Fuck Yeah, Richard Hell!

Punk dandy Richard Hell and guitar virtuoso Tom Verlaine photographed in NYC by Roni Hoffman during the early protopunk days of punk/new wave trailblazersTelevision, ca. 1974.

Television original lineup, featuring Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell & Billy Ficca, ca. 1974(?).

"That’s All I Know"/"Love Comes in Spurts" 1980 EP cover by The Neon Boys.

"…The obscure but semi-legendary Neon Boys were a precursor to Television, featuring Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell, and drummer Billy Ficca.

Their duration, from the fall of 1972 to the spring of 1973 (…) was brief. They were certainly ahead of their time, however, as recordings that later surfaced proved. On “That’s All I Know” and “Love Comes in Spurts,” which finally came out as one side of a seven-inch EP years later, the group played with an edge suggestive of both speed freaks and punk rock. There was shrieking guitar, half-spoken lyrics declaimed in a semi-state of hysteria, and words that were too scabrous to have been considered for commercial airplay in 1973 (certainly on “Love Comes in Spurts,” at any rate).

Various Television live photos