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at a glance...
Hometown: New York, NY
Year Formed: 1973
Members:
Tom Verlaine -vocals, guitars
Richard Lloyd -guitars, backing vocals
Fred Smith -bass
Billy Ficca -drums
Bands In The Family:
Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, Patti Smith Group, Tom Verlaine, The Voidods, Matthew Sweet
Notes:
Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell began Television as a combination of proto-punk energy and poetic musings, but soon their paths would diverge. Verlaine's incredible guitar playing couldn't be contained by Hell's passion for brutish, performance-oriented punk explosion (later developed in the Heartbreakers and Voidods), and they parted ways. Not, however, until they had helped transform a new club in the Bowery called CBGB's into the center of the New York punk movement. After guesting on the Patti Smith Group's seminal Horses, Verlaine reshaped the band in his own virtouso image and they released 1977's Marquee Moon, their defining moment. After the next year's Adventure they started to drift apart, and eventually Verlaine went solo and built a cult following. Lloyd played guitar on some excellent Matthew Sweet records, and Television enjoyed a respectable reunion in 1992.
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Television
Marquee Moon
Elektra, Released 1977
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A warning: the sleeve to Marquee Moon lists not only songwriting and instrumental credits, it lists guitar solo credits. Blues riffing duels with stately arpeggios, Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd bend notes beyond recognition, and songs stretch well beyond the five-minute mark.
But Marquee Moon is not music for guitar shop clerks. Punk rockers, maybe. Poets, probably. People who appreciate melody piled on melody, and songs crammed full of an album's worth of ideas - definitely.
Verlaine and Television were originals in 1977, and Marquee Moon still sounds special today. You can hear them defining punk and new wave: "I get your point/You're so sharp" from "See No Evil" pretty much invented the new wave lyric, and the occasional afterbeat guitars and and high hat shuffles show them experimenting with reggae before The Clash brought it to the punk masses. Meanwhile, the guitars spiral into a different atmosphere altogether.
Verlaine and Lloyd push at the edges of "Friction," "Marquee Moon" and "Guiding Light," stuffing them full of melodic invention but never cutting the tethers that keep them grounded in simple, classic rock 'n' roll. Excited but focused, this may be the best guitar playing ever put to a rock record, and it makes a special set of songs into a magical, must-have album.
If you like Television, check out:
The Stone Roses The Stone Roses
Matthew Sweet Girlfriend
Echo and the Bunnymen Ocean Rain
-- jf
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