Television

"You just sold Tom Verlaine a gardening manual. Things are okay."

https://lithub.com/tom-verlaine-was-the-strands-best-customer/

I don't know how I ever managed to buy this classic American poetry anthology there for $1.99. Either it eluded his grasp or he just didn't do anthologies.

did you get it inside? going inside is cheating.

Hahaha, no!

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/02/07/guiding-light-a-tom-verlaine-appreciation/

Thanks. Tbh getting a bit tired of the cart stories, especially since I already told mine elsewhere over the weekend.

great stuff. Love Licht's thing about the continuation of guitar rock bypassing the 70s.

Yeah Tyler that’s a wonderful assemblage thank you
I was worried we had now reached the phase where we no longer keep talking about Tom Verlaine every day

Please like and subscribe to my Television/Tom Verlaine podcast PEAK TV

TVOD

Tyler that's really really good.

and thanks so much.

Finally had time to read that. Stellar work as usual.

Also just reread the interview with Tom in Feeding Back and it was even grebter than I remembered it.

Read it whilst listening to The Blow Up which was potentially a risky maneuver but it worked out really well.

Nice collection of tributes here, including from the Clientele's Alasdair MacLean, who based on this and the podcast he did about the Beatles, is very good on talking about other musicians' work

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/02/07/guiding-light-a-tom-verlaine-appreciation/?fbclid=IwAR3zCwYhPvRHNVD4G8ZPJaGUn0pSJWi5O2DwhjzlBFjOEpzH94TWCNtsYRQ

heh, just posted upthread by the fabulous tylerw who did the compiling

very much enjoyed alasdair's perspective, what's that podcast he did on the beatles?

D'oh - sorry missed that!

Alasdair was the guest on the Your Own Personal Beatles podcast back in October 21

https://shows.acast.com/personalbeatles/episodes/alasdsair-maclean

Does anyone have any thoughts on the first line of Venus? Lyrics sites say "It was a tight toy night", which makes no sense to me but who knows? I think I always heard it as "Tight, torn night"

I thought tight torn night

Another site has it as "tight tour night" which I suppose sounds the most literally plausible.

lyric sheet on the album sleeve "tight toy night" ... don't know what it means, but I like it!

So...the only Verlaine album I hadn't paid attention to, Words from the Front, is the weakest? The title track and "Days on the Mountain" are the strongest; the rest just flits away.

The production is very odd — I think even Verlaine admitted that he did not like how it sounded by the time he finished it. I like "Postcard From Waterloo," too, and "Clear It Away" would sound great live in the next few years.

Postcard From Waterloo is gorgeous

ah forgot about the lyric sheet. I like toy better!

Postcard from Waterloo is based on an old Televsion song (never recorded?):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0yfoIa_Wgg

This thread much more fun than some others right now.

re: that early stuff, here's a Richard Hell-era Television comp I put together way back when. Cool, weird, raw sounds! https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/149945081937/television-a-season-in-hell-sunday-re-up-ive

I like the track "Coming Apart" on 'Words on the Front", it doesn't really fit but then none of the tracks seem to fit with any of the other tracks on that album.

Verlaine's vocals are so weird on Words (and a lot of his solo stuff in general). Sometimes his approach works, but often it seems like he's reaching for something and not quite getting there. Actually, his last vocal album from 2006 might have his most pleasing singing on it, a little more relaxed and warm.

(and I say all that thinking that he can be a really fantastic singer sometimes. I read someone call him the christopher walken of rock once and I can kind of see that)

That Hell-era comp, shambling, ragged, is some of my favorite music ever, you get a sense of how thrilling they must have been even early on, this weird unholy mix of both Hell's & Veraline's approaches, and while it is clear the combination could never last there is something so charming & naive about them without being cloying, it feels so light and almost goofy

totally. that early 1974 clip that surfaced last year is just amazing in its all-out strangeness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLlhYiN4gmU

I like this bit from Zach Lipez:

"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/

I found the book I managed to buy off the Strand carts that one time. I paid 48 cents for it.

Just put on the remastered Marquee Moon cd after not seeing it for a while. It's totally fuzzing out. Very distorted.
So am just wondering if anybody else experienced that with this version.
Don't want to get another copy to find out this was a widespread thing.

Shame, thought I'd finally got around to sticking some of him on. But just get what sounds like a cloud of fuzz accompanying then replacing the sound. I think other 2 discs on 3 changer are ok.

Need to find my Miller's Tale set I think.

I'd swap the three discs around, tbh

i realized that one reason i love television so much as they stand at the nexus of pretty much everything i love in rock music - late 60s jamming, bratty garage rock, punk, art rock, prog, crazy horse, post punk, dylan, jazz, no wave skronk...like they are kind of the center

Hey so what Verlaine should I lichen to if I've only heard Television?

listen, lol

The first two solo albums and Cover.

Miller's Tale is a good compilation with a live set on 2nd disc. Not sure how widely available it is but it was a good introduction at teh time I think anyway. THink I had been aware of him for a while when I got it.

and find as many live boots as you can (TV included). There are many scattered around the interwebs.

Also many fine TV live sets like this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFEU1yXTf8w

Such a shame taht there isn't a rest of teh set from the OGWT clip of Foxhole. There is so much more of teh reunion on film and there's even more of the Richard Hell lineup than classic era classic lineup.

I haven't been able to find The Miller's Tale for years.

Just looked around at prices for it and they are going up on what I payed for it quite a bit.
Not sure exactly when i got it though, may have been through CDConnection in 2003 but could be wrong.

i got mine at the sadly defunct subterranean records owned by the sadly deceased guitarist from winter hours. every time i walked in they were guaranteed to be playing some tv live tape. https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/13/nyregion/thecity/vinyl-idling.html

Just put on the remastered Marquee Moon cd after not seeing it for a while. It's totally fuzzing out. Very distorted.
So am just wondering if anybody else experienced that with this version.
Don't want to get another copy to find out this was a widespread thing.

I don't have it anymore, but I didn't like the remaster - it sounded heavy on the compression, which is a shame because the old CD had one or two mistakes like clipping off the first note of "See No Evil."

I actually tweaked the old CD, restoring that missing note with some editing, then smoothed out the top end just a touch. (The album was always a bright sounding recording. I only dropped like 2 db at 10k.)

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