A question of Spurt: Richard Hell & The Voidoids (from right) Hell, Robert Quine, Ivan Julian and Marc Bell, 1977.
Getty (2), Sam Chen
I’d been in Yugoslavia, touring with The Foundations opening for this band The YU Group. Our gigs were pretty cookie-cutter, do-the-hits. I was 20 years old and I wanted to write some songs. I did my last gig with them in Skopje [now capital of North Macedonia] and went to New York. I put an ad in Musicians Classified, which was kind of like a Village Voice for musicians. When it came out Richard [Hell] was on the cover.
Robert Quine [Voidoids guitarist] contacted me and I went to the audition at Daily Planet studios on West 30th Street, which was a premier place for bands to rehearse. I didn’t really know who Richard was, I’d heard about CBGB, vaguely, this place where people were playing their original music. Quine was the one that pretty much conducted the audition while Richard just kind of sat and watched on. I thought that Quine was Richard because I’d only seen a picture of Richard once. They were both wearing dark-pink shaded glasses.