blank generation

Richard Hell and the Voidoids made their mark with the romantic individualism of this poetic punk rock primer. Though the album never charted, the nihilism and existential angst of ‘Blank Generation’ helped to define the genre from a more intellectual perspective. Hell had been instrumental in the development of the punk scene in New York from his unigue personal style to literally building the stage at CBGB's. With former schoolmate Tom Verlaine, he formed the Neon Boys which later became Television. Hell remembers: “I was really alienated by the Love and Peace thing, though I made some effort to fit in. By the time I was nineteen, however, I had a girlfriend who was thirty-four who was in the middle of the New York art scene. She was Claes Oldenberg's wife, Patti, and she's still a friend. And through her I got to hang out with Jasper Johns and De Kooning, and it was really stimulating. She taught me a lot. And by then, Tom was in New York. It seemed really hard and lonely, and I must have had thirty jobs. I worked as a longshoreman unloading crates from ships. I worked as an encyclopaedia salesman, door to door, and that is not fun in New York!”

Hell was one of the first punks to wear ripped clothing, pins, and spiked hair, which was later emulated by British bands like the Sex Pistols. Born Richard Lester Meyers, he took on the name Hell from a poem by Arthur Rimbaud: "It’s all hard to put in sequence because it was so long ago but the way I remember it, that definitely occurred to me real early, also the Hell from 'Season in Hell' reference. The way I remember coming up with the haircut was this analysis which was what is it about rock and roll haircuts that makes them work. Like the Beatles. And my conclusion was that it’s grown men more or less wearing haircuts that five-year-olds of their generation wore. What kind of haircut, I thought, did I have when I was five or six? All the kids I grew up with had a kind of crew cut called burrs. It was a ship-to-shore crew cut that grew out because you didn’t go to the barber that often and it became all ragged. That’s the way I remember coming up with it but I think the Rimbaud thing kicked in quickly. The issue of the literary magazine I was publishing when I was about twenty had a big picture of that photo of Rimbaud you’re talking about and a well-known picture of Artaud in the asylum who also has a haircut that’s very similar."

Hell quit Television over creative differences and started the Heartbreakers with former members of the New York Dolls; but left after a year to form his own band, the Voidoids. "I was into stomping noise and violence and confrontation. I chose that, and so did Rimbaud and Lautréamont. I wasn't looking for some kind of intellectual soulmates. I didn't think that literature was superior to the sound of the Velvet Underground."

'Blank Generation' was recorded at Electric Lady Studios and Plaza Sound in New York with Hell co-producing with Richard Gottehrer. Hell sang lead and played bass guitar; Robert Quine and Ivan Julian played guitar and sang backing vocals; and Marc Bell played drums. Hell explains the genesis of the anthemic title track: “I used that phrase first in the back of the Theresa Stern book that I wrote with Tom, when I was publishing these little books of poems. I had four books in the works, one of them by me, one by Tom and one by Patti… only the Theresa book ever came out. Anyway, in the back of the Theresa book I put a list of the forthcoming titles, and wrote ‘Other books from the blank generation‘. And that's when I conceived of using that. It's possible that I could have been working on the song already, but I don't think so. Or actually, maybe I'd written it. I can't remember for sure. As for the song, I liked the idea of doing my versions of sorta genre songs, and a ‘generation’ song was one of them. I was way into the Who's first album, and Tom had this funny, kitsch single by Rod McKuen called 'I Belong to the Beat Generation', so it just seemed like a perfect conjunction to use that classic 'Hit The Road Jack' chord sequence as the structure of that song…

Well, the idea of the blank generation to me… well, the whole point was to make you struggle to figure it out. Number one, any way you interpret it is correct. Two, the point of it is to make you have a hard time figuring it out. But obviously it carries these connotations of emptiness, and obviously it carries these connotations of ‘fill in the blank‘. For me, it was an awareness of, like, Andy Warhol and Beckett and a whole bunch of people that I identified with but that were actually very different from each other. Samuel Beckett and Andy Warhol had very little in common, except that you could imagine applying the word ‘blank’ to them. But ultimately, when anything was discussed long enough, my conclusion was that I didn't care! It was kind of a defensive thing that kids that age will use. I think I felt just overwhelmed by input: the Vietnam war and the collapse of the '60s and the proliferation of media… it just felt like everything was too much to handle and you just tuned out. Blank seemed appropriate to me, because my own feeling was of sensory overload."










http://www.richardhell.com/














"Blank Generation"

I was sayin' let me out of here before I was

Even born, it's such a gamble when you get a face

It's fascinatin' to observe what the mirror does

But when I dine it's for the wall that I set a place

I belong to the blank generation and

I can take it or leave it each time

I belong to the generation but

I can take it or leave it each time

Triangles were fallin' at the window as the doctor cursed

He was a cartoon long forsaken by the public eye

The nurse adjusted her garters as I breathed my first

The doctor grabbed my throat and yelled, 

"God's consolation prize!"

I belong to the blank generation and

I can take it or leave it each time

I belong to the generation but

I can take it or leave it each time

To hold the T.V. to my lips, the air so packed with cash

Then carry it up flights of stairs and drop it in the vacant lot

To lose my train of thought and fall into your arms' tracks

And watch beneath the eyelids every passing dot

I belong to the blank generation and

I can take it or leave it each time

I belong to the generation but

I can take it or leave it each time

"Love Comes in Spurts"

I just can't get wise
to those tragical lies
though I now know the facts
they still cut like an axe

cuz love comes in spurts
in dangerous flirts
and it murders your heart
they didn't tell you that part










"Liars Beware"








'Blank Generation'
full album:

All tracks written by Richard Hell, except as indicated. 

Side one

1. "Love Comes in Spurts"   2:03

2. "Liars Beware"   Hell, Ivan Julian 2:52

3. "New Pleasure"   1:58

4. "Betrayal Takes Two"   Hell, Julian 3:37

5. "Down at the Rock and Roll Club"   4:05

6. "Who Says?"   2:07

Side two

1. "Blank Generation"   2:45

2. "Walking on the Water"   John Fogerty, Tom Fogerty 2:17

3. "The Plan"   3:56

4. "Another World"   8:14