Richard Hell

As a rock-book aficionado, I couldn’t help reading Richard Hell’s book without imagining him in a cage match with Patti Smith, the singer/poet/muse who authored “Just Kids.” Hell probably thinks his book is different from Smith’s since Smith focuses on her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and Hell covers his life from the beginning until he quit music, but there are so many similarities that I couldn’t ignore it. To review Hell’s book, I have to compare it to Smith’s show more point by point:

Writing Style: When Hell recounts his life, his tone seems surprisingly distant, or he tries to play off moments with humor. Smith is much more passionate. Sometimes, I wanted to shout at Hell, “Dude, your life was exciting, so get excited about it!” This may be a matter of taste, but I liked Smith’s emotion, so the winner is … Smith.

Gossip: Patti Smith had some dirt, but she is way more about her passion for making art. Hell enjoys throwing out a barb or two, especially when it comes to his former bandmates in Television. Oh, and Richard Hell was a regular Don Juan of the Bowery. He had so many notches in his gunbelt that his pants fell down, which is mighty convenient for him. So the winner is … Hell.

Capturing the Punk Scene: Much of the culture we see today consists of bands trying to recapture the spirit of New York City in the 1970s. (Yoo-hoo, Strokes!) I can see why it is tough because, while NYC was inspiring during that time, it was also a crime-ridden fleabag dump. Hell is methodical about describing where he lived, where he worked, what he wore and what he ate. I appreciate the detail, but Smith convinced me that underneath all that urban squalor was a magic city. The winner is … Smith.

The End: Smith’s book is better, probably because its style was a little more ambitious, but Hell’s book is hardly a waste of time. Any punk aficionado will enjoy it. show less

As a music lover and someone who remembers NYC back in its grittier, down-trodden days in the 1970's and early 80's, I really loved this book. It brought back memories of all the places I used to hang out, like Gem Spa. Also, when I was 14-15 years old, and an unhappy high school student, I was reading about Richard Hell and Patti Smith and the downtown music scene in the periodicals in the high school library, and my brothers' NYC nightlife and music magazines, like Creem, Crawdaddy, and show more Soho News. Once I saw a picture of Richard Hell, I was hooked.

But happy memories aside, I would've loved this book anyway because the quality of the writing is really high, and the story is fascinating. It takes a lot for me to get through a book these days, and I read this one pretty quickly. It kept me turning the digital pages, that's for sure. It's honest, the writing is strange and unusual, definitely out of the ordinary, yet relatable, and the characters are colorful and interesting.

At times the author threatens to veer off into bitterness, but he balances the bitterness with self-deprecating humor, and if he says something derogatory or uncomplimentary about someone, he balances it with comments about their good points.

On the whole, I feel that I got a good look inside the world of the early punk rock movement and downtown NYC music scene of the late 70's, early 80's, and I'm glad I read this book and satisfied my decades-old curiosity about "Whatever happened to Richard Hell?"

One caution, and that is that Hell's descriptions of the women in his life at this time, friends and lovers, are erotic and focused primarily on their physical attributes, to an extent that his male friends and associates are not. Considering that one of the reasons he became a rock musician was so he could "get girls," that is perhaps not surprising, and it's also not surprising that women and girls were apparently throwing themselves at him. So if you're turned off by men talking about all the women they had sex with, maybe this isn't the book for you. On the other hand, it provided me with an insight into men that ... well, that I'd frankly seen before. It's not like they go to great lengths to hide their fascination with women.

It's a good book to read if you're interested in the downtown NYC music scene of the 70's and 80's, if you're interested in rock history, the punk rock movement, the early history of CBGB's, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Malcolm McLaren, the punk rock movement in Great Britain, and NYC in its less glamorous years, especially the Lower East Side. I also recommend it if you're interested in song lyrics and poetry, and the process of songwriting and performing with a rock band.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. show less

I don’t know if I’ll ever get over not being able to buy an exhibition book of the British Library’s Punk 1976-78 exhibition, but at least I can assuage my woes with exhibition books like this one. Not only does it give a wonderful representation of the couture clothing displayed in this exhibit, but it paired the new couture with images of the 1970s punk original inspirations. It may be an extremely simple presentation (and not really based on the exhibition space at all), but the show more simplicity really works in this case to make an easy to explore collection. show less

This one is hard to rate objectively. Probably would get three stars from me for the writing, but the topic was of great interest to me, since I came up listening to this music (I was living in NYC and caught what must have been one of the Voidoids last shows in '82.)Hell doesn't hide the fact that he was probably a royal jerk back in the day, but he writes with great sympathy at times of people and events, though he does still seem to hold a grudge against Tom Verlaine.