Television

*passed

"Guiding Light" has incredible lyrics and vocal delivery as well IMHO

They’re just like us!

Except 7 foot tall.

have been watching richard lloyd's guitar lessons on youtube recently, very analytical in a mad scientist kind of way, and also somewhat perplexing to an oaf like me, but a really fascinating approach and i'd imagine quite a complementary one to verlaine who i can't help but think of as just plucking inspiration out of thin air like he's drawing a breath and breathing it out (this is likely a complete misapprehension on my part, would like to read any interviews with him on that side of things if anyone has any good links?)

Famously Lloyd could reproduce and double his guitar parts flawlessly whereas Verlaine would never play anything the same way twice.

Chicago; Lloyd broke a string during "mm" and the rest of the band stared daggers at him while he took FOREVER to replace and tune up

I remember this show vividly. It was part of the Noise Pop series, and while I can't recall exactly what else I saw, I want to say I saw a show every night that week (inc. Tweedy and O'Rourke debuting Loose Fur, maybe Wire and Sleater-Kinney also). Anyway, I felt it was Lloyd being totally passive aggressive. The band just vamped and soloed and jammed while he did indeed take forever, and then when he finally got the new string on and tuned the band pretty much wrapped up immediately.

first verse of marquee moon—perfect lyrics

i was listening, listening to the rain
i was hearing, hearing something else

terrifying!

This is what started the ball rolling for me--for the line-up of that era, see vids and commentary posted by birdistheword in mid-Jan. 2022:

"Somewhere Somebody Must Stand Naked"
Rock Scene October '74
By Patti Smith

To me it's amazing that Bowie thought him great enough to cover "Kingdom Come," despite That Vocal.

I’m a craptastic guitar player but I can stumble through some of the riffs for “Marquee Moon,” and every time I do I sort of feel like I’ve been touched by the hand of God. He made garage rock sound divinely inspired. RIP.

Robert Forster:

https://www.facebook.com/robertforsterofficial/posts/pfbid02ax9bjAEYuctdimTVCTWsiAcjEWsTszQeHFKPnL7H7RE16k6uxaSgEzxJfeN5QgS2l

Ah yr back are you, ILX?

This was a fascinating watch, a full hour of Terry Ork's films of early Television practices, you can literally see Verlaine teaching them Venus for the first time, like watching the band being born. Some funny arguing too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srn98FdXI4E

There's a part where Verlaine and Hell are cracking up working out the "did you feel low? Not at all..huh" part that is cute

a compilation of songs that might have appeared on the next TV album:
https://www.earcandyarchive.com/?p=24

I was only a casual Television fan i guess but that being said, my first time hearing Marquee Moon was a really indelible experience & i feel it every time i go back & listen

like, it didn’t sound preserved in amber like the way some important™️ musical artifacts did in my 20’s. at thst age I didn’t have a lot of depth to my experience aside from popular radio & my own stumblings & digging so learning a lot of it on my own sometimes felt a bit isolating.
like maybe i needed someone to talk me through what i heard

but not with Television. or it didn’t feel like that. there was no remove.
no moment of “i have to do some reading to appreciate this i guess ?”

with MM it was all right there, declaring itself but welcoming you? the incredible guitar sound & the driving band around it that is not at all chaotic but everyone’s playing is focused & intense, the beautiful lyrics, the emotion of his singing (and idk if this is a thing but i like that he and Patti Smith both share the same style of phrasing, like did they consciously talk about it ever or was it just symbiotic maybe, i love it though)

but Television that first time was like going to the ocean, seeing a majestic set of waves then being in the ocean & being carried by the same waves and just being so happy that “old” music could be so powerful

it’s so artistic but so accessible without being dumb or pandering

anyway saying all of that makes me so sad that we now have to talk abt Verlaine in the past tense

beautiful king of guitar god poets rip

<3

greatest musical moment of my adult life was being driven down the main drag of ocean city, maryland, with the windows open, listening to all 10 minutes of “marquee moon” while coming down from acid and it felt like the lights of the boardwalk and the ferris wheel and all of downtown were powered by the riffs

rip. punk was actually always about being a great instrumentalist from a low angle, he embodied that

amen to that!

Nice post from Lee renaldo:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CoAnPY2pwT_/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=

A nice reminiscence from Marty Willson-Piper:

"I played with him most nights on the US tour in 1988 where he opened for the ex-band acoustic and we played Cortez the Killer as an encore (electric of course), trading solos. He travelled on our bus and I spent a substantial amount of time in his company which led to me playing guitar (uncredited along with Jay Dee Daugherty) on his 1990 album The Wonder. Verlaine was a great inspiration to me as he never seemed to hit the notes that others chose. He was that intoxicating mixture of high competence and risk, emotional and raw, and able to sustain long guitar solos that were always disappointing when they stopped. It’s all in the fingers and I remember his wiry hands, he was tall and slim, almost a statue. He was thoughtful and always very kind to me, he gave me books about the French writers of the previous two centuries because he knew I was interested and once when his guitar broke he used my 12-string acoustic and made a point of telling the audience it was mine and how grateful he was for letting him use it."

Now that's a generous post and a good memory for sure.

Lovely late afternoon listening.

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

Made a mix of cool Television covers: https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/01/29/television-tell-a-vision/

I think it does a decent job of showing off what a good pop band they were under the surface. So many hooks!

Friend of mine who's a young musician who worked with Tony Visconti said this in response to my mentioning that Verlaine was supposed to play on the cover but was replaced by Fripp:

"I believe it was less that Bowie was unhappy and more that Verlaine spent the entire studio session trying to find the right guitar tone, as Tony put it to me, “he had 30 guitar amps setups and just kept going around to each one trying to find the right sound. We had to go get lunch at some point and he just kept searching”"

then wrote:

"yeah, Tony couldn’t remember if they had gotten some takes down or not, there may be some Verlaine takes on a tape somewhere. Also, interesting note, Carlos Alomar was the one who suggested they cover the song."

my own cover/tribute of "see no evil" is here, if you can fish it out of this ancient url. tv nerds please hang for the lead, which is a bit of a mashup.
https://tv.obbard.com/tribute/

This is old but new to me, great writing, one of the best things I've read about the band

https://www.theringer.com/music/2022/4/13/23022787/television-marquee-moon-tom-verlaine-richard-hell

Here and there I’ve seen intimations that there are issues with the TV section of From the Velvets to the Voidoids, does anyone know what those might be? Factual issues, or just people hating Clinton Heylin because he’s a jerk?

xpost what a great piece

thx for posting ums!

Really great writer, her band The Paranoid Style is worth checking out too

In recent years I've returned most to the 1992 Television album, which has this sharp crystalline sound like clear skies through huge windows in winter, where you feel heat and cold at once. The current of giddy anxiety running through that record is really special.

I've heard different things about how complete that fourth Television album was. Such things are always ambiguous, but was it close to finished product? I'll check out Thus Sang Freud's link — I think he posted it once before and I never got around to listening, figuring some day I'd hear "definitive" versions. Presumably not now.

Someone on the TV Facebook group also posted this zip file of unreleased songs. Haven't listened yet so not sure how much overlap there is.

https://wetransfer.com/downloads/2aad3be6ea315c9e1be7798818926c0720230129094049/39d21a?fbclid=IwAR1n-3qouesTEK6KIV-AHuyAEvRzzs25TadxK7--xe-VDPAbrnu9wKkRuCM

In recent years I've returned most to the 1992 Television album, which has this sharp crystalline sound like clear skies through huge windows in winter,

yes! Been promoting this album for years

nice comment on times obit:

Book Seller
NJJan. 29
When I moved to New York several years back, I became a daily fixture outside the Strand Bookstore browsing their $1 and $2 books. I would sit along the wall reading and talking with others under the awning watching hours pass as frantic city life continued in the background. Quickly, I got to know everyone who would put in the same amount of hours perusing the book carts (Tom Verlaine was one of them).

I noticed him right away: a tall, commanding presence dressed always in black, often obscured by plumes of cigarette smoke. We would talk more and more and eventually grew to spending hours and hours outside talking to pass the time while waiting for the new arrivals. I had no idea the celebrity he was (just that he was a musician), and never did it come up. Another acquaintance finally let me in on the secret one day, after Tom and I had already shared countless months of near daily conversations.

He was warm, brilliant, and engaging. Always curious about me (with no reason to be) and just curious in general. Oh, and an excellent bookman in addition to his many more obvious talents.

To imagine passing by the Strand and not seeing him is nauseating. He will be sorely missed, and I loved the time we spent together.

<3

Ah, New York...

Ah, humanity

That is fucking wonderful

Good day to dig into the solo albums which I never bothered to go deep into, despite really liking the first one. Penetration on Dreamtime is next-level brilliant.

Wonder if Tom Verlaine bought any books with David Markson's name in them.

Oh Dan you have such riches ahead of you my god

i saw david markson give a talk at the strand once.

Personal ranking:
Flash light
Tom Verlaine
Cover
Dreamtime
‘Lost album’ 1986 (key tracks are on The Miller’s Tale comp)
Songs and other things
Words from the front
The wonder
[ashamed to say I haven’t spent enough time with the two instrumental albums - warm & cool and Around]

The only one there that I consider a dud is the wonder but that might change

Also the live disc appended to The Miller’s tale would probably fall in second place above

Cover and Dreamtime would be a tie

As of today's listen I'm liking Dreamtime more than the first album.

I think that is the consensus fave solo album nowadays

big fan of Words From The Front - 'True Story' and 'Days On The Mountain' are both amazing! the former has a strange post-punky groove that reminds me more than anything of peak period Simple Minds, and the latter is this epic thing that doesn't really sound like much else but the electronics + guitar do make me think of Bill Nelson

I remember an old girlfriend of mine having "Dreamtime" (and one other I think?) and I remember liking it a lot ... that was a long time ago though!

Vote here for Warm & Cool, which in its way was almost as formative to me as MM (I heard them both around the same time in 93-ish)

i think verlaine's solo career mimics lou reed's in that, as much as critics praised their early bands' work for its experimentalism, they just wanted to play with super-competant musicians who would do what they asked them to do. for better and worse. which is to say that all his solo records would be better as tv records, but you can't hold that against them.

oh great i misspell competent

You substituted an A for Angular.