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Richard Hell


Richard Lester Meyers (born October 2, 1949), from Lexington, Kentucky, is better known by his stage name Richard Hell, is an American singer, songwriter, bass guitarist and writer. Hell was in several important early punk rock bands, including Neon Boys, Television and the Heartbreakers, after which he formed Richard Hell & the Voidoids. Their 1977 album Blank Generation influenced many other punk bands. Its title track was named "One of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock" by music writers in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame listing and is ranked as one of the all-time Top 10 punk songs by a 2006 poll of original British punk figures, as reported in the Rough Guide to Punk.


Since the late 1980s, Hell has devoted himself primarily to writing, publishing two novels and several other books. He was the film critic for BlackBook magazine from 2004 to 2006. In early 1976, Hell quit the Heartbreakers and started Richard Hell and the Voidoids with Robert Quine, Ivan Julian and Marc Bell. The band released two albums, though the second, Destiny Street, retained only Quine from the original group, with Naux (Juan Maciel) on guitar and Fred Maher on drums. Hell's best known songs with the Voidoids included "Blank Generation", "Love Comes in Spurts", "The Kid With the Replaceable Head" and "Time". In 2009, the guitar tracks on Destiny Street were re-recorded and released as Destiny Street Repaired, with guitarists Julian, Marc Ribot and Bill Frisell playing to the original rhythm tracks. Also in 2009, Hell gave his blessing to the public access program Pancake Mountain to create an animated music video for "The Kid with the Replaceable Head". It was the Voidoids' first and only official music video. The cut used for the animation appears on Hell's 2005 retrospective album, Spurts, The Richard Hell Story.


Lexington is a city in Kentucky, United States that is the county seat of Fayette County. By population, it is the second-largest city in Kentucky and 59th-largest city in the United States. As of the2020 census the population was 322,570, anchoring a metropolitan area of 516,811 people and a combined statistical area of 747,919 people


Richard Hell tracks to check out: The Kid with the Replaceable Head, Chinese Rocks & Love Comes in Spurts

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