Television

Man, I'm really on the fence about trying to see them. But if Lloyd was still in the band, I wouldn't think twice about going.

I went to both Tom Verlaine Band shows at Bowery Ballroom in whenever that was (07?) and it was transcendent. This is the same group except with ficca. Think of it this way, smith and rip are the anchors now, the landscape guys; verlaine and ficca are the wildcards.

there are at least 10 youtubes up from 2013 performances to enter into evidence.

esp recommend the argentina Guiding Light.

yeah, regardless of what it's called, seeing verlaine/ficca/smith onstage together is going to be worth it

there haven't been any Television shows without Ficca, have there? certainly hope not. i would go for sure if i wasn't going there this weekend for WFMU.

i don't think Ficca has ever been absent.
nerve_pylon, I got an email a few months back from a dude who knows you, talking about tapes he might have of Television way back when...any movement on that? Let's make it happen.

let's email jon lewis on that when someth happens

;)

BTW verlaine's drummer on that last solo album and tour has since passed away. Sad. He was a big guy but did not look v old.

oh no kidding? that is a bummer.

I heard a set with Jimmy Rip the other day from around the other day presumably. Just doesn't seem to have the same hypnotic magic as the band did with Lloyd.
Could be a couple of things including being 35 years since the more hypnotic material was recorded, but I think they still had some of that when they came back in 92 and possibly the last Lloyd tour.
Shame, I should have made sure I saw them back when i had a chance to with Lloyd.

Well i have the live sets from the 70s anyway. Shame there isn't more visual footage of them from then though.

ERRATUM: the guiding light on youtube i mentioned is san francisco, not buenos aires

So I don't know how to make a playlist on youtube but yesterday I added all the videos of 2013 TV performances to my favorites list. About half are from the south american dates from this spring and half are from the dates of the last few weeks, particularly san francisco. My youtube user name is jpl725 so if you go to my favorites list these should be the first dozen or so videos you see.

cool, thanks, Jon!
listening to this new Rhys Chatham LP and there are some verrrrrry Television-y moments on the first track.

Just spent 50 minutes trying to get tickets on ticketmaster's site and now it looks like both nights are sold out ;_;

ouch!

depressed

duuuuude, no! where is the show, is it in a tiny place or something?

yeah. The new Rough Trade store in Brooklyn has a performance space. Just 300 ppl, supposedly. Became aware of that last night so we were going at it as soon as the sale went up but just got the spinning wheel of "Searching for tickets" until it was too late.

that's a bummer -- 3-2-1 til scalpers start selling 'em?

only one on craigslist so far but I would suppose so yeah

hey jon - i may have a spare for the friday. would you be interested?

hell yes (though I do hate to leave my partner in crime behind, but... hell yes). I am at joncroaker (at) g m a i l (dot) com

'92 Television show was prob the first one where i saw a lotta '70s ppl w/ gray hair

haha i am a 70s person with no hair. sent you a message, jon.

Just in case a spam filter snags me: I wrote you back in the resounding affirmative. :D

finally getting around to richard hell's book, pretty interesting stuff, though it is funny that (at least in Hell's hindsight) he and verlaine were pretty much done with each other after Television's first gig. also strange that hell has nothing good to say about richard lloyd. especially since i just listened to marquee moon yesterday and holy cow, lloyd's guitar sound remains celestial.

y'know, if i had a sore point with their show at rough trade, it was jimmy rip's slavish imitation of lloyd's sound on marquee moon. he played a tele through all kinds of pedals. really nailed the sound to a t. then when it came time to improvise, instead of lloyd's pythagorean modal whatsis, out came some bendy technique-heavy studio guitarist stuff. who's he gonna impress with that? not a house full of television fans.

yeah, some of Ripp's solos on the sydney show don't quite mesh, even though he's sticking to the basic structure of most of Lloyd's stuff. of course, I thought that occasionally when Lloyd was in the band during the 00s. He sometimes slipped into those chopsy show offy moments too. i actually liked Ripp's mid-song lead on 1880 or So.

I think Hell's gripes about Lloyd are more to do with his personality rather than his guitar playing

oh yeah definitely, but he doesn't even give Lloyd the obligatory "but boy he sure could play that guitar". I guess when Hell was in the band Lloyd might not've really figured out his sound yet.

mm, self evident?

https://31.media.tumblr.com/4705d710d6e75a094343cf89d47dd45d/tumblr_mya7o5iS8i1s4tb5bo1_400.jpg
kind of funny that they got the album title and the single title wrong, but i would've liked to see this bill.

Any Only Ones shows up?

only only ones bootleggy kinda thing i have is from (i think) 1979. And the quality is kind of bad iirc.

Never did get into that late 70s American-issued comp, Special View, but hoped some shows might show me the way to their critically-acclaimed specialness--think it was mainly Peter P.'s voice what put me off.

i love 'em but his voice may indeed be an acquired taste. but then again, so is verlaine's! Their BBC sessions are awesome.

I always liked Verlaine's voice! It suits his good-to-great stuff perfectly; can't save the weaker stuff, but there's not too much weaker stuff and that's the law of the jungle anyway. I'll check TOO's BBC Sessions, thanks.

Television to take off! To The Great White North

http://ih.constantcontact.com/fs126/1102271303916/img/1069.png

weird lineup

The first album popped up on random shuffle yesterday. Man, the drums on that thing are every bit the equal of the guitars.

When I saw the two tiny venue Brooklyn shows in November, I was really able to get a good look at what ficca was doing. So amazing. The way he takes advantage of the sides of the drums is so cool. He'll drag the stick along those metal ribs (excuse my ignorance, these are for tuning, right?) to get a rapid series of rim shots, for example.

xp Late response but one's best intro to The Only Ones is the Peel Sessions comp.

There's all these interesting fests popping up in the Midwest too. Television is at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville. Check out the lineup: http://www.bigearsfestival.com/

Then there's this, but without Televivion (Earth is playing both):

http://www.missionfreak.com/assets/overlay-e1af1a2b621ffc19de03121063a7c839.jpg

I often wondered how he did those 'rimshot rolls'

Hmmm what are the pros and cons of going to see Television in 2014 if I rate Marquee Moon about 8 out of 10 for personal enjoyment and haven't heard much else of theirs?

8 pro, 2 con?

jesus, fucking go!!!

OK, you helped make that an easy decision. Merci.

Seeing the band next week. Been a while.