My Favorite Thing To Do Was Run Away

Richard Hell is the creator of the punk look. Well, the original punk look- spiky hair, ripped jeans and shirts held together by safety pins; the look that the Sex Pistols across the pond copied and exaggerated to the nth degree. Hell isn't bitter about this, but he is bitter about a lot of other things he mentions in his new autobiography, I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp.

The bassist, singer and songwriter of Television, the Voidoids, and other influential early punk bands is quite candid in his new book. He calls Patti Smith's band generic and calculated, speaks of his rivalry with his best friend and collaborator, Tom Verlaine, and even calls himself a "slut". But Hell also remarks on his respect for Smith and Verlaine, and eventually reaches some form of humility when he quits heroin at the close of the story.

Hell's autobiography has received rave reviews from the New York Times and other publications. He will appear tomorrow at 6:30 at the NYU Fales Library to read aloud from his autobiography. 

See ya punks there!

P.S.- on the topic of the beginning of punk- my favorite book ever (besides The Perks Of Being A Wallflower) is Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil. It is the definition of a page-turner. I highly recommend it. 

Photo by Laura Levine.