Destiny Street was the follow-up album to one of the greatest punk albums of all time, 1977’s iconic Blank Generation. The album was originally recorded in 1981 and released in 1982, but not to Richard Hell’s satisfaction. As he says in his new liner notes to Destiny Street Complete, “The final mix was a morass of trebly multi-guitar sludge.” Now, for the 40th anniversary of its creation, the album is at last presented the way Richard Hell originally intended, “The sound of a little combo playing real gone rock and roll.”
Hell had long wanted to revisit and address the album’s mix, but he was told that the record company had lost the original 24-track masters. In the early 2000s, he discovered a cassette from 1981 that contained just the rhythm tracks, to which he could record new guitar and vocal tracks. Finally, able to have a chance to clean up the mix, he called upon Naux, Marc Ribot, and Bill Frisell to record guitar parts. Hell added new vocals to complete this version, and it was issued as Destiny Street Repaired.
In 2019, the studio where the original album was mixed, turned up three of the four original 24-track masters, and now, at long last, Destiny Street Remixed is issued to achieve Hell’s original vision.
