Television

Holy shit i’m in the mtns and that’s so fucked, 😔

lol

Almost kinda weird that TV never guested on a Sonic Youth album?

this one (which is great) has ranaldo and shelley on it (plus nels cline)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8blDM3XqVg

That whole soundtrack's pretty cool. It's probably my favorite compilation/album of Dylan covers by a large margin.

yeah definitely more hits than misses

Wow, that's really great. I've gathered up his b-sides, does he have many tracks exclusive to compilations?

i think the discography on this site pretty much covers it.
http://www.thewonder.co.uk/facts/index.htm

Listening to 'Warm and Cool' on youtube now, it's sick. Billy Ficca on drums. Sometimes it sounds like nothing so much as a John Scofield album, other times skronky free improv.

Anyone know why his Thrill Jockey records are out-of-print/not streaming? Seems weird, maybe that's what he wanted, or a money dispute?

I’m surprised at how much I warmed to Flash Light after several listens— meh, meh, meh, eh this just ain’t it, hmm, aright, and then BAM i love this. The expanded guitar sound finally sounded more verlaine-normal or something to me.

I came to this album after decades of MM and stray other stuff. From listen one I could hear his playing in this, but the mor atmospherics just didn’t work. Until they totally did. What a nice thing.

Now I wonder what it would have been like if I’d heard this one first. Would I have had the reverse difficulty going the other direction? I must have, I think.

richard hell in the new yorker:

Were you in touch with Verlaine before he died, recently?

No. I never recovered from what felt to me at the time like a total betrayal. Our relationship was really complex. We were so close, but it always makes me think of how I once got a postcard from Ted Berrigan advertising a reading he was doing with Ron Padgett, and on the postcard he said, “Ron and I hate each other as only best friends can.” And then, when that thing happened with that split, it just, it was final. When I would see him, I would invariably come away thinking, He just rubs me the wrong way. Even though he was my best friend, and in lots of ways we had more in common than anybody else in my life. Those are the most impressionable years; they’re when you’re forming, and, if you shared that experience with someone you’re with constantly, it’s eternal. It doesn’t go away. So I still have that feeling of brotherhood with him, even though I couldn’t stand being in his presence. But there was a funny thing that happened right after he died. There was this little book about graffiti at CBGB, and I wrote an introduction for it, and, within the first couple of days after Verlaine died, I’d be looking for references to what happened, and I came across this tweet, which the editor of the book who approached me to write the intro tweeted. When he was doing this book, he first approached Verlaine to write the intro, and Verlaine demurred, but said to him, “I can’t stand the guy, but you gotta get Richard Hell.” [Laughs.] And that gave me a really good feeling. Because it was the same for me, about him.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/how-richard-hell-found-his-vocation

aw damn.

Excellent.

whole interview was great

Thanks! Reminds me of this extended review re Hell's memoir-lit-literary sketchbook I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp, with the Kentucky boyo setting up Village camp in the 60s, soliciting and then rejecting a poem from Ginsberg for his zine and all, also for instance, way later but still pre-Neon Boys, I think?

Hell dates his "junkie mentality" to before he was actually using--to Theresa Stern, the hooker poet he and Verlaine invented and impersonated in their collaborative 1973 collection Wanna Go Out?

"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/

god i really relate to what hell says about verlaine

things are kind of like that with my ex, this sense of mutual betrayal. people i respect but on a personal level i never want to fucking talk to again.

Definitely. I think you get some relief. So why do you have to go pay somebody to sit there and listen to you do it? Most of what people are is chemical. It’s biological. Did you ever see [Michael Apted’s] “Seven Up!” movies? The seven-year-olds are still the same, even at seventy. You don’t change. You’re who you were at three.

...what? did _he_ see the up series? like art is subjective but how the _fuck_ did he get that from the films?

NYC booksellers band together to hold resale of Tom Verlaine's collection of 50,000 books

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/nyc-booksellers-band-together-hold-resale-of-tom-verlaine-collection-of-books

There is another sale of his books going on (bigger space). Tomorrow, books go for five bucks. A few copies of the Theresa Stern zine (I think they were going for 25?) https://www.instagram.com/p/C0MwmeSOWqu/

probly most people reading this thread know, but just in case: tylerw's blog Doom And Gloom From The Tomb, on Tumblr and now Substack, has always been an excellent source of TV (and much other) info x soundz...

Is there a list of his books (for sale or otherwise) posted somewhere? Currently having trouble seeing all of the Instagram post.

Doubt there's a list. I went yesterday and there were large sections of fiction (especially poetry), occult/religion/spirituality, art, movies and music (which had a ton of books about using vacuum tubes in recording).

they've put some pricey ones on line.

https://www.betterreadthandeadbooks.com/searchResults.php?action=browse&category_id=365

they had a few 'theresa stern' originals on the table for $600 each. and other things like that.

There's a magazine special on the band out at the moment that I saw at the airport and now regret not buying. Uncut. May have been older but was in there on Wednesday maybe shelflife longer in an airport newsagent.

That came out this year but I don’t think it reached U.S. newsstands until very recently. Still, I’d get one sooner than later just in case they didn’t stock many copies.

I wrote about Marquee Moon in the Uncut special! Came out in October I think?

I wrote about the band's live albums + bootlegs in the Uncut special! It is a cool mag, definitely grab it if you see it.

How do you even wind up with 50,000 books! Lets assume he showed up in NYC in 72 or whatever with >10 books. He really bought 20 books a week, every week, for the rest of his life?

He was at the Strand every single day, going through the dollar bins, so I can see that leading up to 50,000.

How do you even wind up with 50,000 books!

― Reeves Gabrels' Funko Pop (majorairbro)

It gets away from you fast, trust me

Doubt there's a list. I went yesterday and there were large sections of fiction (especially poetry), occult/religion/spirituality, art, movies and music (which had a ton of books about using vacuum tubes in recording).

― jbn, Sunday, December 3, 2023 11:27 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Apparently lots of really weird, cheap-o UFO books as well

i imagine verlaine bought a bunch of collections sight unseen, too – like those random ebay auctions that are like "12 boxes of books for $100" ... pretty funny, he must've at least entertained the idea of opening a bookstore at some point. tom would've been a great cranky dude behind the counter, glaring at your lame purchases.

Highlights:
-Running into Sang Freud & Wife!!
....
-couple of books concerning da blooze.
-Stockhausen interviews
-book of jazz interviews (a gift!)
-Photo/text book abt West Virginia traditional music
-2 copies of the Bernie Kraus book/cd of his nature recordings/journals. (one will be a gift.)
-A book about the history of Martin Guitars (also a gift)
-Ellroy & Gibson 1st editions
-Sidney Bechet "Treat It Gentle"
-book of Raymond Chandler essays/interiews/miscellany.
-book of essays about Ross MacDonald

some more stuff too.. from what I gather, yesterday was a lot mellower than Saturday.

You can see some of the items from the collection that have been listed on the BRTD website-
https://www.betterreadthandeadbooks.com/searchResults.php?action=browse&category_id=365

great seeing you, ian!!

between the two of us we amassed 31 books, mostly from the literature section and some music stuff. i'll list some titles at some point.

"1880 or so" is the best song ever written

"the fragrance sweet
in the evening air
i could leave this world
quite without a care"

Definitely my favorite non-Marquee Moon Television song.