Television

The Blow-Up, at least on Roir's once notoriously (but no worse than many a homemade) normal bias lo-fi cassette, was better heard as the earlier vinyl boot Arrow (prob ditto the digital Arrow posted on tylerw's blog, along with several other Television and Tom Verlaine sets). Funny, I was just remembering how their (mostly Verlaine and Lloyd's 70s rep as self-destructive and generally shady was summed up as "an ill-natured hippie band" by Creem's Robert Duncan. And how Buffalo Springfield's June 2011 Bonnaroo "Bluebird" epic (currently on YouTube) reminded me of Neil Young, in a very good way (way better than any of the early Springfield extensions of it I've heard so far, incl the one on Retrospective). Then I came across robertchristgau.com's archived 2004 review of reissued MM and Adventure (each with a worthy bonus track, he says) and Old Walrdorf (which he says sounds a lot better than Blow-Up) and he now (or on then, in '04) thinks Verlaine sounds somewhat like Young and Garcia, though not as "raw" as the former, or "clean" as the latter. Refined and dirty, awright! Though xgau also starts by saying Television were doomed to commercial failure because they didn't sound like anyone before or since (h'mmm, maybe he means the overall effect, incl Verlaine's "strangulated" vocals). Also, extended solos were def not favored in emerging 70s punk/pop orthodoxy/trends.

Oh yeah, the extended Verlaine reissues from a few years back are worth checking too, and the most (?) recently released albums of new material, on Thrill Jockey (but those two should've been pruned and merged into one medium-length set.)

Oops. I meant the 2011 "Bluebird" reminded me of **Television** in a good way!

Bluebird was the 'Marquee Moon' (track) of its day, and Buffalo Springfield was the Television of its day. Multiple guitar assault

here's a bit from the review of that television cover band
Wire Faces' performance as Television was one of the great highlights of the evening. Dressed in nerdish art-school clothing, guitarist Ian Haygood looked like Tom Verlain, while drummer Shane Zweygardt sang just like him. Although most of the bands got the crowd bouncing and dancing, Wire Faces held them spellbound with a flawless note-by-note rendition of almost the entire Marquee Moon album. Zweygardt shimmied atop his drumstool while belting out each song with an electrifying energy and incessant mimicry of Verlain's nasally whine.
hmm

kind of like that new verlaine track! not amazing or anything, but what the hell, i'd like the dude to be more active.

God bless the uploader, he just put up a hilarious video of Verlaine & Co messing with mtv brazil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXaUwo2DSns

hee hee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNAvIBKkAJQ&feature=related
this is good too.
would be interesting if Verlaine did a memoir, though I won't hold my breath.

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1rl1aJY0L1qdivb3o1_500.jpg
This day in 1974: Television plays their first show at CBGB.

& if you're interested in hearing roughly what they sounded like: http://ow.ly/9yMDD

pretty awesome that the "birthplace" of punk originally had such a cornball logo. and "fancy guitar pickin's."

u know what it stands for yeah?

ha, yes. still!

Wild Flag did an ace version of "Evil" last night in New Haven as the first song of their encore.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3rgdiOmCw1qzy30io1_500.gif
Dave Bowie!

He went by that in his "Regular Ol' Dave" period

That's Dave Bowie, you know, he ran a lamp shop on 53rd and AoftheA's...

think they had a quote from Louie Reed on another flyer.

Louie "Louie Louie" Reed?

Dick Lloyd was on fire that night.

hee hee.
btw i've re-upped that television compilation i made featuring, um, dick hell. http://ow.ly/aNKo3 in case anyone didn't get it the first time around.

Was it a minutemen or firehose song where watt says 'dick hell'?

http://www.wikipedia.org/DavidBowie/RegularOlDave

During this exceedlingly brief, little-known period of his career, Bowie gained 20 pounds and began wearing sweatshirts, baseball caps and jeans. He wrote several songs for a planned country-influenced album, "Just a Good Ol' Bowie," none of which he ever recorded.

If I click on that link, will I be rickrolled?

Last '/' should be a '#' I think.

holy SHIT! The Portland 78 show has by far the best version of MM I've ever heard, like a million times better than the studio one, any one, just. WOW.

The Portland show is amazing. Unlike the Waldorf show all of the stuff from Adventure has a real tension as well as intention. Also there are about twenty people in the audience.

MARQUEE MOON - LIVE! http://ow.ly/bj0k4

Thanks for this, anticipating eagerly.

oh cool

is there any comprehensive collection of Television's '70s live repertoire of songs that ended up on neither MM nor Adventure? been reading the 33 1/3 on MM and wow they discarded a lot of songs on the way to making that album.

god there are so many... I think tyler maybe put up a collection on his blog?

just search the "Poor Circulation" boot, there's at least half a dozen on there.

some dude, search doom and gloom from the tomb for the comp "I was hearing, hearing something else": it's a really thorough round up of stuff that influenced them, their contemporaries, and lots and lots of their own stuff that didn't make it onto the records iirc

sweet thx

yeah some dude - here's the richard hell years: http://ow.ly/aNKo3 and here's the post-richard hell years "lost songs": http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/5667774473/kingdom-come-the-lost-television-album-dont-get

evidently Television had quite a young following in Argentina.

weird!

So Lloyd went completely apeshit again: horrible gig, insulting Billy Ficca and his bassist, throwing drinks at Ficca, hitting women and eventually being taken away to a hospital. Wrong meds, or so I heard.
I really wish someone close to him would start caring about this instead of letting himself ruin his livelihood and reputation like this.

eek! yeah, what is up w/ him these days. maybe ficca is looking out for him to some extent -- not like he's going out on the road w/ him for the big bucks, i assume. though if lloyd is throwing drinks at him, that might not last.

http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2012/06/12/concert-review-richard-lloyd-at-the-grog-shop

Shortly before taking the stage, Lloyd and Ficca started shouting, appeared to shove each other and then threw their respective drinks at one another. Lloyd walked up to the microphone and pleaded Ficca to still play despite the fight. “You quitting or playing? I want you play. I love you like a brother,” he told Ficca. “Yeah, like Cain loved Abel,” responded Ficca. After a short stand-off, Ficca finally acquiesced, and the band opened with the Lloyd tune “I Thought,” an anxiety-ridden song that bristled a little more than usual. At the song’s conclusion, Lloyd muttered, “I’m so tired of the crap I have to put up with.” While he appeared intoxicated, he maintained that wasn’t the case. “I’m high on life,” he yelled.

Even after delivering spot-on renditions of the Television tracks “Friction” and “Elevation,” Lloyd was still simmering. “I take all the blame,” he said while tuning in front of his amp with his back to his audience. The show was so sparsely attended, however, that even when Lloyd didn’t speak into the microphone, you could still hear what he was saying. He sounded like someone with Tourette Syndrome as he muttered random things about Gamma Rays and DNA tests. Before playing the tune “Monkey,” he said, “monkey see, but monkey don’t do,” alluding to the fact that he wasn’t happy with the performance of his band mates.

ugh, sucks. from people i've talked to, ficca is one of the nicest dudes from that scene, lloyd must really be off the rails.

hitting women

so they gave him the "i abuse women" meds. oops!

It's really hard to keep manic depressives on their meds. They start to really miss the cosmic high of their manic phases.

yeah, it's gotta be the sort of thing where lloyd *knows* he did his best work off of meds (and high as a kite).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNmEq-cP9Oo
don't really understand this but maybe the guitaristos out there can dig it.

what is that distinctive guitar sound on little johnny jewel, very "close up" aurally--it kind of sounds like when i would plug an electric guitar directly into the 4-track...does anyone get what i mean? such a bizarre song...

the "official" version of LJJ I mean

i think that is exactly what it is -- a guitar plugged straight into the recording device. it is a weird sound for sure -- doesn't really sound like anything else, which i gather is what Verlaine was going for.

i love how that solo sounds like it is always falling apart...i always think, i can play something that sounds vaguely like that but it never works. and i actually like the way that the solo sounds almost divorced from the backing track, although maybe that was just poor production? anyway, i am sort of obsessed with LJJ right now!

it's a pretty lo-fi recording and the mix is definitely strange. i heard the blow up version of LJJ first and was kind of taken aback by the single on first listen. love it though.
the feelies did the direct plug-in thing a bit on crazy rhythms too -- don't know if it was because they knew television had done it, but i wouldn't be surprised.

Wild Flag opened its Pitchfork fest set with a dead-on "See No Evil."