marquee moon by Television

scott, what is it you prefer about the ROIR tape? I'm curious because I have it and I find it nearly unlistenable. What am I missing?

Yeah, rockism="It's gotta rock!" and "It might be good, but it still sucks because it doesn't rock!"

Best definition evah???

i've had the felt records for years, and up until recently i couldn't be bothered to be to inquisitive about them as people.

also the idea that authenticity is the gold standard of everything good and meaningful, that something new will almost always be inferior to something time-tested and "classic," that there are two categories, rock and "everything else," and nothing in the second category so much as exists in the rockist consciousness unless it (a) serves as a constant antagonist to all that is good and meaningful in music (b) brushes up against rock in some way that validates it.

this is all pretty reductive but it's a good place to start.

Oh gosh, unlistenable, really? I always thought that tape sounded fine. I really fell in love with those versions when I first heard them. I had the Blow-Up tape and then the cd, but i think i sold the cd so i can't listen to it right now, but i just remember it being so tense and powerful. It kinda made me wish that i had a cd that was nothing but old live versions of those two songs. The studio versions never hit me half as hard.

No, it isn't.

Search function is being spazzy so I couldn't find the Television C/D thread. This one will have to suffice.

Anyway, I dunno if it's common knowledge that the Television show in Central Park on Saturday was announced as Richard Lloyd's last. RL is severing his ties with the band to pursue more solo stuff.

Thing is, Lloyd went into intensive care with pneumonia in both lungs on June 1st and is still hospitalized & on breathing apparatus, though there has apparently been significant improvement since his admittance.

I hope he gets to go home soon. Very worrying.

the last couple months have been exceedingly odd for Mr. Lloyd. Has he gone off the deep end?
here's his strange announcement re: his split with Television & his new apparently amazing (that's what he says anyway) record

Dear Marquee Moon mailing list members:

First of all, thank you for your continued support of our band and its members. Although I read the list from time to time, and I notice it is a worship altar for the works of Tom Verlaine, I have never minded, because for 34 years within Television, I practiced a kind of magical invisibility -- you could look at me on stage and think that what I was doing was being done by Tom. Of course, I took my own solos etc., but nonetheless I practiced a real yogic invisibility so that the band would have one leader and one central visionary.

A man cannot ride two horses. I am a great believer in my newest record which is about to come out, and I think it is as important a record as anything ever released -- not more important, but equal to absolutely anything you can name in rock-and-roll history. It deserves my full attention and support.

I'm going to ask the mailing list members a question. It's a rhetorical question, and thereafter I will answer it myself: have any of you ever made a New Year's resolution? Have any of you that have made a New Year's resolution kept your promise to yourself for the entire year? I dare say that not many of you can answer yes to this. Well, I made a vow in 1973 to subsume my will and my own personal charisma behind Tom, in order that Television have one face and one leader showing to the public. At times this vow was very difficult on me. I suffered public embarrassment and had to hide my own gregariousness and generosity behind a band identity that was nick-named "the ice kings of rock."

Now that I have announced my severance from any involvement in the band Television, the other three are free to get a fourth member should they like, and continue under the name. That was our original agreement and I stand by. I am a man of my word. I gave my word to myself and I kept my vow or 35 years. Now I am released from that vow and can reveal my own talents and force. I hope you will join me on an exciting adventure, which is more social phenomenon than musical, the music just being a part of my plans to conquer the earth and make the earthlings be nice to one another.

Please refrain from mentioning the name of my forthcoming record. Please do not mention the phrase. This will assist me in my well thought about promotional campaign. There will be no advance copies sent to journalists. There will be small listening parties and the record will be being played at my shows. But if you do not get a copy directly from me, you don't get one.

Sincerely yours,
Richard

hmmm?

It doesn't bother me in the slightest about starting a new thread, or posting on this one, but here's the one you're looking for:

television: classic or dud? search and destroy

sad..

: (

i dunno, i find his whole reason for quitting Television bizarre. Is there a single review of the band out there that doesn't mention Lloyd? You know, "... the scintillating guitar interplay between Verlaine and Lloyd ..."? That sorta thing? Anybody even casually familiar with the band knows that it wasn't just the Tom Verlaine Band. It also just seems weird to be quitting a band that plays a handful of times a year, if that. Personally, it bums me out because I never got a chance to see the band in any incarnation, and they're definitely one of my faves. Wonder what'll happen to all that new material they've been playing the last few years? Some of it was pretty solid.

isn't verlaine a massive a-hole?

I would class him as very very prickly and deeply contrarian. Which may = asshole on certain occasions.

This is neither here nor there; but in the context of Television, I for one always liked Lloyd's soloing more than Verlaine's. (And felt vindicated after hearing him hold his own with Robert Quine on those early '90s Matthew Sweet records.)

But yeah, those remarks up there: wtf?

I've read a few reports on Lloyd's recent east coast tour -- sounds like he's doing some sort of weird performance art thing, with chanting in aramaic, berating audience members and multiple Jimi Hendrix covers. While I love the guy in Television, I've never been able to get into his solo stuff ... But anyway, this all seems a bit odd. I interviewed the guy a few years back (when those Rhino reissues came out) and he seemed like a pretty regular guy and was (rightfully) proud of his work in Television. But now his Web site is filled with weird pseudo-mystical rants and writings -- it's hard to tell whether it's all an elaborate pu-on or utterly sincere.

Another of his announcements, from last month:

After the possible Summer stage show in New York City on June 16, which is to be announced by the city of New York on May 15, Richard Lloyd will, after 34 years, be amicably severing all ties with the band Television, in order that he may concentrate his magnetic force and supernatural energies upon his own career in support of his forthcoming record, due out in the fall. This new record directly competes with Marquee Moon, Axis: Bold as Love, The Doors, Patti Smith's Horses, Bob Marley's Natty Dread, Neil Young's Harvest, or any other record you can name, as one of the greatest records ever made in the history of rock 'n roll. That being so, Richard needs to concentrate all of his energies to support it and its subsidiary philosophies.

so this show if it happens is gonna be a fiasco?

and then there's this interview:
http://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php?p=566&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#more5
he's gotta be at least sort of kidding. right?

Please refrain from mentioning the name of my forthcoming record. Please do not mention the phrase. This will assist me in my well thought about promotional campaign.

^^^ i like this very much

so this show if it happens is gonna be a fiasco?

Actually, not quite. If it happens at all I imagine they'll draft in Jimmy Rip to play 2nd guitar. He's been solo-act Tom Verlaine's 2nd guitarist live and on most records for over 20 years, and he knows most of the TV songs from live sets. He's a great foil for Tom, but not at all in the same style as Lloyd. Rip is more of an atmospheric scene-painter for Verlaine's foreground action. They have great chemistry on stage together.

But there will be serious umbrage if a Television concert happens with Rip instead of LLoyd, that's for sure. Don't see how else it can go through, though, and I don't imagine it's easy to reschedule a free Central Park gig.

verlaine should hire j. mascis.

that interview is crazee

"The original LP had 09:58, i believe (off the top of my head)...."

Wow Mark, you remember the duration of individual tracks on favourite LP's? I bow down in humble admiration at the feet of true music-obsessive greatness!

Ha, just cause I looked longingly at that "Marquee Moon" 12" single for so long, back in the day. It was one of the first 12" singles made, and certainly the first "rock" one that justified its existance for the length of the track!

thanks, jon -- obviously nothing too revelatory for heads, but I think they did a nice job with it...

love this pic of Lloyd -- i assume it was taken some time towards the end of "Satisfaction"

https://68.media.tumblr.com/6c6b74a08980bc2a01ddc7bd953b2af1/tumblr_inline_oocqdmtQEH1qzx4na_1280.jpg

lol

Stereo Review is a good source for "what's this crap?" contemporary hot takes on 'classic' LPs pic.twitter.com/qBbqCsKnYG

— Bowiesongs (@bowiesongs) July 27, 2018

Did he. . . did he even listen to the album?

not sure anyone who’s seen the elegantly cadaverous band on the cover of the record would want any more ‘flesh tones’ than there are on there already tbh

Seems this LP and Wire’s Pink Flag we’re very heavily discussed as rock classics 20 years or so ago, and maybe not as much these days?

Are any rock classics heavily discussed these days?

The Thing

I was interested in who "N.C." might be, and after looking around a bit, found a site that archives Stereo Review for forty years:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/HiFI-Stereo-Review.htm

Only recognized one name on the masthead circa 1977 (Steve Simels), but looks like Bangs reviewed records for them for a time. He reviews Bob Marley and Peter Tosh in the September '77 issue, also the Ramones in an earlier issue (the pages are missing on that one).

N.C. = 'Noel Coppage'

also some sweet reviews of rumours and lust for life in that thread

title track is the closest a new york band ever got to Wishbone Ash

Bangs was writing for Stereo Review at least as early as 1974, as he reviewed Quadrophenia.

Good review...They've got a search button in the top right where you can look up Bangs, or specific albums. The other thing I love is all those old Marantz and Pioneer ads. I used to look at those ads as a teenager like someone else might look at Mercedes and Porsche ads.

http://www.magazine-advertisements.com/uploads/2/1/8/4/21844100/marantz-electronics-1-1.jpg

Holy crap, $1285 today is around $7000 (and $298 just over $1600).

See No Evil just came on in Shooters Sports n Shorts bar in Leeds and I'm amazed.

xpost you could get a hell of a nice integrated stereo amp today for $1285!

The Marantz, though, came with the TK421 modification, which they'd do right in the store. You don't get that anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La3U41b0WSU

haha, great clip

That is funny. Where is it from?

Boogie Nights

haha, I'd totally forgotten about that scene, and it's not too far off from the Marantz ad copy (Gyro-Touch tuning! Built-in oscilloscope!)

To be fair, Marantz is a pretty solid investment.

Oh, I agree. I found a cheap used 1030 a few years ago, and it sounded great/worked perfectly for a few years. Tank-like, too (until one of the channels died).

Sorry, Marquee Moon, people love you and you will get your thread back soon...I started looking into where the company was now and came across this ad testifying to those tank-like qualities.

http://www.ca.marantz.com/Assets/Images/1974_Marantz_fire_ad.jpg

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

With Lloyd doubling his parts, the effect was noir-cool as opposed to exploitation-flick-thrilling