You know I have to admit that I am a big fan. Hell is probably best known for creating the image of punk rock more than anything, but Blank Generation is a classic of the genre.
I never got my hands on the Destiny Street album, but I knew the title track from a compilation and I had gotten his two ROIR cassettes which featured a lot of the songs off of that album.
I was drawn to Hell. It was the 90s so Blank Generation had been easy to find on CD and Hell joined with members of Sonic Youth and Gumball and made an album with Dim Stars. He wrote a novel, too.
The idea of a punk poet is an appealing one to me. That’s surely what Hell is. His best friend adopted the name Verlaine and Hell saw himself as poet. He was not the first or last punk poet (I’m a big fan of people like Patti Smith and Jim Carroll too). One can spot the influences in Hell’s choice of covers through his career - Kinks, Them, Fats Domino, Exile-era Stones, Dylan, Iggy, Howlin Wolf, T Rex, Hendrix, CCR, even Sinatra.
Blank Generation is a fantastic album with two fantastic guitarists - Ivan Julian and Robert Quine, and as mentioned by Clinton Heylin, a unique bass sound from Hell himself.
Destiny Street is an album, like other punk albums (LAMF, Raw Power) that the artist felt wasn’t delivered to the masses correctly.
Hell was farming out bass duties in his live performances and the band had effectively broken up a couple of years before, so when Hell went into the studio the Destiny Street band swapped Julian for “Naux” Maciel.
But Hell had not been a fan of the blurry production. He spent years to this end, that in 2009, although the original tapes were missing,he had what he needed and went about remaking it.
Destiny Street Repaired was Hell’s attempt at fixing the damaged product. With Quine and Maciel passed, Hell brought in Julian, Bill Frissell and Marc Ribot to add guitar sound and his own vocals over a rough mix of the original.
Now, over a decade later, some of the original session tapes have surfaced and Hell brought in Nick Zinner (best known as guitarist for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and had him remix the songs (and rework where necessary).
Destiny Street Complete is the collection of most all of this - the album as Hell intended, the Repaired songs and even a few of the original demos.
Although it lacks anything as compelling as the track “ Blank Generation”, Destiny Street is a pretty solid follow up. Even with the counts against it- Hell was doing it for money for drugs, Hell never again would revisit the Voidoids- it works in the same ways the predecessor had- Hell as charismatic poet over inventive and soulful guitar.
I don’t really find any filler in the ten original songs. John Lydon disputes that he stole anything from Hell (and that may be true) but Hell can hold a listeners attention. A bit Iggy, a bit Dylan, and a bit Allen Ginsberg.
The album’s lowest moment is the title track- a meandering jazzy track with some cringey tracks a la “The Plan” that doesn’t quite stand up to repeat listenings.
Adding the 2009 tracks brings redundancy, but are nonetheless enjoyable. The talent of all involved shows through and most of the songs turn into guitar workouts (of the “Blank Generation” kind). The songs don’t need that, but it’s not necessary a bad thing either (think of Lou Reed augmented by Wagner and Hunter).
Like the second Television album (Adventure), Destiny Street is overshadowed and a bit forgotten, but this collection corrects that and is a good starting spot for new Hell fans and the diehards.
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