"Punk" Chaos to Couture exhibit at the Met/ Richard Hell From Facebook

So they have this exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art called "Chaos to Couture" with Punk as it's underlying influence, and here I must give Richard Hell his props. I can say in all honesty that Richard Hell in the person of himself and no one else, made an impact on fashion that exploded like a nuclear bomb the ramifications of which still continue.

Last night At the Metropolitan Museum of Art they held fashions most important party of the whole year and the whole world. This year I had been asked for a photograph which Danny Fields took of me the first night I ever wore the T-shirt with the words "Please Kill Me". It must've been 1975 or so, and it was at Max's Kansas City on the second floor where they held musical events.

The hippest and most groovy and impossibly deviant sexual barroom at the time was the back room on the first floor of Max's Kansas City. It was hard to get into and easy to get blocked if you are not a "Trisexual", my word for my own condition, which was that in the realm of sex, I would do anything a couple of times or several times to be technically accurate before I would decide whether I was going to continue or to drop that type of sexual activity. There were many Warhol people, and flaming sexual creatures who could defy any type of labeling.

At dinner time, or what they called "happy hour" they would put out hors d'oeuvres in the front bar and I must tell you that those chicken wings and things saved my life more than once from complete abstract starvation, a condition I brought upon myself by refusing to do anything except party and forward my agenda, that I had formed when I was 15, setting the parameters of what my life was supposed to look like for the next 40 years.

People would ask of me what I wanted to be when I grew up and I would tell them, "I already am what I'm going to be when I grow up". If that just didn't confuse them into silence they would ask me what I meant, and I said, "I am going to be a world renowned electric guitarist who makes an impact on the history of rock 'n roll".

This was often met with the statement, "but you can barely play that thing" and I would respond by saying that if I wanted the Eiffel Tower to be upside down in my backyard tomorrow morning it would be there – and that France should thank me, because that's not what I wanted. I wanted what I said – it was a kind of Will/Wish that I took aim with and let fly. I told them that it didn't matter that I wasn't any good at the guitar because all of them that were better would find themselves in a job in their guitar would be in the closet, which happened to most of them.

I want to say this again, so I am not misunderstood.

Richard Hell had a vision of fashion that no other single person on earth had. He is entirely individually responsible for Televisions early look and everything that came after.

Malcolm McLaren desperately wanted to manage Television and his intention was to make Richard Hell into a complete superstar – a dazzling supernova with his other three bandmates right behind, and Tom, who was responsible for most of the music and arrangements would have also cemented his place as would have I, into the edifice of rock 'n roll history. Television DID impact Rock and Roll history, in more way than one. Tom refused to lat anyone help him or tell him to work.

Tom did not want to work with anyone who made him work – and Malcolm McLaren preferred Richard Hell to Tom Verlaine which I completely understand drove Tom to the brink of a nervous breakdown. So he just said no, no, no, no, and marginalized Richard and even though they had begun as the best friends of life, Tom pushed Richard out and we replaced him with Fred Smith. We had done some demos for Island records which sounded terrible to our ears, but what was more important was that we for the first time could hear Billy's crazy drums and Richard's loopy bass playing made Television's overall impact a ridiculous chaos.

So when Tom pushed Richard Hell out of the band he was replaced with Fred Smith, one of the best and steadiest bass players I have ever run into. And the Music became the focus rather that the "act".

So, I am in the coffee table book on page 33 wearing the first "Please Kill Me" T-shirt. I refused to wear it again despite all of Richard's efforts because after the showed too young hippie dippy's who could of been in Manson's family asked me if I really meant it, because they would help me if I meant it. That's spooked me. I've had run-ins with those cult people before and it ain't pretty. So, I never wore it again, and Richard started making his own version, nuttier and more color and dynamic.

Richard recently released his autobiography and I must say that he captured the exuberance some of those first rehearsals, and his portrayal of Tom Verlaine is accurate. He makes a few mistakes with regards to me but so what. Here I am on Facebook writing what I should be writing elsewhere – my own memoirs. But this is practice.

I will say it a third time: Richard Hell is the individual who single-handedly influenced fashion globally. And that is incredible. He deserves the respect that he has earned. 

So, I lived the life of a teenage alien hobo from outer space with a guitar. I had a band but we only did one show, and then I forged Television with bandmates Tom, Richard and Billy. It's the only band I consider that I have ever been in, and I was in it wholeheartedly. Contrary to the ridiculous films of rehearsals where Tom and Richard couldn't sing in tune and yet wanted me to join them. I considered that ludicrous – I told them – develop a harmony and then I'll come in because I can hold a tune and neither of you can.

The first time I ever saw Tom Verlaine he was playing by himself on audition night at a place called Reno Sweeney's – the first thing I saw as he tried to get through the door with the guitar on his back and carrying a tweed amplifier was Richard Hell getting up from the table and going to help him carry his stuff to the stage, but at the door I could see that Tom was wearing a ratty old T-shirt but that Richard was not satisfied until he tore the shoulder so that one of Tom's nipples were showing. Tom came on and played three songs and during the second song I leaned over to my manager Terry Ork, who wanted to manage and be a patron of the arts to some kind of rock and roll band, with me at the center, but I knew I was missing something and so was Tom, and I could see that we each could fill in the missing part of each other.

So Terry worked at Cinemabilia – a Hollywood posters and mugshots of the stars. Richard Hell also worked there and Terry asks him to talk to Tom about my request for us to get together and see if we could mesh. That happened. Tom and Richard came down to the loft which was in Chinatown and we passed my guitar back and forth between Tom and I and then Richard and Tom went off in some kind of corner and had some kind of a conference and came back and said "yes – let's try it." So Tom and I coerced Richard (who did not want to play bass because he said that working with Tom was a visit to the dentist). Tom wanted him to do it and so did I – I cornered him at the loft and told him that he had movie star looks and that we needed him because in addition to bass playing he had very definite ideas about the way we should look and present ourselves. In hindsight, I call it "The Glamor of Poverty".

Our first rehearsals felt like we had moved into a new dimension that didn't exist on earth and that we were cosmic teenage hobos with guitars who had joined the circus – the interstellar circus I might add. There was a hell of a lot of laughter and knocking mic stands down and rolling around on the floor continuing to play sing and laugh. It was the cahoots. We invited people down to see us and it was super hilarious. Then we rented our own theater and put on our first show. Even with the best of intentions we could not replicate what we had experienced while alone rehearsing in the loft in front of an audience. Something got lost and something was gained.

Throughout the years Richard Hell held a grudge against me, even though I almost left the band because of his departure, but with Fred Smith the music got ethereal and majestic. It was a second kind of Television, and one which endured until I left amicably but frustrated in 2007. They have added Tom's buddy and are continuing to use the name Television, which our band permitted so long as there were three of the original four, in case anyone left or died. I should not have permitted that but it's water under the bridge. They are in South America and then Australia and then they go to London. Cookies crumble. They just do.


So they have this exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art called "Chaos to Couture" with Punk as it's underlying influence, and here I must give Richard Hell his props. I can say in all honesty that Richard Hell in the person of himself and no one else, made an impact on fashion that exploded like a nuclear bomb the ramifications of which still continue.

I want to say this again, so I am not misunderstood.

Richard Hell had a vision of fashion that no other single person on earth had. He is entirely individually responsible for Televisions early look and everything that came after.