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RICHARD HELL |
 This
is not the first Richard Hell comp I’ve ever reviewed, and it
probably won’t be the last. Seems like every couple years, the gods of
rock n’ roll really want me to fuckin’ LISTEN to that wretched
Hell/Thurston Moore Dim Stars shit, as if this time around, it’s
gonna sound like something more than self-indulgent East Village
grandpa-punk crony-ism. Well, it does not, but at least this time, Hell
himself has picked all the tracks, and explains, in the copious liner
notes, why they deserve your ears. So you got that going for you. Also of
note here are the two pre-Television tracks, the original-original
versh of “Love Comes in Spurts” and “That’s All I Know (Right
Now)” by the Neon Boys, circa 1974. Decent, pumping, garage-punkers
both, with the prototype herky-jerk howling from a very young Hell. The
comp quickly fast-forwards to the ripped t-shirt era that made him sorta-famous
(“Chinese Rocks” from the Heartbreakers days, which he
claims were his happiest, musically speaking, and eleven (!) Voidoids
tracks, from both the ’77 and ’82 albums, including, of course, “Blank
Generation” and the ‘classic’ version of “Spurts”. And then the
friggin’ Dim Stars, this time with a bonus, lengthy, noisy take on T
Rex’s “Rip Off”. Plus a live Television track, and a
previously un-released solo song Hell did for a project based on a
Dennis Cooper story. Toss in the Christgau intro and the Q&A
bits peppered throughout the booklet, and you have a handy guide to what
the dude-who-might-have-invented-punk has been up to for the past 30
years. As with any Hell-story lesson, it drags in spots, especially after
the war’s already been won and the Kid with the Replaceable Head is merely
dabbling in rock n’ roll, but the bloodthirsty teenage stuff still holds
up nicely. So has his hair, by the way.
Punk rock nostalgia wobbles wearily along. _______________________________________________________ |
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-Sleazegrinder |