31st August 2009

Audio

Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Destiny Street

Well, when I got back from New York yesterday, my copy of Richard Hell & the Voidoids’ Destiny Street Repaired had arrive (early!). I’ve been pretty excited about this for a while, as I’m sure is obvious, since I do a radio show named after their first album, and I’ve mentioned it twice already. But I’m kind of disappointed.

First, a little background. Destiny Street was the second and final Voidoids album.  Apparently it didn’t come out the way Hell would’ve preferred, so, once he “discovered” old tracks, missing the vocals and lead guitar, he decided to rerecord and mix those parts, and rerelease it as Destiny Street Repaired. Initially I was worried, because Robert Quine, the super awesome lead guitarist from Blank Generation has been dead for five years, so he wouldn’t be involved. But then I hear Marc Ribot, Bill Frissell, and original Voidoid Ivan Julian were all doing the guitar. So I was excited again. And I was really excited about the idea of Richard Hell’s first studio album in over 15 years. The other three (the two Voidoids albums & the great Dim Stars record he did with Thurston Moore) were all fantastic, so, with a 100% awesome ratio, this should be great too, right? I mean, it’s already a good album, so he doesn’t even have to write anything good.

But he’s old now. Listening to the new vocals makes me really sad. He sounds like he’s a drunken prospector. And he’s on every track. So, songs that were originally great are now slightly less great, even with the new guitar tracks (which range from no better or worse than the original, to actually really quite interesting).  I’ve listened to it once all the way through, so far, and, I’ve gotta say, I feel like this shouldn’t have been done. Or, at least, Richard shouldn’t have been involved. It kind of hurts to say that.

I’ve attached the title track from the record, which has the best guitar work on the LP. And not too much of Hell’s no-longer-charmingly-skill-less vocals. Also of note is the fact that the CD comes with two bonus tracks, which seem to be old demos that were left untouched (and are pretty good).

In all, I suppose it’s worth a listen, and maybe, if this was all original stuff, you wouldn’t even notice that his voice isn’t as good anymore, but, I gotta say, I’m a little upset right now.