Television

re: the feelies, interesting that terry ork managed them in their early days, as he did w/ television. guy had good taste. there are apparently some feelies "ork sessions" from 1977 that remain unreleased. i found something that was labeled "ork sessions" but they seem to be early live recordings, not studio demos.

also, the intro to "loveless love" seems like an extension of johnny jewel's second part.

The story the band tells is that Glyn Johns would have a couple of bottles of wine to start out with, then after he inevitably passed out the group produced themselves.

Except it was Glyn's brother Andy.

Close enough. Point made.

If some home DJ out there could remix a Bonham sound from Television tracks now, that might well be groovy--but back then, not so much a punk-beyond-punk, in-yo-face move like these cosmic epic solo junkies of CBGB's were already known for--as something ridiculously self-inflated, since Zep was seeming a bit overexposed, to put it mildly (I wuz there, and still liked 'em, but like many younger rockheads ready to give all arena dinosaurs a rest, or at least give Television's Dead x VU missing links a shot). Eno said that his duo albums with Fripp were just guitars plugged directly into the board.

Although he might have messed with the mixes later. Isn't Le Noise board-direct, with Lanois adding at least some effects in real time?

The Beatles' "Revolution" is board-direct, with the distortion coming from the levels in the red.

here's the feelies' glenn mercer on recording direct:
we had a lot of problems getting a good guitar sound in the studio. We tried everything. Different amps, different rooms. Pretty much exhausted everything we could at the studio we were at. Mark Ambel, the co-producer of that record, said "why don't we record the guitar direct and feed them back to an amp when we're ready to mix?" We were scheduled to mix in a better studio. He told us that we'd get a much better sound there. So we were recording the guitars and doing it direct, which is like a rule. NEVER RECORD THE GUITARS DIRECT. It sounded really dry and dead. But we really started actually to like the sound. A lot of the guitars on the record were kept that way. We actually found that when you record direct, it's a little bit closer to your ear. You have the space of the speaker and the ambience of the mike when you're recording it. A lot of what people think are acoustic guitars are just electric guitars recorded direct. A kind of dry sound.

but re: television, yeah i wouldn't change a thing about marquee moon -- to me it's the perfect mix of a minimalist approach and just a straight-ahead 70s classic rock guitar thing.

That Wild Flag video is fantastic.

Do not mix a Bonham drum track onto Marquee Moon. Now!

Another thing making the single of "Little Johnny Jewel" so striking at the time, was having pts.1 & 2, the well-earned confidence of that--like "Tom Joad," which was maybe 7 minutes total, but pt. 1 ended at just the right point, and the whole thing, whole lives, flew by so lucidly (Happy 100th BDay Woody G! Television should cover you someday)

xpost Doubt Le Noise is direct at all (nor does it sound it). Neil loves his amps.

dudes i'm contributing live rarity kinda things to this site now. first up is of course, television: http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2012/09/12/television-live-the-whisky-a-go-go-los-angeles-1977/

cool! this is a great set.

Thanks for the live show...very nice. Kind of interesting cover of "Friction" here, by some ex-no wavers and early indie-rockers. (A few steps required to listen...still trying to get the mp3.)

http://www.sensitiveskinmagazine.com/timber-released-unreleased/

article doesn't mention Rick Brown's origins in Information.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/16/cbgb-drama-rock-club_n_1677947.html

great quote here from Chris Frantz:

I don't think Tom ever recommended any band to play CBGBs and certainly not Talking Heads. I was the one who approached Hilly on our band's behalf. As far as I know, Tom Verlaine has never done a single favor for anyone...not even himself.

hmm, never heard this song covered before. sounds pretty ok
http://soundcloud.com/tennisinc/tennis-guiding-light/s-LJyOL

Foxhole:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=6sCQ0hEYhZE&NR=1

英国音楽 / VINYL JAPAN very proudly presents
【 TELEVISION 】来日決定!!!!!!!
＜TOM VERLAINE / BILLY FICCA / FRED SMITH / JIMMY RIP＞
MAY 02 ( THU ) 下北沢 GARDEN
MAY 03 ( FRI ) 吉祥寺　CLUB SEATA
福岡＆大阪も
詳細は、近日中。

I've never seen that Foxhole clip before. I got chills!

There *should* be a TOTP clip of "Prove It", but it got wiped by the BBC, and for some reason I never saw it at the time.

yeah, that clip is great, tho it always depresses me that there's no other pro shot footage of the band in the 70s.

yeah the foxhole was staple tipsy on youtube viewing for me for some time. but dang, would love to see them doing prove it, or jsut about anything else really from that time, it's a tragedy

those Japan shows are the first ones I've heard of in quite awhile. Two years, maybe even?

yeah they played in south america two years ago? lloyd-less television still seems bizarre...

I saw a Lloyd-less Television in Central Park a few years back. Lackluster.

That Central Park show wasn't very good. Except when they played the new material. I do have confidence that the Rip-for-Lloyd lineup can be great, based off the decades of telepathic interplay verlaine has had with Rip in his solo projects. But if it jells it's gonna be Rip as sound painter for Verlaine's foreground, not a yin/yang like it was with Lloyd.

yeah, ripp is great, the bootlegs from the 80s are fucking incredible. i mean, it basically comes down to verlaine now, whether he's interested in playing or not. maybe without lloyd he'll feel he has a little more to prove? i don't know, that dude doesn't care about anything.

bit harsh, tyler - few years ago i saw verlaine and ripp perform a really nice intimate duo show together (in the 100 Club in London) and he was much more relaxed, happier, engaged than i've ever seen him w/ Television (tho' of course the palpable on-stage tension between him and lloyd did make things v inneresting...)

When he actually gets on a stage or in a studio, he commits. But he really is one of the hardest to motivate motherfuckers in all Manhattan.

ha, yeah, i was just kidding. mostly. verlaine just seems like a hard guy to pin down. i've watched one of those duo shows on youtube and it was great.

And I feel like I get why, just from his body of lyrics. He's such a symbolist that he'd rather just sit around and dream. Actually doing things is way too explicit.

xpost to self

haha, yeah.

meanwhile, here's lloyd's latest missive on facebook:

Here is a link to my blog entitled Yoga, Hypnosis and Gurdjieff. I invite everyone who wishes to participate to simply add comments from which exchanges may form, as crystals form in salt water. "If thy salt is lost it's savor, what good is it - only to throw to the swine and let them trample it underfoot." So please do contribute even if you know nothing of the subjects. There is no better way to learn as to teach, and as teaching is part of my calling, I am at the ready. --Richard Lloyd.

[link doesn't work]

classic

lolll
oh in case anyone didn't get it, this comp of hell-era Television stuff is still available: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/18962115402/television-a-season-in-hell-soooo-heres-a
hell's autobio/memoir is out sometime soon...

weirdness:

Richard Lloyd
This coming Monday, the 14th, the song "Guiding Light" is to be featured in the hit comedy series "How I Met Your Mother" 8 PM Eastern Time. If you are a fan of the show, or of Marquee Moon, from which the song is taken, be sure to watch and enjoy!

Hope it will be in one of How I Met's Canadian 80s teen-tween show-within-the-show eps, or do they still do those? Only times I could stand to watch.

The expanded Verlaine solo reissues from sev. years back feat. worthy input from Ripp, often enough.

wait a second, WHAT expanded Verlaine solo reissues? If there's been anything but straight no-bonuses reissues I wanna know about it???

Sorry, don't have 'em at hand and gotta get to work, but look 'em up---I'll try to find the promo package when home again (I don't remember any revelatory bonuses though, which may be why I didn't try to review--do remember good sound, but whether better than reissues you have I dunno, haven't heard more)

Yeah thx lemme know! The only ones I know of are the Collector's Choice of Flash Light and S/T (no bonuses) and back in the late 90s the Infinite Zero reiss of Dreamtime (which did have a bonus or two). The Miller's Tale 2CD had its share of rarities, of course, most significantly 3 tracks from the 'Lost Album' and the first non-defective CD version of 'Five Miles of You'.

Been listening to the self-titled a lot lately. What a great record. Totally slept on, and I feel would have been better received it had been released 10 or more years later.

Correct on all counts. I love that album so much.

yeah it's a nice one -- weirdly i read somewhere (can't remember now) michael stipe repping for it, "rhyme" in particular.

o wait i found it -- http://popsongs.wordpress.com/category/ask-michael-stipe/

I’m curious what songs you’ve heard in your life that made you just drop whatever you were doing and go, “You know, why can’t I write a song like this,” or, perhaps, “Damn, I wish I had written that.”

short list: Birdland, One, Beautiful Day, Man Who Sold the World, Ashes to Ashes, Karma Police, Rhyme[by Television], and more recently l.e.s. artistes

someday i'm going to have to put together the 4th television album, since verlaine refuses.

Hope someday comes soon...

The title of the record should be Verlaine Refuses.