Television

was that the Metro show -- odd, I don't remember that at all! I remember the whole show being fantastic tho, what a high!

It was the Metro show, yeah. It was totally great, wasn't it? I want to say it ended with "Prove It" and feature some "Nuggets" cover. "MM" didn't sound bad minus Lloyd, oddly. I just thought it odd how he handled it, and that he had neither a second guitar nor a roadie to change the string for him.

Oh yeah, they covered "Psychotic Reaction."

Josh, yeah that show was super duper good. couldn't believe I was standing there watching Television! the thing that struck me the most was Billy Ficca's drumming -- what a fantastic drummer! like, I always thought of Television as a guitar band, and never really concentrated on the rhythm section, but watching Ficca live really noticed how solid he is

I also want to say that show was the same night Joey Ramone died. or was it John Fahey? they both passed in quick succession. I remember driving home and learning that one of them had died. wiki tells me it would have been feb or april 2001

Lloyd spilling all this bile after leaving the band he was in for 30+ years is just kind of uncomfortable and unnecessary -- like even if every word he says is true, it's like dude, you hung in there that long by choice, you have noone to blame but yourself, stop patting yourself on the back for being so 'loyal' to the guys you're now trashing all over the internet.

TBF, hanging in there didn't exactly take a of effort.

well he makes it sound like he was constantly putting his life outside the band on hold for three creatively fruitless decades in which they only made one forgettable album and were always discussing recording again. which does suck for him, if true, but again it's a 'fool me once, shame on you' thing.

Sure, but if that's your thing, and you like doing it, then yeah, you would cancel tours and sessions and stuff every time Tom Verlaine asked. It was foolish, after all that time off, for Lloyd to really sacrifice anything for the sake of the band. All I know is that I honestly appreciate Lloyd's contributions to those Matthew Sweet records more than anything Verlaine has done since "Marquee Moon."

I have his solo album, it sounds like Nick Lowe.

ha -- I love the '92 "reunion" album.

Alchemy? Because he made some other solo albums after that with Swedish only release or something. Alchemy was great, complete with a "Love Is Strange" sound alike, RIP Sylvia Robinson. So yeah, like Nick Lowe, fair enough.

All I know is that I honestly appreciate Lloyd's contributions to those Matthew Sweet records more than anything Verlaine has done since "Marquee Moon."

QFT.

i dunno, you gys are missing out, verlaine has a lot of stellar material/guitar playing post-MM.
lloyd freaking out is weird, but i think he might just be a weird dude.

gys = guys

posted this elsewhere, but you want a primer on how good verlaine can be w/o television, check this out: http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/8834986475/pull-down-the-future-covering-two-decades-of-live

All I know is that I honestly appreciate Lloyd's contributions to those Matthew Sweet records more than anything Verlaine has done since "Marquee Moon."

ur totally out of your mind. Listen to the shit Tyler posted.

re: the stuff Lloyd's been posting. Lloyd and Verlaine are both dicks. Lloyd, additionally, is for-real crazy. All of it should be taken with a huge grain of salt (a salt lick maybe).

Richard Lloyd's live "Real Time" is fantastic.

it's funny, when i interviewed lloyd many years ago, he was surprisingly friendly/norma, for the most part. i had expected a really cranky dude. don't know if he kinda goes through phases of craziness or what.
lloyd does get some pretty sweet guitar spots on the new rocket from the tombs record. on spotify if you're curious.

"friendly/normal" not norma. having trouble typing today.

Lloyd's website is an embarrassment of riches for guitar students (especially for guitar students who love Richard Lloyd's playing). Every lesson is accompanied by a thoughtful bit of advice/wisdom, and nowhere does he come off as cranky or not-all-there.

...aaaaand now that I check his site, it seems the lessons are nowhere to be found.

yeah, i remember a lot of those lessons. maybe he released a dvd of them or something?
at some point, he had all of this bizarre pseudo mystical stuff up, couldn't tell if he was kidding or what.

He took down the lessons from his website! (xpost)
I remember them being interesting, kind of deep, not just "here are a few of my favorite chord shapes and licks," which you wouldn't really expect from him anyway, but still.

I printed out a few of the exercises, and have used them every day for years now. Invaluable shit.

yeah, there's some guitar-y stuff left over in the ask richard section. he seems pretty reasonable there for the most part.

re: RFTT, I saw Lloyd with them in around 2005 or so, and yep, he killed. The crowd was hanging on every note. David Thomas, for his part, sat on a chair in the middle of the stage with a bottle of Courvoisier.

Me preferring Lloyd on the Sweet records has nothing to do with Verlaine's own undeniable talents. It has to do with ... preference. As in, what I actually prefer to listen to. Lloyd (and Quine) were just such a surprisingly perfect fit for that stuff.

Yeah, I want to say I saw RFFT that same year, mostly for Lloyd, honestly. Want to say Thomas was barely ambulatory, leaning on a cane.

huh, i saw an earlier RFTT show (2003-ish?) and Thomas was pretty explosive. He did sit a little bit, but he also went nuts.

Fuck I wish I could find this article written by a dude who traveled with RL on one of his recent tours, kind of a profile piece. I thought I had the link in my email somewhere... anyway, I am far from a behavioral health expert but it seemed pretty obv RL was bipolar.

Re: RFTT I wonder if Thomas was hurt for those shows? He has a pretty active stage presence IME

He was pretty hefty, and it looked like his knees were suffering. This was in NYC, whenever it was.

On the plus side, after the show, Thomas stayed in his stage chair and personally sold RFTT CDs (possibly to circumvent that venue's policy of taking 20% of bands' CD sales). I probably wouldn't have bought one otherwise, but I'm glad I did (for getting to meet Thomas and for Lloyd's playing on the record).

Is this the most underachieving band in the history of rock? You could make a strong argument. They had all the talent in the world, and one of the three or four best debut albums ever. But after 1977 it was all downhill, save for a handful of good songs.

For sure. There are some people that think the band started to go downhill before it even hit the studio!

While I happily agree that MM stands at the apex of TV/Verlaine/Lloyd's output, statements like "all downhill save for a handful of good songs" srsly boggle my mind. I mean, tons of ppl say this, it's not a minority view at all. But I don't know how to reconcile it with what i hear...

yeah, i just think that if you really like marquee moon, then you'll find plenty to love in the records that came after.
do any of them reach the heights of MM? maybe not, but very few things do!

Yeah, like I said upthread, I love the '92 album as much as Adventure – two very good albums.

the live album shows that adventure's problems were more bloodless production and not so much material (i think the adventure songs on the old waldorf just shine)

^ this

i dig the more textured approach on adventure's slower songs -- the fire, carried away, days, but yeah, the rockers come off way better live.

i'd put "the dream's dream" old waldorf up against anything on marquee moon

otm, it's otherworldly.

The first time I listed to the Old Waldorf show I wasn't looking at the track listing, and the segueway from "The Dream's Dream" into "Venus" blew me away.

Old Waldorf is basically the 2nd Television album as far as I'm concerned, everyone should own it.

the rockers come off way better live.

Ain't That Nothin' in particular.

Richard Lloyd is 60 today. Happy birthday, dude.

shine on you crazy diamond

Seconded

Happy birthday!

Aside, fun Verlaine stories from Steve Kilbey yesterday

when i was a kid
i was scouring all the music rags
looking for the next big thing
i read a small article on a band called television
in a mag called rock scene
it was written by patti smith
she wrote about this guy tom verlaines hands
how he was the kinda guy you’d wanna lose yer virginity to….
over the next few years there were tantalising references constantly
all of em saying how this band were incredible
johnny jewel a single (kinda strange but intriguing)
and bits and pieces until in 1977 the first album came out
of course it was called marquee moon
and verily it was all they said it would be
an incredible record
34 years later today
i got an email from some guys watching televisions current progress
co guitarist richard lloyd is out
and some other guy jimmy rip is in
theres a whole argument going down on youtube
richard lloyd weighing in slagging off tv
funny that people are interested in these ancient clashes
i met tv in 1988
he was opening for the church and peter murphy
he wanted to borrow my acoustic guitar
it was a black guild ..it got stolen n broke my heart
as soon as he played one note you could hear it was him
a totally unique approach dare i say virtuoso
pk sometimes has this effect like a total understanding
anyway tv was sposed to go on murphys bus
but within one second tv had some falling out with murph
and ended up on our bus for a whole tour
he started the night with a 30 minute set
alone with an acoustic he was kinda ordinary
he was very jokey in a bizarre way on and off stage
he was a total caffeine and nicotine man too
he was always wired tho he eschewed all other substances
television had been a huge influence on us all
we were all quite surprised n impressed to have tv with us
he treated me a bit like an annoying kid and i probably deserved it
i blabbed on to him all day about television ..why i liked them…
but he was bemused and sent me up a bit
we played monopoly for real money once on the bus
and tv bickered over the fuckin’ rules and argued the toss
eeerrr kil-bee lets see uh this triple double in jail rule
uh i think this is an uh english rule and uh i aint goin’ to jail..
how bizarre to be arguing monopoly rules with verlaine
somewhere in dakota or wherever as we sped thru the night
as the tour progressed tv would come out each night and play with us
we did :you took and cortez the killer with 3 lead guitarists
3 of the very best you can get too
offstage however
tv was an incredible stingy miser arguing over every last cent literally
eerrr uh kil-bee uh you should pay an extra 75 cents for your share of the fries
this was one of the complaints on the you tube vids toms meanness
he was never very complimentary about richard lloyd either
lloyd didnt have anything to do with it if you listened to tv
he downplayed the guy right outta existence
it was unnecessary i thought to be so ungracious….
one day off in houston we went to this place
it was 1988 and you could record your vocal over a cassette backing
i sang my vocal over i left my heart in san francisco ( for DT)
tv got some old country n western track n giggled n whispered n muttered
he played it back to us convinced he’d found some new direction
one night the phone rang in my room
eerr kil-bee eerr uh i’m down here in the bar with some divorcees
and i was ah wondrin’ if uh you could uh take one off my hands …
he was very charismatic and quite the ladies man
every night different women would seek him out backstage
strangely none seemed too bizarre for his taste
he had a little sweetie in every town
one morning we checked in some place early on the east coast
it was winter and snow lay on the ground
tv suggested a walk
and we hiked up this hill with a reservoir at the top
it was 630 in the morning and we interrupted something
cos suddenly about 10 big black guys were chasing us
baying for our blood
tv and i ran downhill into the woods
tv was like a thoroughbred horse leaping thru the trees
it was weird to be in such a pickle with a one time idol
anyway the stuff that happened onstage when he joined us was magic
he could coax a million sounds from a guitar trains and birds
and doppler effects and helicopters and guns ..anything..
but you could never see exactly how he did it …he was a true genius
we vaguely planned on recording together but his heart wasnt in it
we bickered over the financial details and that was it
i dont believe it would have worked out anyway
tv had some essential suspicious jokey sarcastic ny schtick
it was hard to get through it
he insulted lembo who was trying to manage him
and lembo couldnt see the financial gain
as opposed to the grief n pain that managing tv would bring
he was ungrateful in spades and just incredibly penny pinching
like a scrooge from brooklyn or something
it was an unnerving mixture
we drifted apart after the tour i never saw him again
marty played on on of ’is solo records
and the church did an insipid uninspired version of friction
funny seeing tv on that show in portugal just filmed lately
that same old cagey grin that same old tom cat jive
jesus what a character
ha ha

hee hee
too bad verlaine and lloyd seem to loath each other. they sure sound good together
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72GLZ-8zQEo