, inspiring a number of different artists, notably Patti Smith who wrote the first press review of Television for the Soho Weekly News in June of 1974, 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.

In 1975 Richard 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 started playing his song "Blank Generation" during his stint in Television.

Hell left Television the same week that Jerry Nolan and Johnny Thunders quit the New York Dolls and they 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. A year later, in early 1976, Hell quit the Heartbreakers and started The Voidoids with Robert Quine. Richard Hell and the Voidoids' best known songs were "Blank Generation" (the title track of their original album), "Love Comes in Spurts," "The Kid With the Replaceable Head," and "Time" (title of a 2002 Hell collection, from Matador, of outtakes, unreleased, and live material).

Hell met and married Patty Smyth, formerly of the band Scandal, in 1985 and they had a daughter, Ruby. The marriage did not last beyond two years, and Smyth (who is not to be confused with Patti Smith), married tennis star John McEnroe in 1997 after living with Don Johnson for many years. Ruby lived with Smyth and Johnson and then Smyth and McEnroe, but frequently visited Hell.

Hell, like Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan, was a notorious heroin user. Smyth also used heroin but she and Hell had quit drugs shortly before they met. As described in his published journals, Hell had a drug relapse in the early '90's but has been drug-free since then. He doesn't drink or smoke.

The last of his musical work to date was in the band Dim Stars in the early 90s. Dim Stars was considered something of an "indie supergroup", featuring as it did Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth, Gumball's Don Fleming and some songs featured former Voidoid Robert Quine. They released one album and one EP, both called Dim Stars.

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.

He was married to Sheelagh Bevan in 2002 and lives in the East Village, New York City.

[edit] Discography

The Voidoids:

Richard Hell:

  • Funhunt (1989)
  • Time (2002) [which is a much-expanded version of R.I.P. (1984)]
  • Spurts, The Richard Hell Story (2005)

Dim Stars:

[edit] 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).

[edit] External links

[edit] References

he:ריצ'רד הל pl:Richard Hell pt:Richard Hell sv:Richard Hell

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