Customer Reviews

Spurts: The Richard Hell Story

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This is a fascinating and exciting recording. A good case could be made that Richard Hell was the most interesting of all the punks, and this CD would be the chief evidence. It starts off tremendously powerfully and excitingly with the first songs Richard ever wrote and sang. These are the Neon Boys songs and Tom Verlaine wrote the music to them and plays the guitars on them. These songs are like a mixture of the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan but with their own style. The Neon Boys could have been the greatest group of the seventies. But Richard and Tom couldn't get along. Then we have the brilliant peak of "Chinese Rocks," written by Dee Dee Ramone and Hell, and which got its first and best performance with Hell singing and bass playing and Johnny Thunders playing guitar, in the Heartbreakers in 1975. After that comes the Voidoids with four songs from the legendary ground breaking inimitable BLANK GENERATION album. Everybody knows how great that is. Robert Quine was the best guitarist ever to play rock and roll. And he's on most of the rest of this record too. Two of Hell's best songs and recordings with Quine came after BLANK, being "Time" and "Kid With the Replaceable Head." They're both unique classics. The songs from DESTINY STREET are a little grungy but they're strong too. The Dim Stars songs are the weakest, I agree with most reviewers. Their presence here plays up how Sonic Youth are more creators of audio designs, feels and moods than actual songs. They are still worthwhile though and interesting in the course of what Richard has done. The song "Oh," representing the original Richard Hell and the Voidoids in 2001 is heartbreaking, not only for how sweet it sounds, but because it's the last important thing Robert Quine did before his suicide three years afterwards. Someone called "She'll Be Coming" Iraqabilly. That's about right. How insane and creative an idea is that? Then the 21st century version of Marc Bolan's "Rip Off." Hell is a much better singer than any of the other musicians he played with, specifically Tom Verlaine and Johnny Thunders, and probably the best punk singer period, when you count everything. Which brings us back to his beginnings, a goodbye version of "Blank Generation" performed live by Hell in Television in 1974. Why aren't more people writing about SPURTS? The whole thing is real art and real rock and roll. The booklet is better than most CDs.

This CD surprised me a bit with the amount of genuinely inspired playing. Hell may not have been the best singer in the world, but his bands had a wild energy and his lyrics are consistently good. Robert Quine's guitar playing is over the top yet fits within the 3-4 minute song. Incredible.

It's helped me jump around the house while holding my colicky new born and thus rock him to sleep. The wife's had to admit it actually works.

Man, this is good stuff, back in the day I didn't think it was all that. I thought it was too dirty NYC sounding. I loved Dim Stars and Television but didn't really get the Voidoids. Now, in retrospect this is awesome and really fresh sounding. Sure, it is snotty, sneering and the guitars are corse, but beneath all that is a ton of character. R's voice has grown on me and actually the guitars sound warm and real, compared to the way guitars sound here in 2008- Especially if you turn your stereo loud.

Maybe the Velvets and the Stooges and the Dolls and the Modern Lovers sewed the first seeds, but if you check punk's birth certificate, you'll see that Richard Hell was its father. This is a great career spanning compilation that his fans will love and that you young'uns out there should listen to so you can learn where punk came from.

Hell is one of punk's most literate innovators; like Patti Smith (the mother on the aforementioned birth certificate), his work is as influenced by Rimbaud or Ginsberg as it is by the Dolls. He was one of the originators of the whole look, as Malcolm McLaren came back to London in the mid 70's with all kinds of ideas for clothes to sell at Sex and ways to dress up his young hangers-on after going downtown and seeing Hell and Smith. And Hell is also a classicist who understands the importance of having a brilliant guitarist at his side...this collection includes Johnny Thunders, Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, Thurston Moore and the incredible, underrated, lamented Robert Quine.

The collection is very representative of his work. I kind of wish his cover of "I Can Only Give You Everything" was included, and perhaps we could do without his caterwauling take on "She'll Be Coming 'Round the Mountain," but the real highlights are the history lessons; the original Television lineup doing "Blank Generation," the Neon Boys doing a very different version of "Love Comes in Spurts" and the Heartbreakers' "Chinese Rocks."

Makes me miss CBGB's.

This is a great overview of one of the seminal figures in punk rock. Interesting liner notes and photos. Buy this disc and put some money in Richard's pocket. He deserves it.

its a good cd- it is dated, it is nice to hear old songs from club gigs seen. don't exoect a masterpeice just take it for what it is, if you need comparison it is 100 times better them his time cd.

But, I've been thinking about it and I think that if Richard Hell really was punk rock he would have changed his name to Dick Heaven.
The CD? It's gooooood. (The dude from Sonic Youth is the worst guitarist on the whole thing. Seriously.)