Day After Day #294: Blank Generation

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Blank Generation (1976)

Richard Hell knew how to pick bands, but he didn't always stick around. He was in early versions of Television and the Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders, but ultimately decided he wanted to run a band his way, so he formed another iconic group, Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

Born Richard Meyers in Kentucky, Hell moved to New York City after dropping out of high school in 1966, looking to become a poet. He formed a band called the Neon Boys with his high school friend Tom Miller, who changed his name to Tom Verlaine. The Neon Boys changed their name to Television in 1973 and the band became the first to play at the club CBGB. After clashing with Verlaine, Hell left Television in 1975 and co-founded the Heartbreakers with New York Dolls guitarist Thunders. 

In early 1976, Hell, a bassist, formed the Voidoids with guitarists Robert Quine and Ivan Julian and added drummer Marc Bell, who later became known as Marky Ramone. Hell was inspired by the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, but were one of the first punk bands in NYC. The band's signature song was "Blank Generation," which Hell wrote while still in Television; the song had been played regularly with Television since 1974 and then later with the Heartbreakers.

Influenced by Bob McFadden and Rod McKuen's 1959 song "The Beat Generation," the song was first released on the Another World EP in 1976, with a reworked version showing up on the 1977 self-titled debut of Richard Hell and the Voidoids. The song opens with a riff by Julian that was inspired by the Who's song "The Seeker."

"I was sayin' let me out of here before I was/Even born, it's such a gamble when you get a face/It's fascinatin' to observe what the mirror does/But when I dine it's for the wall that I set a place/I belong to the blank generation and/I can take it or leave it each time, well/I belong to the generation but/I can take it or leave it each time."

The Voidoids were one of the first bands to wear "punk" fashion like ripped clothes held together with safety pins and spiky hair. After Malcolm McLaren had a management deal with the New York Dolls that fell through, he went back to England and said he took the Voidoids look and used with the Sex Pistols; John Lydon disputed that story.

"Triangles were fallin' at the window as the doctor cursed/He was a cartoon long forsaken by the public eye/The nurse adjusted her garters as I breathed my first/The doctor grabbed my throat and yelled, 'God's consolation prize!'/I belong to the blank generation and/I can take it or leave it each time, well/I belong to the generation but/I can take it or leave it each time."

The song was said to inspire the Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant," even though songwriter Glen Matlock had never actually heard "Blank Generation"; he saw the song title and based it on that. The Voidoids toured England with the Clash in 1977 and the nihilist nature of "Blank Generation" was later reflected in songs like the Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K.," the Clash's "London's Burning" and Generation X's "Your Generation." 

A few years after it came out, the Stray Cats had a hit with "Stray Cat Strut," which borrowed some elements from "Blank Generation" including the "whoo-oo" backing vocals.

But Hell was unable to follow up on his band's initial buzz because of his heroin addiction. The Voidoids didn't release another album until Destiny Street in 1982, but by this point, punk was out of style and new wave was all the rage. After this album flopped, Hell moved on to non-musical pursuits like writing and acting. He came out of retirement in the early '90s as part of the band Dim Stars with Quine, Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth and Don Fleming of Gumball. They recorded an EP and a 1992 album and played one show in public. He also appeared on albums by Shotgun Rationale and the Heads (an album featuring the three non-David Byrne members of Talking Heads).

Quine and Julian both went to play with many artists, including Matthew Sweet during his early '90s run of killer albums like Girlfriend and Altered Beast.

Even though the "Blank Generation" is now in its 70s (Hell himself is 75), the song still pops up in movies and TV shows from time to time; the band appeared in the 1980 movie Blank Generation playing the song at CBGB. A definitive classic of the genre.

Day After Day #38: Divine Intervention

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Divine Intervention (1991)

For music fans of a certain vintage, the radio was everything. Growing up, I listened to the radio all the time. I couldn't get enough of it. Of course, by that time, corporate interests were already busy ruining rock radio with formatting and payola, but I didn't know or care about any of that shit when I was 12. Nowadays, of course, that's all gone. Oh, radio's still there, but it's fairly terrible. Thank jeebus for college radio and the internet (pluggity plug plug).

But the radio is how I was introduced to many great artists. I'm pretty sure the first time I heard Matthew Sweet was while driving to the gym in late 1991. "Divine Intervention" was playing on WFNX and I was immediately blown away. Not just by the retro-sounding production or the existential crisis of the singer, but the guitar. My god, the guitar. Right off the bat, Richard Lloyd of Television fame is soloing all over that mofo. Some of the most incredible guitar work I'd ever heard right there in a 5-minute song. 

The song is the lead-in to Sweet's 1991 album Girlfriend, which he wrote after the breakup of his marriage. "Divine Intervention" finds him questioning the existence of God as he evaluates the shambles of his life.

"I don't know where I'm gonna live/Don't know if I'll find a place/I'd have to think about it some/And that I do not wish to face/I guess I'm counting on his divine intervention."

As I mentioned earlier, the production is immaculate, with all the instruments spaced out: Ric Menck's drums are compressed in one speaker, and Sweet's crunchy rhythm guitar in the other while Lloyd just flies all over the place on lead guitar. While Sweet's questioning the existence of a higher power, clearly the real god is right in front of him playing sick-ass solos.

"Divine Intervention" fades out into a fake ending and then roars back, with Lloyd angrily ripping more fire as the song closes. On that first listen, I was sold. I picked up the album and found that there was no letup. Sweet also recruited another guitar legend, Robert Quine of the Voidoids, who also plays with righteous fury on several of the songs. The combination of guitar gods with Sweet's brilliant sad bastard power pop makes Girlfriend one of the best albums of 1991 (although I really listened to it more in 1992), and that's in a crowded field of incredible releases: Nevermind, Achtung Baby, Badmotorfinger, Bandwagonesque, Gish, The Low End Theory, etc.

The title track is a rocker featuring Quine's lead playing and it became a minor hit, aided by a anime video on MTV. But there are so many great songs on this record: "I've Been Waiting," "Looking at the Sun," "Evangeline," "Nothing Lasts."  I saw Sweet in early '92 opening for Robyn Hitchcock at Avalon and have seen him several times over the last three decades, including a record release party for 1997's Blue Sky on Mars at a brewpub in Portland and the 20th anniversary tour of Girlfriend where he played the album front to back. 

Girlfriend only went to #100 on the Billboard 200 chart, but it remains Sweet's crowning achievement. That's not to say he hasn't released great albums since. 1993's Altered Beast was a misunderstood masterpiece, again featuring Lloyd and Quine, as well as Ivan Julian and drummers Mick Fleetwood, Jody Stephens and Pete Thomas. It's a dark and pissed off record that certainly wasn't Girlfriend 2. His '90s output was strong and he's continued to stay active since, including three covers albums with Susanna Hoffs; his latest album, 2021's Catspaw, was good.

But it's no insult to say Girlfriend was Sweet's peak. Even listening to it now as I write this, I'm struck by how great it is.