Television

That's a dreadful thing to say.

This is a joke right? Television had been around for years before U2 even decided to become a band, and Edge cites Television as an influence. Edge couldn't hold a candle to either Verlaine's or Lloyd's playing, without effects boxes there would be no U2.

anyone heard (WTF?) the new richard lloyd hendrix covers (WTF?) and/or seen a recent show?
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2009/04/televisions_ric.html

I got his first solo album. Strikingly like mid-period Nick Lowe!

damn i didn't know he just played D.C. a couple weeks ago, i totally would've been into seeing Lloyd cover Hendrix

so i went last night. he didn't really play many hendrix songs but did do sterling versions of "friction" and "elevation." dude is an a-mazing guitar player. he had laryngitis though which sucked

Billy Ficca's playing drums with him right? That'd be a bonus for sure.

Sounds awesome.

I keep hoping Television get together and do another album like they did with that s/t one in, what, the early '90s?, that surprises me by actually being pretty good.

i think it was billy yeah and the two of them were having a lot of fun together. a few times it seemed like they were making up songs on the spot for a minute or two before going into something familiar

cool, wish Lloyd/Ficca would come to my neck of the woods.
there were some rumors that Television was recording an album -- without Lloyd!! -- a year or two back. Don't know if that would really end up being a Television album or just a Tom Verlaine solo record. Anyway, they had been playing about an albums' worth of new songs between 2002-2006. Not exactly the most ambitious band in the world, in terms of recording, though.

that brooklynvegan link upthread mentions that television are currently recording, with jimmy ripp on guitar.

ah yes, that is what I had heard. i think Lloyd made a big announcement a few years back about how he was quitting Television once and for all, but that he gave them his blessing to continue without him. Still, Television w/o Lloyd just seems like Tom Verlaine solo -- Ripp, Ficca and Smith have all played on his solo records, anyway. Whatever, it'd be nice to have some new Verlaine/Television material. What I've heard from various live tapes sounds prettty sweet.

Who is Jimmy Ripp :(

Dude who played guitar with Verlaine throughout the 80s and 90s. Great player actually.

at this point, he's probably logged more hours with Tom than Lloyd has.

at the last television show i saw, 2005 i think?, he played some great stuff i didn't reccognize. I particularly remember a long song with a terrific eastern motif.

Sounds hopeful. Still sad to think of that band without Lloyd.

yeah, would be pretty weird to have a Television album w/o Lloyd -- is there a single review of that band that doesn't talk about the dueling Verlaine/Lloyd guitars? it's pretty much their signature.

i've only seen television once - one of the early '00s reunion shows in DC - but my main takeaway was that i'd severely overrated verlaine and underrated lloyd as guitarists. verlaine was a mess (sometimes in a really good way, obvs) with flashes of inspiration, but lloyd was lyrical, hypnotic, and locked on. it was weird to realize how many times i'd listened to recordings and been like "omg verlaine!" when it was actually lloyd's playing. verlaine rules, but i think his stuff is more of an "if you catch him on a good night, wow" kinda thing.

yeah i don't think Verlaine's heart is in the epic intense guitar solos these days. he can still do great stuff, but i think he left the heavy lifting to Lloyd in the various reunions. Like when I've heard latter-day versions of "Little Johnny Jewel" Tom barely seems there, whereas he kills it on those 70s recordings.

yeah...you just hear Verlaine's name so much more than when you hear guitar stuff on the albums you kinda assume it's him until you learn otherwise...i wish they'd credited who did which solos/leads on Marquee Moon like they did for the self-titled album.

xpost

they did! it's on the vinyl, anyway.

I heard somewhere or other that Lloyd's parts were a lot more written than Verlaine's, much truth in that ya suppose?

ah really? I need to check my CD reissue to see if it's in there.

oh totally, re: Lloyd's parts. On Marquee Moon, Richard doubletracked every note he played.

xpost the guitar solo credits etc are def on the rhino cd reish

saw the reformed television twice this decade, and both times the tension between verlaine and lloyd was self-evident in the way that they played together, stood on stage together, glared at each other (mostly tom) etc etc - i wouldn't say that either of 'em was 'better' on the night, tho' the second time around (2004) the whole group was noticeably sloppier - the first time i saw 'em (at the Tortoise curated ATP in 2001) the version of 'little johnny jewel' they delivered was stunning and tom v was on fire

in 2006 i saw verlaine and ripp play a really sweet duo set at the 100 club - ripp was v. much the accompaniest and subservient to the master, and verlaine seemed much more engaged w/ the material and event, even when playing a few of the old hits - i don't ever expect to see tom in action so close up and personal, and he was def. on form that night - so he still has it, still

yeah i've heard some of the Ripp/Verlaine duo (mostly instrumental) -- really lovely stuff!

btw if yr interested in hearing a bunch of vintage Television bootlegs, I did a long overview at my blog a couple weeks back: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/ I'll get around to the reunion years someday.

hmm: http://aquariumdrunkard.tumblr.com/post/677685931/indieandyy-careful-by-local-natives-originally
Aquarium Drunkard will be digitally releasing L’Aventure on June 22, featuring 8 Los Angeles bands each covering a track from the 1978 Television LP, Adventure.
1.The Henry Clay People: “Glory”
2.Foreign Born: “Days”
3.The Happy Hollows: “Foxhole”
4.Local Natives: “Careful”
5.The Deadly Syndrome: “Carried Away”
6.Imaad Wasif [ft. Lykke Li]: “The Fire”
7.Dirt Dress: “Ain’t That Nothin’”
8.Growlers: “The Dream’s Dream”
don't know any of these bands ... good/bad/eh?

local la bands, seen most of them, none of them are that bad but nothing really that special about any of em

^^ tyler--any chance that you could re-post No Glamour-- later TV @ Academy '92?

yeah, sure i'll re-post that one. totally an amazing set. blows away the s/t record. lloyd's solo on 1880 or so = craaaaaazy.
i'm in the process of putting together a couple of comps covering unreleased Television songs from the 70s and the 00s for the blog, too.

Venus de Milo has no arms, fwiw

^^ thanks tyler--sounds great!

this covers thing has me thinking -- are there any really *great* television covers? i liked chris stamey's mellow take on "venus" ... feelies do a good see no evil. clientele did a nice version of "the fire" a few years back.

[ft. Lykke Li]

Huh? How'd she get involved? (swedish pop princess (imo :))

LOL Upthread somebody said Television was a rip-off of early U2. I fervently pray that they were kidding.

'Marquee Moon' remains one of the great guitar-oriented rock LPs, a distinction that was certainly not damaged by the inclusion of "Little Johnny Jewel" on the reissue. The arrangements are also spot-on, the melodies infectious. The other records are also very good. 'The Blow-Up' is a terrific sounds-like-you're-there live recording & the s/t comeback disc was better than I thought it was going to be. 'Adventure' isn't as crazy-good as 'Marquee Moon' but I think it suffers only by comparison. Pretty solid throughout & it makes me wish they had continued long enough to do a 3rd LP so we could really judge its sophtware (sic) slump qualities more accurately. BUt - there ya go...

LOL Upthread somebody said Television was a rip-off of early U2.

omg holy lols

Yeah, when I got "Miller's Tale" I ended up paying double the "new" price, whereas I was hoping for half.

subterranean is one of my top five favorite record store ever……in the 90s, I didn't do much other than hunt around record stores downtown and so I was in the that place al the time… and yeah, it would be verlaine/TV/lloyd or Richard Thompson/Fairport over the speakers, always…you are referring to the guy that didn't have the most alabaster complexion, right TSF? he's dead?

I was there a lot, esp the summer in college when I lived in the NYU dorms just down the street. I remember like, vintage patti smith poster on the ceiling or something, was def a classic NYC punk holdout.

Yeah, great shop — I think I bought the classic Television boot Double Exposure there someteim in the late 90s. Carlucci passed away in 2015: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/winter-hours-michael-carlucci-death-6746383/

Listened to Cover for the first time (and the second time). It's super satisfying in some kind of weird, like, accesibility sense. No way I'd consider it synthpop, but the keys are there, and also lots of reverb in parts that feel make the songs really feel not-like-Television for me.

The guitar repetition in Lindi Lu sounds like something a synthpop band would do with the synth lol. Way more enjoyable than I'd anticipated.

So. 5 miles of you sounds exactly like a Bill Nelson song. A really really good one. So does the opening of traveling.

Right? "Cover" really took me by surprise when I finally sat down with it. Still not entirely sold on "Flash Light" though it does have it's moments.

I really loved the first Verlaine album, not so much the second one, and I'm currently enjoying Cover. Wow is it Talking Heads-y though...I know that was rife and that there was some mutual influence there, but I never really got that from Television tbh.

Or rather, I can see how Television might have had an effect on David Byrne, but I never really heard it going the other way until now.

It is odd, it’s like what i wish Nelson would always sound like, but nelson did it in 1980, so he should sue. But like, it’s better, so props, Tom.

If u dont know what i mean listen to Quit Dreaming … by Nelson.

Clarification: nelson, who was awkward with lyrics, would never lyricize as terribly as Verlaine’s Miss Emily. Maybe TV was taking the piss the whole way thru because he was _that talented_ idk.

Clarification: nelson, who was awkward with lyrics, would never lyricize as terribly as Verlaine’s Miss Emily. Maybe TV was taking the piss the whole way thru because he was _that talented_ idk.

Clarification: nelson, who was awkward with lyrics, would never lyricize as terribly as Verlaine’s Miss Emily. Maybe TV was taking the piss the whole way thru because he was _that talented_ idk.

Clarification: nelson, who was awkward with lyrics, would never lyricize as terribly as Verlaine’s Miss Emily. Maybe TV was taking the piss the whole way thru because he was _that talented_ idk.

Holy shit i’m in the mtns and that’s so fucked, 😔

lol

Almost kinda weird that TV never guested on a Sonic Youth album?

this one (which is great) has ranaldo and shelley on it (plus nels cline)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8blDM3XqVg

That whole soundtrack's pretty cool. It's probably my favorite compilation/album of Dylan covers by a large margin.

yeah definitely more hits than misses

Wow, that's really great. I've gathered up his b-sides, does he have many tracks exclusive to compilations?

i think the discography on this site pretty much covers it.
http://www.thewonder.co.uk/facts/index.htm

Listening to 'Warm and Cool' on youtube now, it's sick. Billy Ficca on drums. Sometimes it sounds like nothing so much as a John Scofield album, other times skronky free improv.

Anyone know why his Thrill Jockey records are out-of-print/not streaming? Seems weird, maybe that's what he wanted, or a money dispute?

I’m surprised at how much I warmed to Flash Light after several listens— meh, meh, meh, eh this just ain’t it, hmm, aright, and then BAM i love this. The expanded guitar sound finally sounded more verlaine-normal or something to me.

I came to this album after decades of MM and stray other stuff. From listen one I could hear his playing in this, but the mor atmospherics just didn’t work. Until they totally did. What a nice thing.

Now I wonder what it would have been like if I’d heard this one first. Would I have had the reverse difficulty going the other direction? I must have, I think.

richard hell in the new yorker:

Were you in touch with Verlaine before he died, recently?

No. I never recovered from what felt to me at the time like a total betrayal. Our relationship was really complex. We were so close, but it always makes me think of how I once got a postcard from Ted Berrigan advertising a reading he was doing with Ron Padgett, and on the postcard he said, “Ron and I hate each other as only best friends can.” And then, when that thing happened with that split, it just, it was final. When I would see him, I would invariably come away thinking, He just rubs me the wrong way. Even though he was my best friend, and in lots of ways we had more in common than anybody else in my life. Those are the most impressionable years; they’re when you’re forming, and, if you shared that experience with someone you’re with constantly, it’s eternal. It doesn’t go away. So I still have that feeling of brotherhood with him, even though I couldn’t stand being in his presence. But there was a funny thing that happened right after he died. There was this little book about graffiti at CBGB, and I wrote an introduction for it, and, within the first couple of days after Verlaine died, I’d be looking for references to what happened, and I came across this tweet, which the editor of the book who approached me to write the intro tweeted. When he was doing this book, he first approached Verlaine to write the intro, and Verlaine demurred, but said to him, “I can’t stand the guy, but you gotta get Richard Hell.” [Laughs.] And that gave me a really good feeling. Because it was the same for me, about him.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/how-richard-hell-found-his-vocation

aw damn.

Excellent.

whole interview was great

Thanks! Reminds me of this extended review re Hell's memoir-lit-literary sketchbook I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, with the Kentucky boyo setting up Village camp in the 60s, soliciting and then rejecting a poem from Ginsberg for his zine and all, also for instance, way later but still pre-Neon Boys, I think?

Hell dates his "junkie mentality" to before he was actually using--to Theresa Stern, the hooker poet he and Verlaine invented and impersonated in their collaborative 1973 collection Wanna Go Out?

"I can’t imagine what it was like for Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell when they were getting started; to have a weird voice, and wanting to sing for a band in NYC, without the advantage of being able to just rip off Tom Verlaine or Richard Hell."

https://zacharylipez.ghost.io/eight-unfinished-essays-on-marquee-moon/

god i really relate to what hell says about verlaine

things are kind of like that with my ex, this sense of mutual betrayal. people i respect but on a personal level i never want to fucking talk to again.

Definitely. I think you get some relief. So why do you have to go pay somebody to sit there and listen to you do it? Most of what people are is chemical. It’s biological. Did you ever see [Michael Apted’s] “Seven Up!” movies? The seven-year-olds are still the same, even at seventy. You don’t change. You’re who you were at three.

...what? did _he_ see the up series? like art is subjective but how the _fuck_ did he get that from the films?

NYC booksellers band together to hold resale of Tom Verlaine's collection of 50,000 books

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/nyc-booksellers-band-together-hold-resale-of-tom-verlaine-collection-of-books

There is another sale of his books going on (bigger space). Tomorrow, books go for five bucks. A few copies of the Theresa Stern zine (I think they were going for 25?) https://www.instagram.com/p/C0MwmeSOWqu/

probly most people reading this thread know, but just in case: tylerw's blog Doom And Gloom From The Tomb, on Tumblr and now Substack, has always been an excellent source of TV (and much other) info x soundz...

Is there a list of his books (for sale or otherwise) posted somewhere? Currently having trouble seeing all of the Instagram post.

Doubt there's a list. I went yesterday and there were large sections of fiction (especially poetry), occult/religion/spirituality, art, movies and music (which had a ton of books about using vacuum tubes in recording).

they've put some pricey ones on line.

https://www.betterreadthandeadbooks.com/searchResults.php?action=browse&category_id=365

they had a few 'theresa stern' originals on the table for $600 each. and other things like that.

There's a magazine special on the band out at the moment that I saw at the airport and now regret not buying. Uncut. May have been older but was in there on Wednesday maybe shelflife longer in an airport newsagent.

That came out this year but I don’t think it reached U.S. newsstands until very recently. Still, I’d get one sooner than later just in case they didn’t stock many copies.

I wrote about Marquee Moon in the Uncut special! Came out in October I think?

I wrote about the band's live albums + bootlegs in the Uncut special! It is a cool mag, definitely grab it if you see it.

How do you even wind up with 50,000 books! Lets assume he showed up in NYC in 72 or whatever with >10 books. He really bought 20 books a week, every week, for the rest of his life?

He was at the Strand every single day, going through the dollar bins, so I can see that leading up to 50,000.

How do you even wind up with 50,000 books!

― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro)

It gets away from you fast, trust me

Doubt there's a list. I went yesterday and there were large sections of fiction (especially poetry), occult/religion/spirituality, art, movies and music (which had a ton of books about using vacuum tubes in recording).

― jbn, Sunday, December 3, 2023 11:27 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Apparently lots of really weird, cheap-o UFO books as well

i imagine verlaine bought a bunch of collections sight unseen, too – like those random ebay auctions that are like "12 boxes of books for $100" ... pretty funny, he must've at least entertained the idea of opening a bookstore at some point. tom would've been a great cranky dude behind the counter, glaring at your lame purchases.

Highlights:
-Running into Sang Freud & Wife!!
....
-couple of books concerning da blooze.
-Stockhausen interviews
-book of jazz interviews (a gift!)
-Photo/text book abt West Virginia traditional music
-2 copies of the Bernie Kraus book/cd of his nature recordings/journals. (one will be a gift.)
-A book about the history of Martin Guitars (also a gift)
-Ellroy & Gibson 1st editions
-Sidney Bechet "Treat It Gentle"
-book of Raymond Chandler essays/interiews/miscellany.
-book of essays about Ross MacDonald

some more stuff too.. from what I gather, yesterday was a lot mellower than Saturday.

You can see some of the items from the collection that have been listed on the BRTD website-
https://www.betterreadthandeadbooks.com/searchResults.php?action=browse&category_id=365

great seeing you, ian!!

between the two of us we amassed 31 books, mostly from the literature section and some music stuff. i'll list some titles at some point.

"1880 or so" is the best song ever written

"the fragrance sweet
in the evening air
i could leave this world
quite without a care"

Definitely my favorite non-Marquee Moon Television song.