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I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp

Richard Hell

3.62 · Rating details · 1,858 ratings · 211 reviews

The sharp, lyrical, and no-holds-barred autobiography of the iconoclastic writer and musician Richard Hell, charting the childhood, coming of age, and misadventures of an artist in an indelible era of rock and roll...

From an early age, Richard Hell dreamed of running away. His father died when he was seven, and at seventeen he left his mother and sister behind and headed f The sharp, lyrical, and no-holds-barred autobiography of the iconoclastic writer and musician Richard Hell, charting the childhood, coming of age, and misadventures of an artist in an indelible era of rock and roll...

From an early age, Richard Hell dreamed of running away. His father died when he was seven, and at seventeen he left his mother and sister behind and headed for New York City, place of limitless possibilities. He arrived penniless with the idea of becoming a poet; ten years later he was a pivotal voice of the age of punk, starting such seminal bands as Television, the Heartbreakers, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids—whose song "Blank Generation" remains the defining anthem of the era. Hell was significantly responsible for creating CBGB as punk ground zero; his Voidoids toured notoriously with the Clash, and Malcolm McLaren would credit Hell as inspiration for the Sex Pistols. There were kinetic nights in New York's club demi-monde, descent into drug addiction, and an ever-present yearning for redemption through poetry, music, and art.

"We lived in the suburbs in America in the fifties," Hell writes. "My roots are shallow. I'm a little jealous of people with strong ethnic and cultural roots. Lucky Martin Scorsese or Art Spiegelman or Dave Chappelle. I came from Hopalong Cassidy and Bugs Bunny and first grade at ordinary Maxwell Elementary." How this legendary downtown artist went from a prosaic childhood in the idyllic Kentucky foothills to igniting a movement that would take over New York's and London's restless youth cultures—and spawn the careers of not only Hell himself, but a cohort of friends such as Tom Verlaine, Patti Smith, the Ramones, and Debbie Harry—is just part of the fascinating story Hell tells. With stunning powers of observation, he delves into the details of both the world that shaped him and the world he shaped.

An acutely rendered, unforgettable coming-of-age story, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp evokes with feeling, clarity, and piercing intelligence that classic journey: the life of one who comes from the hinterlands into the city in search of art and passion. ...more

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ebook, 248 pages

Published March 12th 2013 by Ecco (first published 2013)

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Mar 19, 2013 Shannon rated it it was ok

If you are interested in lengthy descriptions of the floor plan of every New York City apartment Richard Hell ever lived in, then this is the book for you.

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Aug 11, 2016 Madeline rated it liked it

Shelves: memoir

Although Richard Hell was heavily involved in the punk movement, starting several influential bands and appearing regularly in the glory days of CBGB's, he never managed to achieve the same level of fame as other punk icons like Johnny Rotten, the Clash, or the Ramones. But when you look at the history of punk rock, Richard Hell's fingerprints are all over it. He wasn't the founder, by any means, but he was definitely one of the early pioneers of the entire punk movement. I Dreamed I Was a Very ...more

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Sep 21, 2016 Lynx rated it liked it

Shelves: rock-n-roll, biography-memoir

This is quite a difficult review to write. On the one hand, Hell is a great writer, and his life has certainly been interesting enough to keep you glued to the page, so on that level it’s great. But on the other hand there seems to be this underlying resentment directed at all those from the same scene who have profited more then himself. Whenever he throws a compliment someones way he’s very quick to shut it down with multiple jabs in the next sentence. His bitterness seeps through every page.

W ...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Jesse rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2013

There are a lot of really wonderful things about this book, in particular its direct ugliness and Hell's willingness to confront those parts of himself that are shameful, vile, and ridiculous. He's an engaging and very entertaining writer--often damned funny--and a salacious dirt-disher as well. I know the mythology of the New York scene very well and yet still felt I learned nearly as much from this book as I did years ago from Please Kill Me-- though I'm sure it's about as untrustworthy. From There are a lot of really wonderful things about this book, in particular its direct ugliness and Hell's willingness to confront those parts of himself that are shameful, vile, and ridiculous. He's an engaging and very entertaining writer--often damned funny--and a salacious dirt-disher as well. I know the mythology of the New York scene very well and yet still felt I learned nearly as much from this book as I did years ago from Please Kill Me-- though I'm sure it's about as untrustworthy. From the first time that I heard Blank Generation, 20 years ago this summer, I've remained a fan of his, and artistically this book has only made me appreciate him that much more.

My only significant complaint about the book is the way he talks about women. He seems to have some consciousness about the value of women's contributions to music, culture, and thought, but most of the way they're presented (over and over and over) throughout this book is they're people he fucked or wanted to fuck or describes fucking in extremely vivid detail. Not that there's anything wrong with that in principle, but it's the way he describes it that walks a fine line between deliberately seedy and just straight-up disrespectful in a lot of cases, as though to him these women had a great deal less value than he did, even in retrospect. Now that's a fine line, since he's so open about so much of his ugliness, but he doesn't cop to that level of sleaze-- rather, it remains unspoken. He's not saying, "I was a shitty misogynist, it was ugly, and this is what it looked like." Rather, he's just being a shitty misogynist.

All that said, the parts of this book about the creative process, about the very act of more or less envisioning what would become known as punk, was gripping and fascinating. He doesn't try to take total credit for "inventing" punk as people have suggested he did, but rather paints the scene from which what emerged from him as punk must have happened, and could not have been avoided. His powers of description are strong, his grudges deep, and his willingness to take risks thrilling. Despite my being grossed out by a lot of the way he talked about women, I nonetheless--in spite of that--found this to be a very satisfying read. ...more

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Apr 12, 2013 Sam rated it really liked it

Richard Hell's autobiography makes 1970s New York sound like an artist's playground, and I got the same warm tingly yet detached feeling as I got from Patti Smith's Just Kids--though while Smith's antics were centered around the Chelsea, Hell seemed to bounce all over town, hopping across bright and dull constellations alike flecked with girls, music and drugs. One of my favorite lines:
"I probably peaked as a human in the sixth grade."

He knows this is not true, and it should definitely be said t ...more

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May 10, 2013 RandomAnthony rated it it was ok

Shelves: music

I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp disappointed me. Mr. Hell, this shit may fly at a party where people give a shit about your "scene" or whatever, but your memoir feels carping and whiny. You either attack or praise then belittle just about everyone you've ever met. Dude, did you have to point out how fat Richard Lloyd's grown? What an asshole move. Honestly, you're only a minor figure in the punk canon, at least outside of Manhattan, and your story isn't that interesting. And you sound like a ...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Jeff Jackson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: punk-rock-etc

The casual flow of this memoir belies the offhanded stylishness of Richard Hell's prose. He's constructed a compelling story of childhood tramp dreams, burning down Florida cornfields with truant Tom Verlaine, dating famous painter's ex-wives, the boredom of early '70s NYC, starting a lit mag and rejecting solicited poems from Allen Ginsberg, and - most crucially - realizing how the apparatus of a rock band could express a new sound, style, and cultural attitude. Hell settles some scores here, b ...more

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May 29, 2013 Marvin rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, music

Q: Why did the punk rocker cross the road?
A: He was pinned to a chicken.

I know. Bad joke. It could have been worse. I could have asked you why Jesus crossed the road.

But this is a book review, so...

I'm not exactly sure if Richard Hell is an household name. He was at the start of the punk rock movement in the seventies. He is often given credit for the punk rock look of torn clothes and safety pins, which explains the chicken joke. Malcolm McLaren gives Richard Hell credit for the visual look, if Q: Why did the punk rocker cross the road?
A: He was pinned to a chicken.

I know. Bad joke. It could have been worse. I could have asked you why Jesus crossed the road.

But this is a book review, so...

I'm not exactly sure if Richard Hell is an household name. He was at the start of the punk rock movement in the seventies. He is often given credit for the punk rock look of torn clothes and safety pins, which explains the chicken joke. Malcolm McLaren gives Richard Hell credit for the visual look, if not the musical style, of the Sex Pistols. Before he started his own group he created the early punk groups, Television and The Heartbreakers (which has nothing to do with Tom Petty and...)If you have heard one Richard Hell and The Voidoids song it is probably "The Blank Generation" which is sometimes called the Punk Rock anthem.

But the interesting thing in this book is how little Hell says directly about his music.While he writes prodigiously about the Punk Rock scene he is more interested in the lifestyle than the music. He thinks of himself as a poet and a writer first and left music in 1988 to devote himself to his writing full-time. He's a pretty good writer. In fact, His writing talent is much better than his musical talent which he admits is on the minimal side. I like Richard Hell but it is the kind of "like" coming from watching a kid put heart and soul into an endeavor where his emotions overshadow his abilities. This autobiography, from someone who can only be called an unreliable narrator, describes the punk rock 70s, especially the New York scene, very well. Richard Hell comes across as over-confident, insecure and defensive all at the same time and it gives a nice tension. He may not be someone that is easy to like but is definitely interesting. The only drawback to this book, and it is a big one,is Hell's constant misogyny. He chooses to tell us every sexual encounter in detail and in usually negative terms to his partner. As I said, he is not easy to like.

Richard Hell is my age. But I felt at some times I was reading a memoir by a perennial adolescent. It can be argued that Hell never really grew up. It is what makes this book so involving at times. Hell recalls the times and its emotions and tensions vividly. I think it is because he never really wanted to leave it. Even if he no longer plays music in the rock scene, Richard Hell may be the Peter Pan of Punk Rock Neverland. ...more

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Aug 25, 2013 Elizabeth rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, memoir, poetry, new-york, music

Like another reviewer, I read I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp on the heels of Just Kids by Patti Smith. There are parallels between the two works, to be sure. Smith and Richard Hell were contemporaries, living in New York at the same time, working at the same bookstores, performing in the same scene. Both are considered punk rock pioneers. Hell and Smith considered themselves poets and artists above all else. For both, the music grew out of a need to express themselves in the most immediate a Like another reviewer, I read I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp on the heels of Just Kids by Patti Smith. There are parallels between the two works, to be sure. Smith and Richard Hell were contemporaries, living in New York at the same time, working at the same bookstores, performing in the same scene. Both are considered punk rock pioneers. Hell and Smith considered themselves poets and artists above all else. For both, the music grew out of a need to express themselves in the most immediate and authentic way. For me, though, this is where the similarity between I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp and Just Kids, as well as the similarity between Richard Hell and Patti Smith, ends.

I began reading this book on several occasions, only to be bogged down by the recitation of places and names on the very first page. Halfway through the book, I realize that Hell’s father and mother, their respective families and where they came from really are not important at all. In fact, he never mentions them again. Why, then, devote the first two pages to them? It would have been far more effective to throw us into scene on the first page (perhaps with one of his “running away” attempts), thereby ensuring that the reader would be drawn in, instead of turned off. If I picked up this book at the library, I would have given up. But, since I invested in the hardback, I really wanted to keep reading.

Hell's writing isn't bad, but to say that he’s not a likable or sympathetic narrator is an understatement. In fact, he comes across as an arrogant and childish misogynist and this only increases as the story progresses.

Hell's unfavorable descriptions of women and his sexual conquests dominate the narrative. These descriptions become increasingly frequent, predictable and adolescent (Imagine Terry Gross’s Fresh Air interview with Gene Simmons on continuous repeat). While I appreciate Hell’s honesty about his motivations, it is his denigration and objectification of females that became old very quickly.

Hell seems incapable of describing any woman in purely positive terms and repeatedly seems compelled to qualify any positive observations with a criticism or anatomical assessment. Susan Sontag is the only female that escapes Hell’s superficial criticism, perhaps because even he can’t delude himself into believing that he is superior to her.

Hell deserves respect for overcoming his heroin addiction. However, I was hoping for some self-reflection, growth and insight to come from this, particularly since the scene lost so many of its members to drugs and alcohol, suicide and other violent and early deaths.

The punk scene of the seventies and eighties railed against the meaninglessness of the straight lifestyle and the middle class, but, in some ways, their lives were just as predictable, dull and void of meaning. Wearing a beat-up leather jacket before the Ramones did (as Hell childishly claims that he did) or spiking your hair in a post-military fashion does not make you a hero. And if you believe yourself to be a pioneer, okay…but to what end?

Even when Hell is trying to be humble, he comes off as insincere. In the Epilogue, when Hell encounters former friend and bandmate Tom Verlaine in the street, he feels the need to insult his appearance and convince himself that he is ageing better. He identifies his feelings for Verlaine as love. But his love reads a lot like insecurity and immaturity.

One might expect some introspection and humility from someone who has seen and been through so much. But, instead, Hell remains an adolescent in a sixty-three year-old body. A successful memoir is about being honest. And while Hell shares every sexual encounter and drug exploit in great detail, this is not honesty. Honesty is about taking a real look at oneself. Hell, despite his tell-all memoir, does not go to any of the hard places. It’s easy to talk about sex, drugs and rock and roll. That’s rewarded in our culture. But, after beginning the book with his family, he never returns there. Not once. He’s all about the what, but never examines the why. Maybe Richard Hell’s growth happens after the abrupt, unsatisfying ending. But, I doubt it. If so, this is not the memoir he would have written. ...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Tosh rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The beauty of the memoir is not only the writer's life, but also the placement of the story. For me Richard Hell's great book “I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp” is not only about Hell's life, but also a great New York City narrative. With out the actual city New York, there would be no N.Y. Punk Rock. Even though Richard Hell met Tom Verlaine somewhere else, they needed Manhattan to do what they had to do. And the same goes for the NY Dolls, Patti Smith, The Velvet Underground and for god's sa The beauty of the memoir is not only the writer's life, but also the placement of the story. For me Richard Hell's great book “I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp” is not only about Hell's life, but also a great New York City narrative. With out the actual city New York, there would be no N.Y. Punk Rock. Even though Richard Hell met Tom Verlaine somewhere else, they needed Manhattan to do what they had to do. And the same goes for the NY Dolls, Patti Smith, The Velvet Underground and for god's sake The Lovin' Spoonful!

Many years ago, via the pages of Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine there was an image by Christopher Makos of Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell sitting close together on a couch, who were in a band called Television. The image of the two and what they were wearing really caught my imagination. From that image I became a fan of the band, without hearing one note. I had imagined what Television sounded like by the various reviews in the underground and hip presses at the time. I knew it was guitar music and I presumed the tunes were wild yet restrained like their clothing. Some years later I finally heard the first Television album and the sound was even more remarkable than my imagination. Around that time (maybe later..) I heard Hell's single that came out on Ork Records and I thought “Oh my god this is great as well.”

Ever since those series of moments, Hell has never failed me. At the time I thought of Hell as the male version of Patti Smith. Both were in poetry and books and they captured that poetic rock n' roll look. But all of that is just the surface. After reading Patti's “Just Kids” and Hell's book, the city of New York is the same, but the personalities are different. But both of course are extremely over-the-top talents.

What makes Hell so unique is his love for the written word, and I think that is what kicked him to do music. “Blank Generation,” Love Comes in Spurts” and so forth are classic texts set to music. A combination of jazz jive with a Beat's love of the moment. His memoir goes into his songs, but also the faces and names that surrounded him and his creative work. To this very day, Richard Hell is a remarkable looker, and he knows by instinct the power of the visual and how it would affect his medium. Which is rock and rock is visual as well as poetic.

The stuff I loved about this book is how he maps out Manhattan with bookstores as pin-drops in various areas of the island. It is a world that is totally closed in, but with great bookstores serving the imagination and the fuel that lighted the music. I visited that city and went to CBGB's in the late 70's. Richard Hell was on the stage, David Johansen was near the entrance talking to someone sounding like a Dead End Kid, and then walks in Johnny Rotten. How perfect was that for a visitor from Los Angeles who is a Punk Rock fan! This memoir serves the same hunger and excitement for me.

One thing that stays in my mind is how little one knows Tom Verlaine. Hell writes about him with great love and horror disappointment at the same time. A love/hate, but I never get a clear picture of what makes this guitar god click. And it is not only in this book, but in all books about this period and series of characters. Verlaine seems to be a ghost in every narrative. Will there be a day when he will write his own memoir? Now that can be interesting?

“I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp” is Hell still keeping the high standards of his other books, which by the way are excellent. The memoir is very focused on the punk rock years, which I think will please the fan out there, but hopefully there will be a second part of this memoir. Hell is very much of the 20th Century Dandy, and his outlook in life is basically to find pleasure, and his taste in women are excellent. For those who read and loved “Please Kill Me” this book is an essential part of the big story.

“I Dreamed I Was...” is the flip side of Patti Smith's memoir, and its a perfect companion piece to that book. Both books to me are a love letter to what was New York, and how that city played in both artist's world and inspiration. So yeah I love Richard Hell and I love his memoir.
...more

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Jan 24, 2016 Diana Stegall rated it did not like it

Shelves: abandoned

I can't remember the last time I deliberately abandoned a book, I will almost always stick it out to the finish, but this is GARBAGE. Jesus, Richard Hell is an embarrassment. I'm boggled by how many people describe this book as "self-effacing" - are y'all won over by humble bragging in real life too?

A) Richard Hell is too boring and narcissistic to have any insight into his remarkable life. He sounds like a spoiled 12 year old nursing decades of insecurity and petty jealousy without realizing i I can't remember the last time I deliberately abandoned a book, I will almost always stick it out to the finish, but this is GARBAGE. Jesus, Richard Hell is an embarrassment. I'm boggled by how many people describe this book as "self-effacing" - are y'all won over by humble bragging in real life too?

A) Richard Hell is too boring and narcissistic to have any insight into his remarkable life. He sounds like a spoiled 12 year old nursing decades of insecurity and petty jealousy without realizing it. It's so obvious to any casual reader that he feels passed over. How dare people prefer Tom Verlaine! Patti Smith made it big? Well she's boring and an ugly sellout! (Oh but let me describe her breasts to you in the most dehumanizing fashion.) How can you set out to write a memoir without committing yourself to even a shred of self-reflection? He is an arrogant ass, not in a defiant, deliberate punk way but in a mewling childish way.

B) I know a lot of reviewers have already commented on his misogyny but it really can't be stated enough. Every single woman who gets any mention in this book is reduced to an object to fuck or hate because she doesn't want to fuck you. He's a lech. He's a creep. The way he writes about Patti Smith, devoting more words to the shape and size of her breasts than the art she was making. The way he casually brushes aside even the possibility that a woman could have any kind of contribution to make to the art or music or literary scene. He talks sneeringly about every woman he ever slept with, reducing them to anonymous glory holes or printing their name and then talking about what rubbish they were in bed for not enjoying sex with him - gee whiz, Richard, can't imagine why not. To be clear, this isn't young snotty early-twenties Richard Hell speaking. This is modern-day, bitter, embarrassing Richard Hell speaking. The fact that he doesn't recognize how vile his attitudes towards women is should be a sign that you're not going to get a lot of introspection or personal growth in the pages to follow.

It's hilarious how obviously jealous and insecure he is about Patti Smith. Can he really not see what a classic case he is? She isn't more famous than you because of her manager, or her breasts, or who she dated. She's not more famous than you because her audience is dumber than yours. (But God, could you come up with more perfectly chauvinistic assumptions?) She's more famous than you because she's smarter than you, more sensitive and creative than you, a better writer and songwriter than you, a more talented musician than you, and she's altogether much more interesting than you. Even now, Richard Hell's memoir and Patti Smith's memoirs were released around the same time. Patti Smith's memoir won the National Book Award. Richard Hell's will end up in a remainder bin. Where it belongs. ...more

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Mar 07, 2013 P.J. Morse rated it really liked it

Shelves: music

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 point by point:

Writing ...more

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Mar 17, 2013 J Edward Tremlett rated it it was amazing

Who the hell is Richard Hell? If you have to ask that question, you haven’t been paying attention.

In the 70′s and early 80′s, Hell (real name Richard Meyers) was the cofounder of three bands: Television, the Heartbreakers, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. He quit both Television and the Heartbreakers due to conflicts with other band members, and then went on to form the Voidoids, where he could actually drive the bus for a change.

While saying that all three outfits were incredibly influential ...more

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Mar 31, 2013 Julie rated it liked it

Shelves: music-bios-mem, finished-2013

I had a real Jekyll & Hyde reaction with this book. Some parts I loved and felt very sympathetic to him and other times - oh.my.lord - other times he was such an insufferable twat. The pretentiousness - make it stop! I think it's because he was a high school dropout and was surrounded by famous intellectuals and artists so he overcompensated by being a bit of a megalomaniac. He did have some good reasons to think highly of himself (when he wasn't beating himself up) - he was sexy, charismatic, i I had a real Jekyll & Hyde reaction with this book. Some parts I loved and felt very sympathetic to him and other times - oh.my.lord - other times he was such an insufferable twat. The pretentiousness - make it stop! I think it's because he was a high school dropout and was surrounded by famous intellectuals and artists so he overcompensated by being a bit of a megalomaniac. He did have some good reasons to think highly of himself (when he wasn't beating himself up) - he was sexy, charismatic, innovative. Most teen dropouts who moved to NYC with no money and no connections don't end up hanging out with Andy Warhol and Susan Sontag and Larry Rivers etc. It reminded me of the Elinor Glynn novel from the early twentieth century called IT. (Clara Bow played the IT girl in a famous silent movie based on the book). Some people just have IT and apparently Richard Hell is one of those people.

The parts of the book I liked best were the gossipy parts. I'm sure he wants readers to be drawn to the sections were he pontificates about poetry and the meaning of life. I must admit those parts grated on my nerves, I guess I am just a shallow person for being more drawn to the sex, drugs & rocknroll aspects of the book. I think he did a good job talking about addiction and what it's like. And the sex parts - wow, he was quite the lothario of the lower east side. I get it - I had a big crush on him for a while in the early 80s. I see why women were drawn to him.

He was such an asshole to so many of them, though. It made me hate him at times. One story that really rubbed me the wrong way was when he wrote about rock groupies and how he thought Nancy Spungen was irritating because she had ambition. Unlike a good groupie like Sabel Starr who just lived to give the best blowjob ever. UGH. Ok, granted, Nancy Spungen was a full blown sociopath(I read her mom's book about her) but RH seemed to dislike her for wanting to be more than just an easy lay to musicians. It bugged me. Another scene that bugged me was when he was writing about one of the many, many strippers/escorts he "dated". She was out turning tricks while he lounged around her apartment, waiting for her to bring him money she had earned so he could buy dope. She came home, straddled him on the bed - wearing her sexy hooker outfit - and showered hime with dollar bills. Gee, that's so pimp-ish of you, Richard. How so not attractive. I found it telling that the women he considered his soulmate was a French artist who spoke almost no English. Hmmm. He's got a lot of weird issues surrounding women.

The parts about Tom Verlaine were interesting. RH is still pretty pissed off. He tells his side of the story but honestly, I think TV has a better reason to be angry at RH. None of RH's reasons for his animosity towards TV seem strong enough. TV, however, has several strong reasons. RH was a junkie, had only played a musical instrument for 6 months and was way more charming and sexy than TV. I wouldn't want to be in a band with him either.

I kept comparing this memoir to Patti Smith's memoir I read last year. I need to go flip through her book again. They cover a lot of the same ground but in a different way. Patti seems more innocent to me, yet more focused too. I dunno. I adored her book and I have reservations about this one. I still recommend reading this book though, if you are at all interested in the NYC 70's scene or punk rock. Hell's memoir is an important piece of the puzzle. ...more

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Sep 05, 2013 Steve Bennett rated it it was amazing

First things first. This is an extremely disturbing, unsettling book. On the basis of this memoir, Richard Hell is incapable of forming any type of long-lasting, meaningful relationship. Not with a woman, not with a friend, not with a family member, a bandmate, or even a pet. Well, he does travel from NYC apartment to apartment with a dead turtle he keeps in a box. There is almost zero discussion of any family members, even the death of his father when Richard was 8 is dismissed as an annoyance. First things first. This is an extremely disturbing, unsettling book. On the basis of this memoir, Richard Hell is incapable of forming any type of long-lasting, meaningful relationship. Not with a woman, not with a friend, not with a family member, a bandmate, or even a pet. Well, he does travel from NYC apartment to apartment with a dead turtle he keeps in a box. There is almost zero discussion of any family members, even the death of his father when Richard was 8 is dismissed as an annoyance. Regarding bands, he was in the seminal CBGB band Television for about 12 months, he was in The Heartbreakers for about a year and even his own band Richard Hell and the Voidoids effectively lasted only about 12 months. His relations with multitudes and multitudes of women appear rather crude to the extreme. Hell at least gives a valuable insight and a sense of self awareness when he states most of his relations were with groupies or strippers because they had come from bad family situations and kind of welcomed, or at least expected, the abuse and the absences. He also had a horrible heroin addiction.

On the positive side, the book is extremely humorous. One of the best anecdotes is actually from an interview Hell did of DeeDee Ramone. DeeDee relates how the Ramones first songs were all negative: There was "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You," I Don't Wanna Get Involved With You" and "I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement." Our songs were all I don't wanna do this. I don't wanna do that. Then we finally wrote our first positive song: "Now, I Want To Sniff Some Glue."

In a book that almost completely omits any discussion of family mmembers or normal human emotions, Hell goes on at length regarding describing the succession of NYC apartments he lived in. It is reassuring to know he cares about something.

Don't get me wrong. I love Television and The Voidoids and Blank Generation is one of my favorite punk records. And I loved this book. It was amazing and funny but Hell is sort of a strange lonely guy. At least until 1984 when the memoir ends as he (wisely) gives up his music career to help solve his heroin addiction.

Hell does discuss very positively an interview session he had with Susan Sontag. There is a photo in the book from the session where he and Sontag are smiling and sort of playing with each other and looking extremely happy. It is one of the rare moments in the book where Hell displays actual human emotion. ...more

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May 17, 2013 Peter Landau rated it liked it

What's more entertaining than watching something you hate? For me, few things, though that thing must be on TV, maybe a movie, but never, ever a book. Watching is passive, but reading I'm invested in (and I'm a slow reader), so that book, those hundreds of densely packed pages better do more than give me the self-satisfaction of mocking. That's why I approached Richard Hell's autobiography with caution. Of course I love the period, the place and the people he is writing about, but every time I'd What's more entertaining than watching something you hate? For me, few things, though that thing must be on TV, maybe a movie, but never, ever a book. Watching is passive, but reading I'm invested in (and I'm a slow reader), so that book, those hundreds of densely packed pages better do more than give me the self-satisfaction of mocking. That's why I approached Richard Hell's autobiography with caution. Of course I love the period, the place and the people he is writing about, but every time I'd read an interview with the author he came across, to me, as human Ipecac.

That's not fair. I love books with unpleasant characters. Some of my best friends are unpleasant characters. I had to shut up and read, so I did, and I found myself devouring the book. It's a fun read. I'd probably not like the author in real life, but on the page he was an entertaining guide. He gets a bit self-grandiose, but has the good manners to balance that with self-criticism. Still, the man comes across, despite all his intellectual pursuits, his love of art and literature, his poetry and other thoughtful processes, as only a preening surface. He started the fashion, he had style, but that's window dressing to get you in the store. Again, for me, and I know this is subjective, but once inside there was little merchandise and few things worth buying.

The book starts strong (especially before NYC and punk), but by it's final third there's something tarnishing the glow of nostalgia. That's drugs. It becomes clear that lost potential is one of the many bags a junkie has to saddle. Hell admits he's lazy, too lazy even to indulge his taste for sexually dominating women (that, and his whole relationship with women and their body parts is another one of many ugly parts that make up this fragmentary Frankenstein monster of a book), but the trajectory of his career follows the loadstar of hedonism to the crossroads where the book ends. He chooses to get clean, then stops his story. Writers' lives, he writes, are uneventful. Maybe so, but everybody has a story that nobody wants to read. ...more

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May 26, 2013 Marxist Monkey rated it really liked it

Yeah, so, I hated Richard Hell when I was younger and a bass player. I hated him because he was a terrible bass player, because he couldn't really sing, because his songs were weird, because he seemed to think that punk was more about hair and fashion and some intangible personal edge than it was about music. Now that I'm much older, I can see that Richard Hell is a very smart man and an accomplished writer who had a much better sense of what the CBGB scene was about than I could imagine. I stil ...more

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Dec 15, 2014 Andy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: rock-sleaze

This is the book people have been waiting for Richard Hell to write. Few people were on the inside of the whole New York CBGB’s punk scene as much as Hell and he has something to say about great legends like Patti Smith, Johnny Thunders, and Dee Dee Ramone. Equally of great import are his memoirs of teenage pal Tom Verlaine and The Neon Boys, later Television.

There’s a lot of dope about his band The Voidoids, especially Robert Quine, and even more dope about celebrity girlfriends like Sable Star ...more

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Mar 26, 2018 Bianca rated it it was amazing

Sporting my favourite book title ever, I would have given this memoir a 5 star rating even if the pages were blank. I like the way Hell writes. Lines like "It tasted like cold God" send shivers down the literary spine.

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Oct 15, 2016 Bjorn rated it liked it

Shelves: usa

Ultimately, not only are we all the same, but what happens is out of our control. (...) All there is is the entertainments, pastimes, of love and work, the hope of keeping interested.

Sex and drugs and rock and roll. In roughly that order (and a bit of poetry). Richard Hell's autobiography of his early life and brief punk stardom before deciding to quit the whole circus before the inevitable overdose has all the usual trappings of a rocker memoir, with two exceptions: One, that Hell never really Ultimately, not only are we all the same, but what happens is out of our control. (...) All there is is the entertainments, pastimes, of love and work, the hope of keeping interested.

Sex and drugs and rock and roll. In roughly that order (and a bit of poetry). Richard Hell's autobiography of his early life and brief punk stardom before deciding to quit the whole circus before the inevitable overdose has all the usual trappings of a rocker memoir, with two exceptions: One, that Hell never really seems into the music as such as much as what it offers in terms of expression and lifestyle (well, he IS a bass player), and two, that Hell actually knows how to sling a pen even if his writing, much like his musical output, tends to come in brief outbursts of genius surrounded by stretches of rather workmanlike time-passing.

It was like having magic powers. The ability to create action at a distance. The sounds that came from the ampliﬁers were absurdly moving and strange, the variety of them so wide in view of the fact that they came from ﬂicks of our ﬁngers and from our vocal noises, and the way that it was a single thing, an entity, that was produced by the simultaneous reactive interplay of the four band members combining various of their faculties. We were turned into a sound a flow of sound. I remember having a weird moment of weird revelation once, that each moment of a phonograph record being played, each millimeter of information conveyed via the needle to the amplifier to the speaker to the ear, is one sound. A whole orchestra is one sound, altering moment by moment, no matter how many instruments go into producing it. And, as our band rehearsed, on each moment we made the sound spray out in arrays we could instantly alter, emanating from inside us and out interplay and our inner beings combined, playing. And the sound included words.

While the book largely overlaps Patti Smith's Just Kids it's also quite different, largely of course because Hell himself is a very different person; with more distance to in his own myth for good and bad, capable of describing his younger self and the people he knew back then with an honesty that borders on cruelty, but also as befits the writer of "Blank Generation", that distance seems to have been there already; rather than submerge himself in the music and lifestyle he comes across as the kid (not that he was that young) who stands over in the corner making sarcastic comments, always with a girl of five nearby (he is literally unable to mention a woman without reviewing her breasts) and some good dope, but never really liking it much except in small doses. There's an intellectual detachment to I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp that is understandable and often quite entertaining, but a little too often fails to take it above the level of a good life story into something greater. But I should probably take a look at his novels.

Rock and roll is the only art form at which teenagers are not only capable of excelling but that actually requires that one be a teenager, more or less, to practice it at all. This is the way that “punk” uniquely embodies rock and roll. It explicitly asserts and demonstrates that the music is not about virtuosity. Rock and roll is about natural grace, about style and instinct. Also the inherent physical beauty of youth. You don't have to play guitar well or, by any conventional standard, sing well to make great rock and roll; you just have to have it, have be able to recognize it, have to get it. And half of that is about simply being young, meaning full of crazed sex drive and sensitivity to the object of romantic and sexual desire, and full of anger about being condescended to by adults, and disgust and anger about all the lies you're being fed, and all the control you've been subjected to, by those complacent adults. And a deep desire for some fun. And though rock and roll is about being cool, you don’t have to be cool to make real rock and roll—sometimes the most innocuous and pathetic fumblers only become graced by the way they shine in songs. And this is half of what makes the music the art of adolescence—that it doesn’t require any veriﬁable skill. It’s all essence, and it’s available to those who, to all appearances, have nothing. ...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Sarah rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: much-loved-bios

After readings this one I can't even recall why I ever thought Richard hell was a bright guy. Maybe from reading 'Please Kill Me' by legs McNeil? I remember liking his book 'Go Now' but I probably read it in high school. This book is pretty solipsistic, after a point it seemed. Ike a lot of banal observations about nothing much and weirdly he tries to take credit for a bunch of punk innoventions. He implies that his look inspired the uk sex clothing store run by Malcolm mclaren and Vivian Westwo ...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Derz rated it it was ok

Shelves: non-fiction

I don't believe this was poorly written nor do I think it was a complete waste of my time. I just wish it wasn't seeping with arrogance. Humility is not a word Richard Hell seems to be familiar with. I enjoyed certain aspects of his story but overall, it seemed just to be a recollection of his cavalier views on specific individuals and his various encounters with pussy. I found it incredibly hard to finish this book. What I did appreciate were the few recollections concerning his interviews. I f ...more

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Oct 09, 2015 Adam rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: art-and-music, memoir-autobio

I was glad to make it to Hell's book talk when he came to Chicago. He seemed a little bored (he shared that this was one of the last of many talks he'd already done on a long tour). The audience may have been starstruck, and everyone asked uninteresting questions that elicited factual answers. Despite him being one of my favorite artists, I couldn't come up with anything more interesting to ask either.

The obvious things to be said about this book have been repeated several thousand times in oth I was glad to make it to Hell's book talk when he came to Chicago. He seemed a little bored (he shared that this was one of the last of many talks he'd already done on a long tour). The audience may have been starstruck, and everyone asked uninteresting questions that elicited factual answers. Despite him being one of my favorite artists, I couldn't come up with anything more interesting to ask either.

The obvious things to be said about this book have been repeated several thousand times in other reviews: mainly, (1) besides being the best punk lyricist, he is also a fine writer of prose and (2) the misogynistic passages of the book are incongruous with his other ones.

One of my favorite parts of the book recounts a dinner at Susan Sontag at her home during a snowstorm:

"I'd long admired Sontag, as did most halfway literate people...She set the standard for aesthetic and moral values, and for subtlety of perception...it was a magical few hours, tucked cozily laughing and murmuring, in that little apartment perched five or six stories up into the whole nighttime city outside hung in glittering white curves, the street surfaces lit in blurry stains by the streetlights and signals and signs, the only sound the clicking of the trraffic-light mechanisms, no people anywhere to be seen. There was one thing that she said that I didn't understand at all until many years later. She said that she 'hated opinions,' that she'd rather not have them...that lately she'd been thinking that she wrote the essays to get rid of them, to make 'space for other things...Over the years I've finally come to realize that once arrived at, opinions dry up and die, and you have to sweep them away, as she said" (246).

I like that spirit of restless intellect. It makes me wonder what intellectual restlessness Hell has had recently. Despite writing this book, we don't learn much about what he is up to lately. At the book talk, when asked about his favorite new music, he admitted not listening to much music these days, something I found personally to be disappointing. It's exciting that Patti Smith has just put out a second book. I hope Hell does too.

He signed my book: "Doing odd jobs for Adam." I like that. ...more

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Sep 02, 2014 Bob rated it really liked it

About 2/3s of the way through, Hell remarks "Sophisticated people discreetly refrain from speculating about, much less judging, what goes on between couples. Every marriage is its own culture, and even within it, mystery is the environment." In view of the remarkable detail up to that point, and even more to follow, about every woman he slept with, what exactly they did and specifics about her body, one could wish a little more mystery had been allowed to remain (although his actual marriage tha About 2/3s of the way through, Hell remarks "Sophisticated people discreetly refrain from speculating about, much less judging, what goes on between couples. Every marriage is its own culture, and even within it, mystery is the environment." In view of the remarkable detail up to that point, and even more to follow, about every woman he slept with, what exactly they did and specifics about her body, one could wish a little more mystery had been allowed to remain (although his actual marriage that produced his daughter is outside the scope of the book).

And, to get all the complaining out of the way, despite the considerable literary ingenuity that has been applied by many to describing heroin addiction, it remains a fairly dreary and predictable business.

The first half of the book, taking us through Television's first year at CBGB is the most delightful. A none-too-psychologically belabored opening five chapters on his childhood and high school years sets the stage for an intellectually and artistically ambitious young man who can't abide any sort of regimentation or authority. His early years in New York (1969-73), a steady succession of used-bookstore jobs, $50/month apartments, home-made poetry zines, scheming with Tom Verlaine, while rubbing shoulders with the art and poetry elite of the time is fascinating, creating both a memorable self-portrait and a lot of period detail. The dawn of the band Television and subsequent formation of the Voidoids is all pretty well documented by now, but he (obviously) has a fairly specific perspective on it. No one is portrayed very graciously - Verlaine, cold and controlling, at least retains more integrity than Richard Lloyd, depicted as a sycophantic tag-along. The description of Patti Smith's compellingness as a performer ("skinny as a rod, massive tits") quickly gives way to examples of her careerism.
He seems quite fond of his lawyer, who has stuck with him (often for free) and as with the Shirley Collins book, no attempt is made to tell the whole life - a key period is explored at excellent length and the remainder summed up in a few sentences.
...more

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Apr 04, 2013 Beki D rated it it was ok

This is the first book review i have written but i was forced to by feeling repugnance towards the author. What a completely arrogant,self indulgent, misogynistic,egomaniac and generally unlikeable protagonist. This book is written very pretentiously as he believes was some kind of undiscovered visionary poet. Obviously he is very bitter as he felt he was above all his contemporaries in intelligence, style and talent. He has nothing vitriol for anyone else who maybe in direct competition with h ...more

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Dec 04, 2013 Adam rated it liked it

Hell’s memoir is kind of the antithesis of Patti Smith’s Two Kids. It is nastier, bitterer, and full of unresolved anger, theories on art and music, and failures. Maybe it was because Hell was a junkie during his music years, or maybe it is because Smith is more of a romantic. I also feel that Hell’s book is more honest if a bit less enjoyable because of that. He was nasty dude and this is a fairly nasty book. Read both memoirs and compare (Get Please Kill me to while you’re at it).

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Aug 23, 2013 Elizabeth rated it did not like it

Subtitle: "The girls I screwed and the floor plans of the apartments where it happened." I only finished it because Hell occasionally mentions the Ramones.

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Jan 11, 2017 Maggie Wrobel rated it really liked it

I really enjoyed this, despite not knowing any of his music. He's a real poet. I read it to impress a guy I had a crush on at the time and the guy is long gone but the book remains!

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Aug 15, 2018 Paula rated it it was ok

what an asshole

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Jun 03, 2019 Matthew rated it liked it

Shelves: memoir

Richard Hell wanted to be a poet long before he wanted to be a rock singer. In fact, there's a way of interpreting this book that might lead you to believe he never wanted to be a musician at all, and that his career in music was only a way of getting his writing out there. He's a formidable writer. The first half of this book is about growing up in the south, losing your father, being a trouble-making teen at boarding school, and saying goodbye to your mom to move to a city which you've only he Richard Hell wanted to be a poet long before he wanted to be a rock singer. In fact, there's a way of interpreting this book that might lead you to believe he never wanted to be a musician at all, and that his career in music was only a way of getting his writing out there. He's a formidable writer. The first half of this book is about growing up in the south, losing your father, being a trouble-making teen at boarding school, and saying goodbye to your mom to move to a city which you've only heard of-- New York in the rapidly-shifting late 60s. It's lucid, poignant, ironical, and rings with truth. But when Hell starts to gain some material success as a musician, the wheels fall off.

His bragging, self-celebrating, dishy style is completely mismatched to his body of work-- a body of work which, frankly, is kind of impoverished. He left Television long before they released Marquee Moon, and I've always found the Voidoids records to be sort of lame. Hell himself admits that he was never much of a musical talent, never becoming anything more than decent at the bass guitar, his singing unpracticed in the extreme, and his methodical songwriting always coming at a snail's pace. I found a few times that his considerable frankness actually had the effect of unclothing this emperor of punk; he complains at one point that when he presented his song "Blank Generation" to his Television bandmates in the mid 70s, they mistreated it, arranging it in the style of a novelty song. I then remembered the definitive recording of "Blank Generation," from a 1977 Voidoids album, and "novelty song" was exactly the phrase I had been looking for to describe it all this time. It's a heinously ugly song, navelgazing lyrics and obnoxious nasal vocals stretched out over a smug doowop instrumental. That this song was Hell's crown jewel, his encapsulation of post-60s disillusionment and his statement on the marriage of rock to cerebral poetry, is a true indictment.

If you pay attention, Hell seems to only have ever written a handful of songs, or at least only a handful that he ever cares to mention. You'll hear lots and lots about "Blank Generation," (and woe unto you if you aren't convinced it's a work of genius), occasionally about "Chinese Rocks," some more about "Love Comes in Spurts," and occasionally about something called "(We Could Have Loved Each Other in) Another World" or something like that. If you go and listen to them, they're nothing special; punk rock scribbles and rockabilly throwaways that better musicians would've thrown in the discard pile.

I tend to take Hell at his word when he states that his main contribution to punk was aesthetic; the spiky hair, the torn clothing, the safety pins. In fact, by his own admission it was an exactingly scientific effort to assemble the looks and attitudes floating in the zeitgeist that had the possibility to ignite when combined. There's a fascinating aside in one chapter about the genesis of spiky punk hair; he took elements from rock's most famous hairstyles and used them to engineer a new one. Take it from Hell, and the punk hairdo is a combination of Elvis's truckstop oilslick that made girls swoon and their mothers scared, and The Beatles's boyish, no-effort bowl cuts that so radiated cuteness and playful innocence. It sounds a little like 20/20 hindsight, but he deserves the credit if his cultural analysis was really that precise even in the weeds of it.

This book gets truly hard to read when he drones on and on about his many girlfriends and lost weekends. His perceptive pen gets lost somewhere as he rhapsodizes on an army of tits and asses. Hell was an ugly man, his eyes small and dark and his lips wet and bulbous, and it's not sexy to imagine him with all these women for whom he often had so little admiration. At one point he writes himself into a truly bizarre corner in describing a groupie who became a short-term girlfriend, and to whom he never felt obligated to share kindness or respect because he was the idol and she the hanger-on, a dynamic which was recreated in the bedroom. It's weird, and you can sense him trying to explain himself and dig himself out of his hole in real time.

Hell is often a good writer (an appraisal early in the book of Dylan Thomas's poetry sticks out as especially valuable) but he doesn't make a good case for himself as an icon. If you want to read about old New York hipsters, read Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir... hey, or Just Kids, I hear that one's pretty good. ...more

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About Richard Hell

Richard Hell

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Born in 1949, Richard Meyers was shipped off to a private school for troublesome kids in Delaware, which is where he met Tom (Verlaine) Miller. Together they ran away, trying to hitchhike to Florida, but only made it as far as Alabama before being picked up by the authorities. Meyers persuaded his mother to allow him to go to New York, where he worked in a secondhand bookshop (the Strand; later he ...more

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“In fact I thought life was pretty much a losing proposition, and I didn't mind saying so.” — 8 likes

“I think love is sort of a con you play on yourself. I think the whole conception of love is something the previous generation invents to justify having created you. You know I think the real reason children are born is because parents are so bored they have children to amuse themselves. They're so bored they don't have anything else to do so they have a child because that will keep them busy for a while. Then to justify to the kid the reason he exists they tell him there's such a thing as love and that's where you come from because me and your daddy or me and your mommy were in love and that's why you exist. When actually it was because they were bored out of their minds.” — 5 likes

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