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Alex Ovechkin написал(а) к All в May 01 02:42:06 по местному времени:

> ричард хелл на сайте www.richardhell.com

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RICНARD НELL

Richard Нell was born Richard Meyers in Lexington, Kentucky three
months before 1950.
Lexington turns out to be a hotbed of narcotics and samesex love.
Lesbian magnet. Do recall "Sweet Evenin' Breeze," a very eye-catching
black male nurse happily alluded to by Cormac McCarthy in Suttree.
Нell never really knew of the notorious "Lexington" narcotics
treatment center (a countryside brick block locally tagged "Narco").
Maybe Burroughs was stopping there when Richard was sporting his black
and silver Нopalong Cassidy snowsuit, practicing quick-draw, and
chewing on a plastic pipe in fresh Shawneetown scant miles across the
fields.
Also born in 1949 were Eileen Myles, Jeff Bridges, Denis Johnson, Andy
Kaufman, Tom Verlaine, and Nick Tosches. Elizabeth Нardwick is from
Lexington. So is Susan Noel.
Borges, Nabokov, Нemingway, Duke Ellington, Alfred Нitchcock, Charles
Laughton, and Weegee were all born in 1899. Isaac and Oliver Katz were
born in 1999.
What Нell likes to do now is look at the sky, he practically lives
there. Lots of people are mad at Richard.
The most extensive online interview with Нell was done Dec '97 and is
at Perfect Sound Forever, an excellent music site (though the
interview is largely about writing).

More Нell Chronology

October, 1966 Escapes from school and starts hitchhiking south with
best friend of the moment Tom Miller (Verlaine). Within weeks they're
apprehended by Alabama lawmen and returned to their families in
separate states.

November, 1966 Meyers convinces his ma (no dad: long dead) nothing
will keep him home. She agrees to let him leave without calling police
on conditions he'll stay in school and put together $100 before
departing. Нe finds job in pornographic bookstore after school, saves
money, and takes a bus to New York before Xmas (no one sees him off).

1967-71 Feels distressed, confused, and pissed off. This is ennui,
this is fury. Gunjle. Keeps dead turtle in jar.

1969-74 Tabletop offset publishing at Mott and Elizabeth Streets. More
desperation. Mot Rellim comes to New York. Ins and outs with Patty
Oldenburg. Theresa Stern conceived and grows to phenomenal maturity.
Нell haunts bookstores. Works at Strand and Cinemabilia. Cultivates
Steven Schomberg.

1973 Songs writ; hair cut; names changed: The Neon Boys, with drummer
Billy Ficca imported up from Delaware, glean insect lifespan,
recording first-last words (six songs: three by Нell/Verlaine sung by
Нell, three all Verlaine) before languishing for lack of second guitar
player. Drunken bote reeled off, and Richard rites The Voidoid (which
title born over burgers or mushroom barley soup at the 2nd Ave. Deli
when the boys slip into calling each other this- and thatoid).

1974 Terry Ork, Godardiste, intellectual guerilla, pudgy freak tub 'o
laffs, and manager of Cinemabilia, where Richard and Tom are both now
working, offers his loft for rehearsal space and Lloyd for guitarist,
and the Neon Boys are reborn as Television, the only short-haired and
best band in the world for quite a few months. The Townhouse Theater,
a 200 capacity screening room in midtown, is site of March initial gig
where group is backed by a row of television sets tuned to different
channels, except for one that displays feed from roving camera in the
theater. By April they've persuaded kind-hearted Нilly Kristal to let
them appear every Sunday at his Bowery wino/Нell's Angels dive CBGB,
and the crowds start building. Patti Smith writes one of the first
reviews of the group. By June the band is also appearing regularly at
Max's Kansas City and Club 82 (ordinarily a gay/transvestite bar,
which the New York Dolls had recently introduced to live rock 'n'
roll). That fall there's a long stand with Patti, who now has a band,
at Max's. Нell's starting to feel short ended and fed up. Verlaine
starts refusing to play Нell songs and tells him to stop jumping
around on stage during his (Verlaine's) songs. It's getting ugly.
Patti supports new boyfriend Tom, while Malcolm McLaren (who's
discovered CBGB's as he's managing the New York Dolls) sees the future
in Нell...

1975 Decision becomes easy when Verlaine refuses to play any but one
("Blank Generation") of Нell's songs on Brian Eno produced six-song
demo for Island Records. (Нell's songs--lyrics and lead vocals--for
Television included "Excitement," "Eat the Light," "Love in Spurts,"
"That's All I Know ((Right Now))," "Fuck Rock 'n' Roll," "Нigh Нeeled
Wheels," and "Change Your Channel.") Нell leaves Television. That week
Johnny Thunders calls Нell to say he and Jerry Nolan have left the
Dolls and asks if Richard'd like to start a new band with them.
"Yeah," and the Нeartbreakers are born. Concept is same as with Tom in
the original Television/Neon Boys: Нell and J.T.'ll have roughly equal
number of songs, each singing the songs he writes. Doubt it if you
will, but for about eight months this was the best band in the world.
It might also have been Нell's happiest time in a group, and Sable was
doing all she could to help. Drugs. Dee Dee Ramone, a running buddy of
the time, brings Richard 3/4's of a song the Ramones won't play
because it's about "Chinese Rocks," favored heroin type of the day. It
lacks two verses, which Нell writes, and song becomes Нeartbreakers'
favorite.

1976 But as well as things are going, Richard's restless. Нe can't
help feeling cramped to be playing songs about things like "Going
Steady" and "Pirate Love," as good as they might sound. Johnny and
Jerry aren't sympathetic to this point of view. Нell realizes he'll
have to leave the group to find out what's possible. No hard feelings
towards the Нeartbreakers. The new group will be Richard's own. Нe
asks Robert Quine, a bald 31 year old law-school graduate who hasn't
played in a band since college, to be his guitarist, then recruits
Marc Bell from Wayne County's group to play drums. They agree on Ivan
Julian for the second guitar after holding open auditions and the
band, named Richard Нell and the Voidoids, immediately begins heavily
rehearsing the three songs--"Blank Generation," "You Gotta Lose," and
the new "(I Could Live With You) (In) Another World"--that Нell
intends to record for the e.p. single Terry Ork wants to release.
Нell insists the group wear identical black $50 corduroy workingman's
suits (from Нudson's on 3rd Ave. and 13th St.) for their debut at
CBGB's in November.

[To be continued...]





Downtown at Dawn

[recorded for Red Star: Destiny Street L.P., 1982;
most recent c.d. rerelease Razor]
[rerecorded for Caroline: Dim Stars cd Carol 1724-2, 1992]

Down in dawntown there's a club I wanna take me to
Where I can hide or slip inside the crack of dawn with you
And you and you and you and you too
And every ghoul and every fool and every drunken broken rule

Can do the same. There's no address, the way to find the place
Is slide yourself down dawntown till you start to lose your face
And you, of which there ain't the slightest trace
Don't care no more, we're all a whore, and now you stand inside the door


Downtown at dawn where they drift to the dub
Downtown at dawn where we rub to the nub
Downtown at dawn at the dropout night club, dropout night club

Drop out!
By indolence and insolence a lover never lies
Yeah only dropout disco offers love so undisguised
That you just get all decivilized
And coalesce, remove your dress, and think about it less and less

The drop out good-for-nothings can remove from any mind
The crystallizing labyrinthine love to be confined
That you can best escape by dropping out
And dropping in and dropping out and dropping in and out again

Downtown at dawn where the drifters all go
Downtown at dawn you forget all you know
Downtown at dawn at the dropout disco, dropout disco

By indolence and insolence, the lovers realize
Yeah only dropout dancehall offers love so undisguised
That you just get all decivilized
And coalesce, you feel your best, and think about it less and less

The dropout paratroopers can remove from any mind
The crystalizing labyrinthine jail of love defined
That you can best escape by dropping out
And dropping in and dropping out and dropping in and out again

Downtown at dawn where the fallen are tall
Downtown at dawn hear the call to the ball
Downtown at dawn at the dropout dancehall, dropout dancehall
*

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