Dim Stars “Dim Stars”
It started, innocently enough, in late 2008 with a forwarded email that I suspected was a prank. The note, which best as I could tell was sent from somebody purporting to be Richard Hell, was inquiring as to whether I wanted to help the sender produce and distribute a reimagined version of “Destiny Street” — the second (and final) album from Richard Hell and The Voidoids.
Now, on the surface, the inquiry was not so far-fetched. My startup, Insound.com, occasionally did this sort of thing. We’d often advance bands some money to press and package vinyl in return for exclusive rights to sell the first however many copies. But all of our similar arrangements — years before Bandcamp was born and before Target and Walmart resurrected their own vinyl bins — had been with either self-distributed bands or artists on tiny labels who were experiencing a rush of demand but a lack of resources. Fifty-something year old Richard Hell, though? The icon of Punk aesthetics? The East Village’s patron saint of low-high art? The man who’d long since walked away from his erstwhile music career? Something seemed not quite right.
Cautiously, I poked and prodded in my return emails, not wanting to waste too much time in the event that this was some sort of elaborate cat-fishing scheme. But, by the third volley — the one that described how the villainous Marty Thau had lost his second album’s masters and also how he’d found cassette recordings of solid demos and how he’d enlisted Marc Ribot and Bill Laswell to re-record some new guitar parts — my ears perked up. So did my pulse. Because, while I was explaining the costs associated with vinyl pressing and packaging and how Insound would promote the release and how much money we would keep versus how much he would receive, the one thing that I absolutely did not tell Richard Hell was that, years earlier, when I was a teenager, I thought he was the coolest guy on the planet. I absolutely did not tell Richard Hell that he was my Punk Rock hero.
It’s true. Though I am too young to have seen The Voidoids (or The Heartbreakers or, obviously, The Neon Boys or early Television) and though I was not exactly a Punk myself, I had been taken by Richard Hell since I picked up a compact disc at Smash Records on St. Mark’s Place and saw him on the cover of “Blank Generation.” Not the original, scandalous cover with the words “You Make Me” adorning his bare chest — the later one, where he’s wearing shades, a torn polka dot short sleeved dress shirt and a picture perfect bedhead. I was fifteen at the time and had only even heard about Richard Hell through my discovery of Television, who I barely understood and who I’d just recently learned about through my discovery of The Velvet Underground, who I also barely understood but who people much older, smarter and cooler than me insisted were very, very important.
That album made good on all the promises of its cover photo — and then some. Odd angles. Riffs torn apart. Squeals and yelps. Fifties beatnik hipster vibes that I could barely place, much less explain. And, of course, lots of sex. Within a year, while Tom Verlaine and Television ascended to mythic, impossibly cool status in my mind, Richard Hell was the exact right amount of cool.
Months of devouring “Blank Generation,” I found “Destiny Street,” and then — before the internet as we know it — I embarked on a search for anything else I could find attributed to Richard Hell (nee. Meyers). The hunt began on the west end of Bleecker Street with many long stops to scour the hundred or so square feet of Subterranean Records on Cornelia Street (where I found several relevant posters and bootlegs) and then continued east towards the shops on St. Mark’s Place, where I found a copy of “Wanna Go Out,” Hell’s book of poetry written alongside Tom Verlaine under the pseudonym “Theresa Stern,” as well as a tiny, curious book called “Artifact: Notebooks from Hell 1974–1980. No. 37.” By the time I approached Second Avenue, I knew that Richard Hell was close by.
Not that I ever saw him. But I knew. I knew that, in spite of the romantic wanderlust of his youth and the many places he’d traveled as a performer and writer, that he’d settled into the East Village decades earlier and not left. I knew that my Punk Rock hero was not so far away. And that was enough for me. I gave up the search by the end of 1990, believing that the best treasures remain buried and that the search is almost always better than the discovery. And I was perfectly fine with that. Better to keep him as my little secret, away from the prying eyes of my increasingly Pixies and Replacements-curious friends.
But then, one night the following year, I received a mysterious phone call from a friend who knew about my Voidoids’ adulation. “Meet me on the corner of Fifty-Fourth Street and Seventh Avenue at 6PM,” he told me. And then, after a pregnant pause he concluded, “It’s gonna be a hellish night.” With that, he hung up and, for reasons that I still cannot explain, I did precisely what he told me to do. There, outside “The New Ritz,” I saw a line forming for a WFMU benefit concert. As best I could tell, Sonic Youth was going to be headlining a show full of bands that I’d never heard of.
Soon enough, my friend arrived and promptly confirmed that my suspicions were correct. Sonic Youth was gonna play. And I didn’t know anyone else on the bill — except with one notable exception: Among the support acts was a new group called Dim Stars, which consisted of Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Steve Shelley (also Sonic Youth), Don Fleming (Gumball) and Richard Hell. Yes — Richard Hell! Against all odds, my guy was making Rock and Roll again.
Dim Stars performance was short, ear-splittingly loud and, from my terrible vantage — too far away and surrounded by older, taller smokers — not particularly fun. Richard’s hair was long and shaggy, obscuring his face to such an extent that I needed confirmation that it was, in fact, the same person from the pink cover on that CD from Smash Records. Beneath the wall of feedback and the leaden weight of guitars, I could barely hear anything resembling a song. The singer’s occasional squeals eventually confirmed his identity, but otherwise, I was disappointed. I left before Sonic Youth played, half-heartedly thanked my friend and wondered if I could somehow rebury my treasure.
Later that year, after releasing a string of very hard to find seven inch vinyl EPs, Dim Stars released a self-titled album — their one and only. At the time, I did not like it very much. I wanted to. Truly, I did. But there was an offhanded grunge (before that word was popularly employed) about it that betrayed the sharp pretense that I so loved about The Voidoids’ two albums. I recalled a few exciting moments on “Dim Stars,” but not enough to hold my attention, especially during my first year at college, when a combination of peer pressure and just enough extra cash meant that I was practically living at In Your Ear, purchasing dozens of new albums that pushed Dim Stars to the far corners of my collection.
And then, one day, it happened. I brought in a pile of CDs, including “Dim Stars,” into In Your Ear and sold them to the cranky clerk for store credit — presumably so I could get my hands on R.E.M.s “Automatic for the People” or Frank Black’s “Teenager of the Year” or Slint’s “Spiderland.” I didn’t think twice about the transaction. And — it goes without saying that — in 2008, I shared none of this with the guy on the other end of those “Destiny Street” emails -- the Richard Hell.
In fact, I shared almost nothing about my fandom with him. Over the course of many emails, several phone calls and a few in person meetings, I tried my best to stay professional, fact based and, above all else, cool. I made it clear that I was very familiar with the two Voidoids albums and that I enjoyed them thoroughly. But I stopped far short of any particulars. I didn’t tell him about my teenage, lower Manhattan searches or about the “Blank Generation” t-shirt I made in art class in high school or about that fateful Dim Stars show. That was all ancient history. In 2008, Richard Hell was an esteemed writer and a CBGBs legend. He was a grown man, retired from Rock and Roll. I was thirty-four at the time and wanted to project competence and some modicum of coolness. I wanted him to respect and trust me. But yes — of course — I also wanted him to like me.
Which proved not so easy. Richard Hell, the real life person, was very much aware of but also not very much like Richard Hell, The Voidoid. Whereas on record he looked and sounded sharp and incisive, in real life he was more contemplative and circumlocuitous. Sometimes he could appear casual — even naive — about the process of designing and manufacturing a record. Then other times, he’d get frustrated about small miscommunications or a perceived lack of attention. One day he was a softer, more genial godfather of Punk Rock. The next day he could be irascible or petty. Rarely was I the subject of his ire, but when it happened, it was deflating. I’ve heard people say that it’s best to not meet your idols — to spare yourself the inevitable disappointment of humanity. There were days back then, while readying “Destiny Street Repaired,” when my more frustrated and cynical self related to that warning.
But ultimately those feelings passed, because here is the thing about Richard Hell. He is exceedingly self-aware. He knows his myth. He knows his reality. And he knows the distance between. Also, he’s a heck of an apologist. When he got short or was simply wrong about something, he’d never say “I’m sorry” or “I was mistaken,” but he’d switch on the charm. The same charm that, once upon a time, made him the face of the Lower East Side. The charm that could have made him a movie star. The charm that got him record deals and book deals and, I can only assume, oodles of attention and flirtation.
It was a superpower, that charm. In 2009, after months of consternation, I helped arrange an album release event for “Destiny Street Repaired,” wherein Richard would be the guest of honor, where he could celebrate with friends and where he could also sign copies of the LP for adoring fans (like me). When the evening of the party arrived, and as I approached Richard with my copy, I was unsure of which version of my hero I might get that day. Would he be tired from all the extroversion? Would he be annoyed by some detail of event production? Would he shoo me away so he could talk to Lenny Kaye?
The answer was none of the above. In fact, for sixty seconds, as he opened my LP and signed it, Richard Hell looked me straight in the eye and communicated a deeply felt appreciation — an acknowledgment that lit me up. He shook my hand and, a couple of hours later, I returned home, beaming from the night’s success and still clutching my copy of the album. I told my wife all about the evening and opened the gatefold record to see the inscription for the first time. It read: “To Matty, my hero. Love Richard.”
Just two years later, so much had changed in my life. After an initial surge of demand, sales for “Destiny Street Repaired” normalized and then faded. My communication with Richard did the same. And while I knew that he still resided in New York, my wife, twin daughters and I were making our move West and South, to Austin, TX. Late that Spring, right before our relocation, while at the Austin Bergstrom International Airport pushing a double wide stroller and discussing housing options with my wife, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. To my complete amazement, at our gate, presumably boarding our same flight back to JFK, was Richard Hell.
A swell of excitement and pang of anxiety came over me. Should I go say hello? Would he even remember me? Did I have spit up on my shirt? Did I look OK? Should I just tap him on the shoulder? Would that be weird? After some brief hemming and hawing, my wife gently nudged me in his general direction where, before I could even say anything, Richard turned, recognized me and said, “Matty? What are you doing here?”
Richard was in Austin, by way of Marfa, Texas, to read from an early draft of his then-still-unpublished memoir, “I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp.” After making some polite small talk about the Lone Star State, I introduced him to my infant daughters, who he cooed at and who I swear batted their eyelashes back at him. Then, I introduced him to my wife, who smiled and said I’d told her so much about him. Without missing a beat, Richard reponded, “Your husband’s a real swell guy.” And with that, I said thank you and good luck, floating on that very same cloud that found me two years earlier when Richard Hell personally autographed my record and called me his hero..
Later that night, after the babies were asleep and after we’d grown tired talking about our impending move, my thoughts turned to Dim Stars. I thought about that CD I’d sold for four dollars store credit and that show at The New Ritz. I thought about how much Richard Hell’s music had once meant to me and how little regard I’d ultimately paid to that short-lived supergroup that formed around him in 1990. But then, exhausted from a long day of travel, I fell asleep. And, for the most part, I did not think about Dim Stars again for another ten years.
These days, nostalgia can feel cheap — unearned. Between Google and Facebook, it’s almost too easy to satiate our wistfulness. But revisiting Dim Stars lone LP proved to be both complicated and expensive. The album is not available on Spotify. Five songs from the record do appear on Matador’s Richard Hell compilation (“Time”) but that is obviously not the same thing as listening to an entire album from beginning to end. Unsurprisingly, I was also unable to claw back my CD from In Your Ear (I called and they acted like I was the crazy one). And while the LP was for sale on Discogs, the sellers were exclusively European. Meaning that I had two options options — neither of which were awesome and both of which I opted for. First, I spent fifty dollars between product, shipping and taxes, to get the vinyl from Germany. And second, while I waited for my package to arrive, I listened to the album on Youtube, where a playlist has most (but not all of the) album tracks, just sequenced in reverse order.
Finding “Dim Stars” was oddly important to me — not because I believed it to be some lost classic as because I needed confirmation that it existed at all. That I hadn’t made up that WMFU concert at The New Ritz. That my awkward late adolescence, when New York City was a mostly barren Indie Rock scene and right before Grunge and Alternative Rock exploded, was not completely terrible. And that my relationship to Richard Hell, though clearly more imagined than real, was still partially real if only in that I actually saw him perform live — singing and (possibly) playing bass.
Though it was released in 1991, “Dim Stars” sounds like New York in 1988 — when Jon Spencer was fronting Pussy Galore and before Sonic Youth got a major label deal and when Avenue A was still sketchy and when everything stunk of imminent recession. Like all of those other things, you could call “Dim Stars” loose and offhanded, or you could call it sloppy. You could call it artful, or avant garde, or you could say that it sounds like shit. But in fact, it really sounds like four different things. One, like Sonic Youth with Richard Hell flattening out his voice to split the difference between Thurston and Kim. Two, like a poorly made sequel to “Destiny Street.” Three, like an overqualified Scuzz Rock band that had not yet found its groove. And, finally, like a post-structuralist hipster cover band.
Across fifteen generally loud and untidy tracks, however, some truths do emerge. For one thing, “Dim Stars” is validation of Richard Hell, the singer. There’s really never been another vocalist quite like him. Most of the time he squeals, but he occasionally goes down a register or two and croons. His pitch is good but not great. And, while in conversation he’s prone to long pauses and mini-stammers, on record he is completely assured.
On two of the album’s four covers — “Rip Off” (T. Rex) and “Downtown at Dawn” (The Voidoids) — we are reminded that Hell is capable of almost anything, other than technical excellence. He yelps and bleats and clears his throat and, in between, he even sings a little. And as for everything else — phrasing, entertaining, emoting, romancing, seething — he’s a virtuoso.
The other revelation — and it seems fairly obvious as I say it out loud now — is that Richard Hell’s voice works particularly well alongside Robert Quine’s guitar. Both are sharp instruments designed for convex angles. On their version of “Stop Breaking Down,” which is really a cover of Pussy Galore covering The Stones covering Robert Johnson, the skronk in the riff and the hitch in the riff are well served by the duo, who are supremely aware of the song’s many corners and its many cover versions. But also, the thing abouty Hell and Quine is that they really only seem interested in each other. In this song at least, everything (and everyone) else, is truly just noise.
Conversely, “Monkey,” which is credited to both Hell and Quine, is far more endearing. Though known for his furious leads alongside Lou Reed (and Richard Hell), Quine played rhythms that were as accommodating as they were pissed off. “Monkey” is that version of Quine, keeping things steady for Hell, who’s earnestly working his way through a love many years removed from “Love Comes in Spurts” and “Betrayal Takes Two.” It’s one of Hell’s finest moments — from any of his albums — one that splits the difference between “Destiny Street” and “Daydream Nation.”
In the same way that Quine adapted his tone to suit Lou Reed’s flat, prosaic style, he sharpens the edges and cuts away at the hooks when Hell has the mic. And though Lou Reed was once Quine’s hero (before they became frenemies), Hell is the singer who matches the former attorney’s instrument. Which means that when it's just Richard fronting half of Sonic Youth, things sound interesting, but also not quite right. The angles are concave where they should be convex. Or they’re not even angles at all but rather blunt, heavy drones interrupted by tiny explosions. Against Moore’s familiar chainsaw buzz, Hell’s hushed baritone is simply less effective than — say — Kim Gordon’s.
Which does not mean that the Evol Daydreamy tracks are failures. “The Night is Coming On” and “Dim Star Theme” are both keepers. And “Baby Huey'' is not so far from The Mevins, which is medium high praise. On the other hand, there are, of course, some throwaways among the girth (fifteen tracks). “Try This” is one of Hell’s lesser takes on a semi-famous Fifties Pop song (in this case, an old Otis Blackwell tune called “Hey Little Girl”). And three songs later, on “Stray Cat Generation,” Fleming (I think) unsuccessfully conflates “Stray Cat Strut,” “Blank Generation” and “Slacker” (the movie). It’s unnecessary and uninteresting. Whereas in 1977, Richard Hell sounded urgent and serrated, at their worst, Dim Stars sound slow and obtuse.
I’m ultimately very happy that “Dim Stars” exists — though it barely does. It’s not the third Voidoids album that I had once wanted so badly. It’s much more curious than it is great. But I like knowing that Richard Hell got clean and got married and divorced and kept writing and — years after he retired from music — took another chance. I like that Thurston and Steve and Don cashed in some chips on a middle-aged guy who’d made it possible for New York Punks and Poets and Artists and Auteurs and total scumbags could work together in cacophony. But mostly I cherish the memory of getting to see my hero perform live just once, years after he was almost famous and years before he was just an aging icon who’d never be truly famous, but who was still charming as hell.