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Though he first rose to fame through his work with
Richard Hell,
Robert Quine was by no stretch of the imagination a typical "punk rock guitarist." While his performing style sometimes embraced fractured guitar runs and discordant noise,
Quine's eclectic style embraced influences from jazz, rock, and blues players of all stripes, and his thoughtful technique and uncompromising approach led to rewarding collaborations with a number of visionary musicians.
Quine was born in Akron, Ohio, in the waning days of 1942. While
Quine's parents were music fans with a special enthusiasm for Brazilian music, young
Robert's enthusiasm was piqued with the rise of rock & roll in the mid-'50s. The first record he purchased was "Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" by
the Teenagers ("The sax solo in the middle was completely inappropriate -- it almost sounds like
Albert Ayler,"
Quine told Jason Gross in a 1997 interview), and his early influences included
James Burton,
Ritchie Valens, and
Buddy Holly. In 1958,
Quine got a guitar and started learning how to play, and by the time he enrolled at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, he was playing
Link Wray and
Ventures covers with a local band. As rock & roll sunk into the teen idol era,
Quine's passions turned to raw blues sounds like
John Lee Hooker and
Lightnin' Hopkins and jazz players like
John Coltrane,
Miles Davis, and
Pharoah Sanders. His interest in rock was renewed by the rougher sounds of
the Rolling Stones and, later,
the Velvet Underground. A passionate fan of their recordings,
Quine first saw
the Velvets while he was studying law at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1969, and after moving to San Francisco later that year he caught up with the band several more times. He struck up a friendship with the group and recorded a number of their shows on a portable cassette machine; tapes from
Quine's archive later formed the basis of the three-CD set
The Velvet Underground Bootleg Series, Volume 1: The Quine Tapes, released in 2001.
After failing to pass the bar exam in California,
Quine lost interest in practicing law as well as playing live music (his dislike of the San Francisco music scene didn't help), and in 1971 he moved to New York City. For several years, he worked for Prentice-Hall Publishing, writing books on tax law, and began acquainting himself with the New York music scene. After quitting Prentice-Hall,
Quine took a job at Cinemabilia, a fabled New York bookshop specializing in writings on film as well as rare movie posters and stills. There,
Quine met fellow employee
Richard Hell, and the two struck up a friendship over frequent discussions of music and film. After
Hell left the Heartbreakers, he was keen to start a group of his own, and persuaded
Quine to join him. It didn't take long for Richard Hell & the Voidoids to become one of the most popular and acclaimed bands on New York's budding punk rock scene, and more than a few critics singled out
Quine's gritty but stylish lead guitar figures for special praise (while often noting his balding pate and fondness for black sport jackets and button-down collars). One writer, the legendary Lester Bangs, even went so far as to hire
Quine to play on his debut single, "Let It Blurt"/"Live," when Bangs made his belated debut as a vocalist.
Blank Generation, the 1977 debut album from Richard Hell & the Voidoids, won rave reviews but only modest sales, and a combination of record company problems and a lack of enthusiasm on
Hell's part for the music business meant that their follow-up, Destiny Street, wouldn't be released until 1982. While
Quine popped up on sessions for
Lydia Lunch and
Material in the interim, he began earning a reputation as a choosy player who was more interested in working with people he respected rather than racking up lots of credits. Three musicians who certainly fell into that category were fellow New York underground guitarist
Jody Harris, with whom
Quine recorded a duo album, Escape;
Material drummer
Fred Maher, who paired up with
Quine for another duo set, Basic; and former
Velvet Underground frontman
Lou Reed.
Reed persuaded
Quine to join his band for the recording of his 1982 album
The Blue Mask, and the sessions marked a striking creative comeback for
Reed as both a songwriter and a musician, while
Quine's Stratocaster runs proved to be a perfect foil for
Reed's guitar playing. Working with
Reed considerably raised
Quine's profile, and he returned for
Reed's next album, 1983's
Legendary Hearts, but the two had a falling out and
Quine was fired shortly before
Reed began work on 1984's
New Sensations. When that album became an unexpected commercial success,
Reed persuaded
Quine to sign on for a world tour that was documented on
Live in Italy.
After parting ways with
Reed a second time in 1985,
Quine (who strongly disliked touring) stayed busy with a variety of studio projects, and played sessions for
Tom Waits,
Marianne Faithfull,
Brian Eno, and
John Zorn, among others.
Quine also struck up unexpected partnerships with two respected pop songwriters,
Lloyd Cole and
Matthew Sweet;
Quine added subtle but incisive lead guitar on
Cole's albums
Lloyd Cole (1990),
Don't Get Weird on Me Babe (1991), and
Love Story (1995), while he took on a more aggressive role on
Sweet's breakthrough album
Girlfriend (1991) and the follow-ups
Altered Beast (1993) and
100% Fun (1995).
Quine continued to work frequently with
Zorn into the new millennium, and in 2000 recorded a one-song reunion with the original lineup of Richard Hell & the Voidoids, a tune called "Oh," which was recorded for an online music service (the track later appeared on the compilation album Beyond Cyberpunk). In August 2003,
Quine's wife, Alice, died unexpectedly. The following May,
Quine died by suicide at age 61. ~ Mark Deming