I never really understood why Richard Hell did this. In order to get the rhythm tracks alone, he had to erase Robert Quine's guitar. Granted, he got Bill Frisell, Ivan Julian and Marc Ribot to play some great new leads, but he erased Robert Fucking Quine. Hell has told the story of telling Quine to keep adding more guitar tracks because Hell was too dope sick to come to the studio. The other thing that Richard Hell did to "repair" Destiny Street was to re-record his vocals. His voice was never one of his best assets, and the years have not been kind. The only good reason I can think of is that he wanted listeners to hear his lyrics. "Time" is one of his best. But he only wrote 7 of the 10 songs. Again, it was probably the heroin. IMHO e missed an opportunity to update the lyrics of the title track, which is a clever song about meeting your younger self, and is essentially what he did when he revisited this album.
I never thought there was anything wrong with "Destiny Street" and it seems a shame to take Quine out of the mix. Quine only got two songwriting co-credits, but he was really the leader of the Voidoids at this point, and Hell has paid him a lot of compliments over the years. Obviously I have spent too much time thinking about this, and I should just listen to "Destiny Street" and ignore this so-called Repair job.
I never really understood why Richard Hell did this. In order to get the rhythm tracks alone, he had to erase Robert Quine's guitar. Granted, he got Bill Frisell, Ivan Julian and Marc Ribot to play some great new leads, but he erased Robert Fucking Quine. Hell has told the story of telling Quine to keep adding more guitar tracks because Hell was too dope sick to come to the studio. The other thing that Richard Hell did to "repair" Destiny Street was to re-record his vocals. His voice was never one of his best assets, and the years have not been kind. The only good reason I can think of is that he wanted listeners to hear his lyrics. "Time" is one of his best. But he only wrote 7 of the 10 songs. Again, it was probably the heroin. IMHO e missed an opportunity to update the lyrics of the title track, which is a clever song about meeting your younger self, and is essentially what he did when he revisited this album.
ReplyDeleteI never thought there was anything wrong with "Destiny Street" and it seems a shame to take Quine out of the mix. Quine only got two songwriting co-credits, but he was really the leader of the Voidoids at this point, and Hell has paid him a lot of compliments over the years. Obviously I have spent too much time thinking about this, and I should just listen to "Destiny Street" and ignore this so-called Repair job.
I agree with you! You're fully wright!Destiny Street still remains one of the best records of the 80's. Nick,Greece.
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