BLANK GENERATION

“Being a rock and roll musician was like being a pimp,” Richard Hell writes in his new 
autobiography, I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp. “It was about making young girls want to pay money to be near you.” Yes, move over, Patti Smith—it’s time for Hell to share his version of what it was like to come up in the New York City punk scene of the ’70s. The book follows his transformation from Richard Meyers of the bland suburbs of Lexington, Kentucky, to Richard Hell, the spiky-haired founding member of Television, the Heartbreakers, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Tonight, expect the 63-year-old rocker to regale you with tales of touring with the Clash, how he and Tom Verlaine helped turn CBGBs into a legendary destination, and what it was like to run around the city during the heyday of the Ramones, Debbie Harry, and, of course, Ms. Smith, whom he describes as “a natural-born sex waif.”

Thu., March 14, 7 p.m., 2013