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Hot and Cold: essays poems lyrics notebooks pictures fiction
Hot and Cold: The Works of Richard Hell
is a stupendous compendium of poetry, prose, photography, illustrations, interviews, essays, lyrics, and more by acclaimed artist, author, and rock star, Richard Hell. Since he first came to public attention in the 1970s, Richard Hell has made a spectacular if specialized reputation for himself in every conceivable medium—from music, painting, and photography to fashion, design, and writing. A man with a vision, Hell was the Prophet of Punk: the originator of the spiked haircut; ripped, drawn-on, safety-pinned clothes; and the seminal punk anthems “Love Comes in Spurts” and “(I Belong to the) Blank Generation.”
“I came back to England determined. I had these images that I came back with, it was like Marco Polo, or Walter Raleigh. These are the things I brought back: the image of this distressed, strange thing called Richard Hell. And this phrase, ‘the blank generation.’”
—Malcolm McLaren
“I came back to England determined. I had these images that I came back with, it was like Marco Polo, or Walter Raleigh. These are the things I brought back: the image of this distressed, strange thing called Richard Hell. And this phrase, ‘the blank generation.’”
—Malcolm McLaren
256 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2001
About the author
Richard Hell
38 books150 followersBorn in 1949, Richard Meyers was shipped off to a private school for troublesome kids in Delaware, which is where he met Tom (Verlaine) Miller. Together they ran away, trying to hitchhike to Florida, but only made it as far as Alabama before being picked up by the authorities. Meyers persuaded his mother to allow him to go to New York, where he worked in a secondhand bookshop (the Strand; later he was employed at Cinemabilia along with Patti Smith) and tried to become a writer.
He arrived in the Big Apple at the tail end of the hippie scene. He took acid (and later heroin), but sought to develop a different sensibility in the manner of what he later referred to as 'twisted French aestheticism', i.e. more Arthur Rimbaud than Rolling Stones. He printed a poetry magazine (Genesis: Grasp) and when Miller dropped out of college and joined him in New York, they developed a joint alter ego whom they named Teresa Stern. Under this name they published a book of poems entitled Wanna Go Out?. This slim volume went almost unnoticed. It was at this point that Meyers and Miller decided to form a band. They changed their names to Hell and Verlaine, and called the band The Neon Boys.
During this hiatus, Hell wrote The Voidoid (1973), a rambling confessional. He wrote it in a 16 dollar-a-week room, fuelled by cheap wine and cough syrup that contained codeine. He then played in various successful bands: Television, Richard Hell and The Voidoids.
Hell recently returned to fiction with his 1996 novel Go Now.
He arrived in the Big Apple at the tail end of the hippie scene. He took acid (and later heroin), but sought to develop a different sensibility in the manner of what he later referred to as 'twisted French aestheticism', i.e. more Arthur Rimbaud than Rolling Stones. He printed a poetry magazine (Genesis: Grasp) and when Miller dropped out of college and joined him in New York, they developed a joint alter ego whom they named Teresa Stern. Under this name they published a book of poems entitled Wanna Go Out?. This slim volume went almost unnoticed. It was at this point that Meyers and Miller decided to form a band. They changed their names to Hell and Verlaine, and called the band The Neon Boys.
During this hiatus, Hell wrote The Voidoid (1973), a rambling confessional. He wrote it in a 16 dollar-a-week room, fuelled by cheap wine and cough syrup that contained codeine. He then played in various successful bands: Television, Richard Hell and The Voidoids.
Hell recently returned to fiction with his 1996 novel Go Now.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 9, 2026
Well, in some strange way this was just what I needed to read right now. Can't exactly say why...punk nostalgia perhaps, or feeling a bit old and needed a compadre in these feelings. We have some things in common, Mr. Hell and I. only ever saw him once when I lived in the East Village (while I seemed to run into Richard Butler fucking EVERYWHERE!), at our local sushi restaurant. He was with a VERY young girl, which we supposed at the time and checks with my reading here was his daughter Ruby. Reading the notebooks section I passed through the year when I think this might have happened but he didn't mention seeing me.
I'm a little feverish today--not sure if allergies or walking pneumonia but I guess time will tell.
You see, reading all this random stuff like this puts you in a kind of free-associative mood. I think I enjoyed the essays, particularly those about music best. Some good poems but much frivolity as well. Made me wonder, given the nature of this, if these were the throw-aways. Those poems that didn't make the book of poetry--but I don't think Hell, for all his going on and on about poetry and being a poet, or wanting to be a poet, here, has ever published a poetry book. (Except the Theresa collaboration.) Odd that. It seems his identity yet something he either doesn't do that much of or keeps it all to himself. Or it's more a state of mind than actual vocation--although his reading seems to say otherwise. I mean he knows poetry from poetry books and he mentions the urge to join the chorus. So, odd. Bolano too though. A poet who left behind a stunning body of work: all novels and short stories.
It was interesting to revisit the lyrics as printed lyrics. I re-listened to the records as I read them, for context's sake. I got a feel for Hell's quirky metrics, which you also get in the poems--lines so clunky they can have no real rythm next to lines cut at odd grammatical points to make a kind of Thelonius Monk angular rhythm. So very unstudied for someone who reads so much.
But the chorus always has a hook--or really what feels like a parody of a hook, which nevertheless functions as a hook and you hum it later in your head. My favorite is "Downtown at dawn, where they drift to the dub..." Of course "Love - comes - in spurts -- Oh, no, it hurts!" and "I belong to the ___ generation." Pure genius.
And yet, why is Hell famous? What major work justifies this self-indulgent patchwork volume of marginalia? Two novels (one really great the other fine)? Two LPS? Where's the major work. It's like he's working from the margins in, building a library of secondary works around a huge ___.
Maybe he spent the time another artists would have spent on that masterpiece getting laid, doing drugs, and getting sober again. Likely.
Best of all he's really thoughtful and reading this you get so much (maybe too much in some ways) of him you begin to feel like it's a conversation taking different turns. He's a lovable imp. And occasionally you really want to slap him.
I'm a little feverish today--not sure if allergies or walking pneumonia but I guess time will tell.
You see, reading all this random stuff like this puts you in a kind of free-associative mood. I think I enjoyed the essays, particularly those about music best. Some good poems but much frivolity as well. Made me wonder, given the nature of this, if these were the throw-aways. Those poems that didn't make the book of poetry--but I don't think Hell, for all his going on and on about poetry and being a poet, or wanting to be a poet, here, has ever published a poetry book. (Except the Theresa collaboration.) Odd that. It seems his identity yet something he either doesn't do that much of or keeps it all to himself. Or it's more a state of mind than actual vocation--although his reading seems to say otherwise. I mean he knows poetry from poetry books and he mentions the urge to join the chorus. So, odd. Bolano too though. A poet who left behind a stunning body of work: all novels and short stories.
It was interesting to revisit the lyrics as printed lyrics. I re-listened to the records as I read them, for context's sake. I got a feel for Hell's quirky metrics, which you also get in the poems--lines so clunky they can have no real rythm next to lines cut at odd grammatical points to make a kind of Thelonius Monk angular rhythm. So very unstudied for someone who reads so much.
But the chorus always has a hook--or really what feels like a parody of a hook, which nevertheless functions as a hook and you hum it later in your head. My favorite is "Downtown at dawn, where they drift to the dub..." Of course "Love - comes - in spurts -- Oh, no, it hurts!" and "I belong to the ___ generation." Pure genius.
And yet, why is Hell famous? What major work justifies this self-indulgent patchwork volume of marginalia? Two novels (one really great the other fine)? Two LPS? Where's the major work. It's like he's working from the margins in, building a library of secondary works around a huge ___.
Maybe he spent the time another artists would have spent on that masterpiece getting laid, doing drugs, and getting sober again. Likely.
Best of all he's really thoughtful and reading this you get so much (maybe too much in some ways) of him you begin to feel like it's a conversation taking different turns. He's a lovable imp. And occasionally you really want to slap him.
March 8, 2024
Skim through to find anything interesting to you in the poetry / art. The essays in the back are the best parts. Definitely check this out of the library given the cost to pick it up on the open market.
I picked it up for the "atmosphere" and because of the Kentucky connection. -- 10 years of notebooks
+ stories like:
I'll give you $100 american to swan dive on that table (in a posh restaurant)
Spoiler: she IS Eva.
I picked it up for the "atmosphere" and because of the Kentucky connection. -- 10 years of notebooks
+ stories like:
I'll give you $100 american to swan dive on that table (in a posh restaurant)
Spoiler: she IS Eva.
October 9, 2015
Richard Hell gives me life. Like Beck said about Serge Gainsbourg, Richard Hell can make "something sublime out of something mundane" and find "beauty in the bottom of a garbage can" (Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistfull of Gitanes 136). That may serve as the best definition of punk, or at least on par with Aaron Cometbus' definition (something about not watching television or driving a car).
Hot and Cold is pleasurable in part because of its eclecticism, as the complete book title suggests. Particularly enjoyable is reading his lyrics, printed on paper as poetry. The inclusion of diary entries and photos give the book a feeling of intimacy, and his music reviews, while not particularly exciting, give some context for his own work. I haven't gotten to the essays yet, but Hot and Cold may be my gateway drug to poetry--he has inspired me to pick up some Rimbaud.
Hot and Cold is pleasurable in part because of its eclecticism, as the complete book title suggests. Particularly enjoyable is reading his lyrics, printed on paper as poetry. The inclusion of diary entries and photos give the book a feeling of intimacy, and his music reviews, while not particularly exciting, give some context for his own work. I haven't gotten to the essays yet, but Hot and Cold may be my gateway drug to poetry--he has inspired me to pick up some Rimbaud.
April 6, 2008
Ok, I am a mega-fan of Richard Hell. Besides being a rock icon he is also a great writer. "Hot and Cold" is an anthology of sorts of the loose ends in Hell's work. Images, poems, lyrics, little essays - it's a wonderful way to lose one self into the world of Hell. And if that's Hell I am for sure not interested in Heaven.
April 9, 2008
Some really good essays in the back; but doesn't justify the price or some rather mediocre song lyrics and poems.
August 27, 2018
The most viscerally I've ever responded to the written word. Light of my life, fire of my loins! I couldn't recommend this one more highly.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews