rock and roll musings by Tim Byrnes

REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT

ROBERT QUINE: 1942-2004

A friend just emailed me the link to CNN’s story regarding Robert Quine’s suicide and, even though I never knew the man personally, I feel as if I’ve lost a brother. Robert Quine, guitarist extra ordinaire, founding member of Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and thus an inventor of what we now call Punk Rock, the best foil that Lou Reed ever fired (and he fires them all, you ever notice that?) put a needle in his arm for the last time, apparently on May 31^st, despondent over the recent death of his wife.

I first saw Quine with the Voidoids at CBGB in the 70's and, while I failed (and honestly still fail, sorry Lester) to understand the appeal of Hell’s overblown death-wish bleating, I was instantly turned around by the stark angularity and full blown anger that emanated from Quine’s black Stratocaster. His guitar work veered from blistering rockabillyisms to nails down the blackboard shrieks of divinely inspired atonality. Some people speak of guitarists who can play like ringing a bell, Robert Quine played a guitar just like a-wringing a neck. Beauty, horror, comedy, tragedy, insanity, wisdom and the best kind of stupidity, the kind of stupidity that moves a young man to quit Law School to play punk rock, as Quine did in NYC, 1974, were all present in the man’s music.

Quine had an encyclopedic knowledge of all rock guitar and rather than exploit his knowledge as a curator or stylistic archivist, he blended it all, James Burton through John Coltrane, into a startling and original guitar sound, free of cliche and of a boundless reach and grasp.

That he is perhaps best known for ‘The Quine Tapes’, the 2001 3 CD set of late 60's Velvet Underground shows he bootlegged goes to the criminally unsung nature of the man and his music. It also shows his love and respect for his music’s past. He had recorded these shows for his own entertainment and decided to make them available for all. I’m sure that there was an element of ‘rent’s due’ to the whole project, but I believe there was a purer motive involved as well. Although basically treated like shit by Lou Reed, his work on 1983's ‘Legendary Hearts’ undermixed to the point on near non-existence by the Famous Death Dwarf himself, Quine still found it in himself to honor his former employer’s days of greatness by sharing his tapes with the world.

But Robert Quine was so much more than a sideman, he was an artist who never stopped exploring, never stopped stretching boundaries, never stopped growing as a guitarist. His playing on records by artists as diverse as Lydia Lunch, Tom Waits, Marianne Faithful, Lloyd Cole, Matthew Sweet, John Zorn, They Might Be Giants, Michael DuClos etc. shows a breadth and depth of style and intent as to shame many so called luminaries of the instrument.

But, in the end, none of this proved to be enough to save the man’s life. Despondency and heroin have taken another great from our midst. Fuck them both. Fuck the idea that suicide is romantic. Fuck the idea that drugs are cool. Fuck the idea of cool. Right now I miss a friend I have never met. Right now I am sad and angry. Right now I mourn for more than the loss of a picture on a CD sleeve. I mourn for us all, for we have all just had our lives diminished, whether we know it or not.

Rest easy, brother, I hope you’ve found what you were looking for. Me, I’m gonna keep looking.

Tim Byrnes 6/8/04

 

 

Posted by: timbyrnes at 20:09 | link | comments (1)