I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp - Hardcover

Hell, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0062190830 ISBN 13: 9780062190833

Publisher: Ecco Pr, 2013

Synopsis

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.

About this title

Product Description:

Rare Book

Review:

"An exquisite snapshot of early punk possibility--that so beautifully captures the exuberance of starting a band!"--Legs McNeil

"Charming and impossible, Hell is the first (and best!) name in punk rock. His insights are informed by the romance of running away to the mystery heard in the rowdy grooves of a dirty LP or in the pages of a thumbed book of verse."--Thurston Moore

"[Hell] almost single handedly created 'punk' as we know it.... Few people have been as important--yet as underappreciated as Richard Hell. Poet, musician, fashion icon and terrific, terrific writer. Chances are, you have been deeply influenced by Richard Hell your whole life. You just didn't know it."--Anthony Bourdain

"Hell is a fine writer and full of self-knowledge, and part of the pleasure of this randy, drug-addled memoir are his descriptions of New York during the bad old days when crime was rampant and the streets filthy. A compelling and entertaining memoir."--Booklist

"This valuable book... is not only an absorbing cultural history but also a clear-eyed story that superbly channels the attitude expressed in the first blurt to his best-known song 'Blank Generation' "I was saying let me out of here before I was even born."--Boston Globe

"Hell is an enthusiastic reporter of the critical artistic crossover of the avant-garde art scene and the world of punk rock... his account rings true and it entertains... a treasure both to those present during gritty, heady '70s NYC and to those not."--Time Out New York (4 Stars)

"A rueful, battle-scarred, darkly witty observer of his own life and times."--New York Times

"There are many shivery, illicit pleasures in this louche memoir... Hell was a virtuoso of taste, a critic with a sensibility so fine and unconventional it bordered on its own form of art... weird and singular and superbly self-aware."--BookForum

"Other rock bios are tasteful and cautious -- you feel the writer take you to a certain point but then pull back... Hell will take you right there, and that is why this book is an honest and special treat."--Dean Wareham

"In his poetic memoir, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, Hell takes us on a tour of a lost world and stakes out his place in cultural history."--Los Angeles Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Ecco Pr
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0062190830
• ISBN 13: 9780062190833
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 293