Posts Tagged ‘Ivan Julian’

RICHARD HELL and the VOIDOIDS – ” Destiny Street ” Complete

Posted: January 26, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Three plus versions of the same album. It’s ridiculous, but I’m glad.” The first paragraph of Richard Hell’s text in the booklet accompanying “Destiny Street Complete” lays it out. There are, indeed, three versions of his and his band The Voidoids’s album released originally in July 1982 album “Destiny Street” on this double-CD set. It seems excessive but this is a major release of a classic in the making .

Reviews of “Destiny Street” at the time of its release were positive. Creem Magazine said “Hell himself has hit on a style – part Nuggets-era basement rock ‘n roll, part speed-balling protest (not in content, but in attitude) rock, part confrontational CBGB psychodrama – that gives the album its pungent reverberations.” When considering the album, the New York Times frothed “Mr. Hell is the most soulful, emotionally compelling singer to have emerged from punk rock, and his lyrics are in the tradition of Rimbaud and Lautremont.”

Richard Hell Destiny Street complete

Really though, Destiny Street was scrappy, overly short and bulked-out with cover versions and reworked old tracks. There was Dylan’s “Going Going Gone”, The Kinks’s “I Gotta Move” and Them’s “I Can Only Give You Everything”. There were also remakes of “The Kid With the Replaceable Head”, first heard on a single three years earlier, and of “Time”, which had been on an April 1980 EP. New inspiration appeared to be lacking. Destiny Street sounded messy too. Its trebliness was counterbalanced by muddiness. In his text for Destiny Street Complete Hell says “The final mix [of the album] was a morass of trebly multi-guitar sludge.”

Even so and despite its flaws, the original Destiny Street has some power-packed moments. The version of “Going Going Gone” is poignant. “Downtown at Dawn”, “Lowest Common Dominator”, “Staring in Her Eyes” and “Time” are all superb songs, however scrambled they come across.

What’s collected for Destiny Street Complete is the original album and a version titled Destiny Street Repaired, which was issued in 2009. This was created from a cassette of the album’s rhythm tracks which were overdubbed with new guitar solos (by Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot and former Voidoid Ivan Julian) and vocals.

These are on Disc One. On Disc Two is Destiny Street Remixed: a new mix of most the original album fashioned from the three of the four original multi-track master reels (one reel has been lost). The gaps in Destiny Street Remixed are plugged by three tracks from Destiny Street Repaired. 

Destiny Street Repaired is a curio, an exercise in post-fact bricolage which is neither a new album or a remake – a half-way house. The new Destiny Street Remixed is aurally more up-front and punchier than the original album but doesn’t alter perceptions about the source album’s creative shortcomings.

 

Another inescapable problem with the original Destiny Street  is that it was released close to five years after the debut Richard Hell & The Voidoids album, October 1977’s Blank Generation. It came too late. The moment had passed. Hell was integral to the New York scene, had been in Television, then The Heartbreakers and first played live with The Voidoids in November 1976. But the forward motion of 1976 and 1977 dissipated, and momentum was lost. Thereafter – fits and starts. Hell should have made a second album in 1978 or 1979, rather than 1982 (Destiny Street was recorded in 1981).

A broad hint at what could have been a more timely second album comes with what follows Destiny Street Remixed on Disc Two. There’s the careening January 1979 UK-only “The Kid With the Replaceable Head” / “I’m Your Man” single , nine demos from July 1979 (three of which are previously unreleased) and a live track from 2004.

Richard Hell The Kid With the Replaceable Head

The demos open a window into Hell’s pre-Destiny Street world, when he was still being facilitated by former Dr Feelgood road manager and Stiff Records co-founder Jake Riviera. A Hell supporter, Riviera had seen The Heartbreakers in 1976, tried to get the newly band-less Hell to play August 1976’s Mont-de-Marsan punk rock festival with Nick Lowe, issued the “Blank Generation” single on Stiff Records and organised support slots for Hell with Elvis Costello. “The Kid With the Replaceable Head” single was on Riviera’s post-Stiff label Radar. The 1979 demos heard here were made for Riviera and could have become the ground floor of an album, but in his essay Hell says “It was clear by the end of the summer that I wasn’t going to be dependable enough to warrant Jake investing in a full-scale album. So that plan was scrapped.”

Of these nine tracks from 1979 (misleadingly credited as “Destiny Street Demos”), six have been out before: “Don’t Die” and “Time” were on the 1980 Shake label EP mentioned above; “Crack of Dawn”, “Going Going Gone”, “I Lived my Life” and “Ignore That Door” were on the 1984 cassette album R.I.P. In full, the 1979 recordings sound terrific. Coherent, kinetic and spikey, this is wonderful stuff. The previously unheard “Smitten” brings in a Gang Of Four slant. But there was no immediately ensuing album, and Destiny Street arrived three years later.

Anyone with a passing interest in this ever-intriguing figure will need the 1979 demos. They’re as essential as the “The Kid With the Replaceable Head” single. But overall, the thought-provoking Destiny Street Complete says more about Richard Hell’s urge to wrestle with his past than it does about the original Destiny Street album itself.

 Hell may have saved the best for last. Disc two of this set also includes Destiny Street Demos, an essential collection of raw early recordings and singles spanning from 1978 to 1980. This stuff smokes, plain and simple; it might even be the best argument for the Voidoids as one of the finest bands to emerge out of NYC during this period. Almost all of Demos has shown up on various collections in the past, but presented as a whole here, it’s as powerful a statement as Hell and co. ever made. Worth the price of admission alone.

Richard Hell, under exclusive license to Omnivore Recordings. Released on: 22nd January 2021

RICHARD HELL and the VOIDOIDS – ” Destiny Street Complete “

Posted: January 4, 2021 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Destiny Street Complete

The punk classic finally made available as the artist originally intended • Four complete records under one banner • The release contains new liners for Richard Hell outlining the Destiny Street saga “I’ve finally taken it all the way, and at this late date the album now moves me.

I can feel it rather than just feel frustration about it. the emotions in it are largely fear and desperation and longing, but that’s life, and can even have some kind of majesty.” Richard Hell Destiny Street was the follow-up album to one of the greatest punk albums of all time, 1977’s Blank Generation. the album was originally recorded in 1981 and released in 1982, but not to Richard Hell’s satisfaction. As he says in his new liner notes to destiny street remixed, “the final mix was a morass of trebly multi-guitar sludge.” now, for the 40th anniversary of its creation, the album is at last presented the way Richard Hell originally intended, “the sound of a little combo playing real gone rock and roll.” Richard Hell co-founded his first band, the Neon Boys, with Tom Verlaine in 1973. that band became Television. when Hell left Television in 1975, he formed, with Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan, both formerly of the New York Dolls, the Heartbreakers. after another year, Richard Hell departed the Heartbreakers and created Richard Hell and the Voidoids, which group, along with other CBGB’s bands of the era, such as the Ramones and Patti Smith, formed the template for punk, the effects of which are still being felt.

Apart from Hell on vocals and bass, the original Voidoids comprised Robert Quine (guitar), Ivan Julian (guitar), and Marc Bell (eventually “Marky Ramone”). the Destiny Street era band retained Quine, but otherwise the backing lineup became Naux (Juan Maciel) on guitar and Fred Maher on drums. Richard had wished forever that he could remix the original Destiny Street, but was told by the record company that the original 24-track masters had been lost. in the early 2000s, Hell discovered a cassette from 1981 that contained just the album’s rhythm tracks (drums, bass and two rhythm guitars) and he realized he could add new guitar solos and vocals to that to obtain a cleaner, improved version of the songs.

RICHARD HELL – ” Destiny Street ” Remixed

Posted: November 19, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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UNITED STATES - JANUARY 01: Photo of Richard HELL; B&W Posed (Photo by Peter Noble/Redferns)

On this day (November 18th) in 1976: Richard Hell & The Voidoids made their live debut at CBGB’s New York; their 1977 debut album, ‘Blank Generation‘, would influence many other punk bands – its title song was chosen by music writers as one of ‘The 500 Songs That Shaped Rock’ in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame listing, & is ranked as one of the all-time Top 10 punk songs by a 2006 poll of original British punk figures,

Richard Hell and the Voidoids will revisit their 1982 album “Destiny Street” as a “remastered, remixed, repaired” reissue that captures how the band’s second and final album was originally intended to sound. Destiny Street Remixed, due out January 21st, 2021 via Omnivore Recordings, makes use of the newly discovered three of the four original 24-track masters from the 1981 sessions for the album that, in its original form, “was a morass of trebly multi-guitar blare,” Hell writes in the reissue’s new liner notes. Never happy with the 1982 album, Hell first tinkered with it for 2009’s Destiny Street Repaired, which combined the original rhythm tracks with Hell’s new vocals and guitar overdubs courtesy of Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, and Ivan Julian. After rediscovering the 24-track masters featuring the Voidoids’ contributions, Hell enlisted Yeah Yeah Yeah’s Nick Zinner for a full remix of the original Destiny Street.

Destiny Street was the follow-up album to one of the greatest punk albums of all time, 1977’s Blank Generation. The album was originally recorded in 1981 and released in 1982, but not to Richard Hell’s satisfaction. As he says in his new liner notes to Destiny Street Remixed, “The final mix was a morass of trebly multi-guitar blare.”

Now, for the 40th Anniversary of its creation, the album is at last presented improved the way Richard Hell has long hoped and intended: “The sound of a little combo playing real gone rock and roll.”

Richard Hell co-founded his first band, the Neon Boys, with Tom Verlaine in 1973. That band became Television. When Hell left Television in 1975, he formed, with Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan, both formerly of the New York Dolls, The Heartbreakers. After another year, Richard Hell departed The Heartbreakers and created Richard Hell And The Voidoids, which, along with other CBGB bands of the era, such as the Ramones and Patti Smith, formed the template for punk, the effects of which are still being felt.

Apart from Hell on vocals and bass, the original Voidoids comprised Robert Quine (guitar), Ivan Julian (guitar), and Marc Bell (drums). The Destiny Street-era band retained Quine, but otherwise the backing lineup became Naux (Juan Maciel) on guitar and Fred Maher on drums.

Richard had wished forever that he could remix the original Destiny Street, but was told by the record company that the original 24-track masters had been lost. In the early 2000s, Hell discovered a cassette from 1981 that contained just the album’s rhythm tracks (drums, bass and two rhythm guitars) and he realized he could add new guitar solos and vocals to that to obtain a cleaner, improved version of the songs. He enlisted Marc Ribot, Bill Frisell, and Ivan Julian to overdub the solos (Quine had died in 2004 and Naux in 2009) and he re-sang everything. This was released as Destiny Street Repaired in 2009. Hell was pleased.

Then, in 2019, three of the four original 24-track masters were discovered. Now, at long last, Destiny Street could be fully remixed, and Hell signed on Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs) to help him with that. The result became the uncanny centerpiece of the 2-CD Destiny Street Complete extravaganza to be released in January of 2021. Destiny Street Remixed will also be available as a stand-alone vinyl LP.

Besides containing the three faithful versions of the album, the 40th anniversary 2-CD deluxe edition of Destiny Street includes not only Hell’s detailed liner notes, but a fourth LP’s worth of demos and prior studio versions of the album’s material—essentially all of Richard’s songwriting output recorded between the release of Blank Generation in 1977 and the recording of Destiny Street in 1981—including some of the best playing and singing in the four-part Complete—called Destiny Street Demos.

And for Record Store Day 2021, Omnivore Recordings will proudly offer this special material on its own stand-alone vinyl LP. Significantly, all the material in this entire collection has been freshly remastered (or in the case of the Remixed, mastered) for these releases by Michael Graves at Osiris Studios.

According to Hell: “I’ve been working on this release for 40 years. Long road! Three different versions of the same ten songs, from the same basic tracks by the same four musicians. I couldn’t help myself, and I’m glad, god damn it. But really, each of the four parts (including the collection of demos) has its points of interest and then the whole is greater than the parts, for my money. It was a good trip, with lots of roadside attractions, but I’m happy to have reached the destination.”

In addition to the standalone Destiny Street Remixed, the remastered 1982 LP, the “Repaired” version, and the new remixed version will also be released together as the two-CD Destiny Street Complete, which adds a fourth disc of a dozen demos recorded between 1978 and 1980. “I’ve been working on this release for 40 years. Long road,” Hell said of the release in a statement. “Three different versions of the same 10 songs, from the same basic tracks by the same four musicians. I couldn’t help myself, and I’m glad, God damn it. But really, each of the four parts (including the collection of demos) has its points of interest and then the whole is greater than the parts, for my money. It was a good trip, with lots of roadside attractions, but I’m happy to have reached the destination.”

RICHARD HELL and the VOIDOIDS – ” The Blank Generation “

Posted: August 10, 2020 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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No photo description available.

Richard Hell and the Voidoids “Blank Generation” (1977) anthemic track, Led by former Television bassist Richard Hell (Lester), the Voidoids were an interesting take on punk rock. Sounding like a more aggressive version of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band, they played high energy songs with exuberant vocals by Hell. Not a good singer or bassist by conventional standards, he was still able to communicate emotion, albeit through a nihilistic viewpoint. The songs have interesting arrangements, and don’t sound like other punk bands. The band consisting of Richard Hell – Bass, vocals, Ivan Julian – Rhythm guitar, Robert Quine – Lead guitar, Marc Bell – Drums.

Richard Hell is all over this story, passing through Television and the Heartbreakers before arriving at the Voidoids. He mastered the art of thrift store finery, pairing numb, nihilistic cool with spiked hair and safety-pin piercings. “Blank Generation,” caught here at CBGB in 1978 features a future Ramone Marky (still Marc Bell) behind the drums.

A short clip from the movie Blank Generation made in (1980), featuring Richard Hell and the Voidoids playing the theme song Blank Generation at the legendary punk club CBGB. Directed by Ulli Lommel, produced by Andy Warhol.  The band were formed in New York City in 1976 and fronted by Richard Hell, who had been a former member of the Neon Boys, Television and the Heartbreakers.

Richard Meyers moved to New York City after dropping out of high school in 1966, aspiring to become a poet. There he hoped he would be able start a career as a poet and immerse himself in the rich art community of the city. In his career as a poet he managed to get some of his works published in places like Rolling Stone and the New Directions’ Annuals. He also started his own
publishing imprints, Genesis: Grasp and then later Dot Books. He had little success as a poet, his imprints ultimately couldn’t be sustained and he ultimately cooled on his poetic aspirations.

He and his best friend from high school, Along with Tom Miller, founded the rock band the Neon Boys Their first group was it was a short lived group that produced only two
four-track studio recordings which became Television in 1973. The pair adopted stage names; Miller called himself Verlaine after Paul Verlaine, a French poet he admired, and Meyers became Richard Hell because, as he has said, it described his condition. Television received a good deal of hype in the New York music scene, with good write-ups in the Soho Weekly News, by Patti Smith, who was then sometimes working as a rock journalist, among others. Television was the first group on the New York scene to play at the Bowery club CBGB, which quickly became the epicenter of the emerging punk rock. There is both audio and video of the band while Hell remained, but nothing was officially released.

The group was the first rock band to play the club CBGB, which soon became a breeding ground for the early punk rock scene in New York.  Hell had an energetic stage presence and wore torn clothing held together with safety pins and his hair spiked, which was to be influential in punk fashion in 1975, after a failed management deal with the New York Dolls, impresario Malcolm McLaren brought these ideas back with him to England and eventually incorporated them into the Sex Pistols’ image.

Disputes with Verlaine led to Hell’s departure from Television in 1975, and he co-founded the Heartbreakers with New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan They were a super-group of sorts on the New York scene. Expectations for the new group were high and initial performances were met with criticism. In the group Hell faced many of the same issues of songwriting and singing that he had withTelevision, and the heroin problems of Hell, Thunders, and Nolan were mutually destructive. Hell eventually quit the Heartbreakers after a year, again before the group got into the studio to record an album. Live material featuring Hell exists, but was not officially released until years later.

Hell did not last long with this band, and he began recruiting members for a new band. For guitarists, Hell found Robert Quine and Ivan Julian—Quine had worked in a bookstore with Hell, and Julian responded to an advertisement in The Village Voice. They lifted drummer Marc Bell, later Marky Ramone, from Wayne County. The band was named “the Voidoids” after a novel Hell had been writing.[

Musically, Hell drew inspiration from acts such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, protopunk band the Stooges and fellow New Yorker group the Velvet Underground, a group with a reputation for heroin-fuelled rock and roll with poetic lyrics. Quine’s admiration of the Velvet Underground led him to make hours’ worth of bootleg recordings of the band in the late 1960s.[citation needed] Hell also drew from and covered garage rock bands such as the Seeds and the Count Five that were found on the Nuggets compilation of 1972.[7] The Voidoids’ music was also characterized as art punk.#

Hell had written the song “Blank Generation” while still in Television; he had played it regularly with the band since at least 1975, and later with the Heartbreakers. The Voidoids released a 7″ Blank Generation EP in 1976 on Ork Records[ including “Blank Generation”, “Another World” and “You Gotta Lose”. The cover featured a black-and-white cover photo taken by Hell’s former girlfriend Roberta Bayley, depicting a bare-chested Hell with an open jeans zipper.  It was an underground hit, and the band signed to Sire Records for its album debut.

The Voidoids original lineup. Marc Bell (aka Marky Ramone), Ivan Julian, Robert Quine (later in the Lou Reed band), and Richard Hell (previously in the Heartbreakers and Television).

MATTHEW SWEET – ” The Albums “

Posted: September 30, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Matthew Sweets Essential 90s Albums Artist-Approved Expanded Edition 180-Gram Vinyl Double LPs!

You definately need these Artist-Approved 180-gram vinyl double LP reissues*. Loaded with extra tracks 100% Analog Re-mastered from THE ORIGINAL MASTER TAPES by Ryan Smith at Sterling Sound. Packaged in “Old-Style” tip-on deluxe gatefold jackets printed by Stoughton featuring faithfully restored original album art!

“Altered Beast” is available in late August. “Girlfriend” and “Son of Altered Beast” are shipping in late autumn 2018. 100% Fun available now! ,*Son of Altered Beast is a single not double LP. All fully artist-Approved Expanded Editions. Intervention Records and Matthew Sweet are proud to introduce an amazing NEW Artist-Approved reissue series, Matthew Sweet 1991-1995!

In 2018 Intervention is releasing 2-LP Expanded Editions of Sweet’s 90’s power-pop classic Trilogy, Girlfriend, Altered Beast and 100% Fun, plus the Son of Altered Beast 7-song EP, which appears on vinyl for the very first time!

Each Expanded Edition double-LP set of the three classic studio albums is loaded with extra tracks. So many of these songs are either appearing on vinyl for the very first time or seeing official release for the very first time. And for Sweet completists, these LPs are the most extensive collection of extra tracks compiled and packaged with the studio albums the songs were recorded for!

The original 15-song repertoires for Girlfriend and Altered Beast are for the first time spread across three LPs sides for maximum sound quality and the ability to PLAY LOUD!

The jacket art for Matthew Sweet 1991-1995 has been faithfully restored by IR’s art director Tom Vadakan. The three Expanded Editions feature beautiful “Old Style” gatefolds printed onto heavy blanks and film laminated by the wizards at Stoughton Printing. Son of Altered Beast features a single-pocket “Old Style” GATEFOLD jacket by Stoughton as well.

With the wind in his sails stirred up by the success of his previous album Girlfriend, Matthew Sweet did what any young musician in his position would have with the follow up: he went for broke. He wrote more daring arrangements that brought in a country element to his power pop attack, dove deeper lyrically and, most importantly, roped in a bunch of his musical idols to join in the fun. The liner notes for Altered Beast read like a who’s who of the pop and post-punk universe with regular collaborators Ivan Julian and Richard Lloyd joined by Big Star’s Jody Stephens, Mick Fleetwood, pianist Nicky Hopkins and Elvis Costello’s drummer Pete Thomas.

Their collective work has never sounded better than it does on this remastered vinyl pressing from the ever-reliable Intervention Records. The album is wisely stretched out to a double LP, with the fourth side taken up by a batch of studio outtakes, some previously unavailable here in the States. They flesh out the story nicely, with even more of Sweet’s ‘70s rock acumen and ‘80s punk playfulness coming to the fore. It all sounds more remarkable than ever thanks to the work of mastering engineer Ryan K. Smith. Every song sounds like it is bursting out of its seams and ready to flatten a major metropolis.