Television

I think of the Velvets as more of a square wave.

Regardless, I always thought there should be more geometry in music criticism.

there is room for both the pattis and deans in this thriving, very "now" lineage of guitar-based rock music

did no one use angular on the velvets

Beefheart maybe?

Lester Bangs, Creem, March 1971.

In Lick My Decals Off, Baby (Straight Rs-6420) this vision is extended, and even though the sonic textures are sometimes even more complex and angular than on Trout Mask, the lyrics have taken an added universality, many of them stepping back a stride from the kaleidoscopic image-clusters of last year’s songs.

Busted!
Did Verlaine ever play keyboards or anything else other than guitar in the studio or shows?

He plays the keys on the first two Television albums, various other solo records. Don't think he ever played live though.

here's my hot take — "angular" is a fine way to describe certain bands/artists.

I can imagine "angular" being used in jazz reviews before 1971 tbh.

tyler otm. I don't mind angular either, it's useful to describe a certain kind of playing that doesn't sound like other kinds of playing: melodic, bluesy, beboppy aka "that Chinese music" etc.

I've made a career using angular.

i don't think I'd call the VU "angular" though

No, nor I.

Wonder if anyone ever submitted a rejected jbr Christmas tune named "Angular Bells."

Heh, not on this borad, maybe, but elsewhere it exists.

Did Verlaine ever play keyboards or anything else other than guitar in the studio or shows?

― dow, T

He always played the keyboards. His 1984 album Cover is a synth-pop record.

He had a good story about working out the interlocking guitar parts of "Venus" on the piano, I think he said it didn't make sense until he moved over to the keyboard.

I don't know if I'd go that far as calling it "synth-pop". I'd be lying if I said I heard it before yesterday but the few times I've listened since then...it def has some 80s production hallmarks (tastefully), but it's still guitars up front.

Sure, but it had more synths than any album before or after. He never attempted something like "O Foolish Heart," one of my favorite Verlaine jams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN5qO2Gsyw0

listened to Warm and Cool on YouTube yesterday, what an amazing album, hard to find sadly.

Though it would have obviously been...er "unlikely" I always wished Verlaine would have made a record like it with Quine, who recorded a very similar sort of instrumental record with Ikue Mori & Marc Ribot

^^ great great album, that Quine/Mori/Ribot. belongs in the "wide open desert music" thread.

Did anyone else besides me ever see The dBs cover "See No Evil"? For me this would have been at one of the two winter of 84-85 dates at The Grotto in New Haven.

is there a definitive book about Television?

It would probably bore us, though how a boho figure like Verlaine lived in Manhattan despite making little money in Television is the kind of crinkle that always fascinates me.

He was a superduper cheapskate pennypincher is what I heard but yeah.

you can't live in Manhattan just on being a pennypincher -- did he come from money?

Dunno. Don't think so. Maybe lived in the same rent-controlled apartment for decades?

Yeah, it's likely a combination of things. 1) Rent controlled apartment (very likely if he never moved), 2) he lived modestly, 3) probably had some money from family (didn't they enroll him in a prep school?), 4) probably made a decent amount of income from his music, maybe more from overseas sales (Television's albums did enter the top ten in the UK, I think his solo albums did better there too) plus licensing (his music does pop up occasionally on well-budgeted television shows and films).

Kate Pierson mentioned on FB that she and Verlaine lived in the same building for years.

5) Those Television reunion gigs probably paid decently.

is there a definitive book about Television?

the 33 1/3 book about Marquee Moon is good and more or less covers their entire career in the 1970s — there could be more about Adventure, but it goes pretty far past MM.

The 33 1/3 book plus the television section of from the velvets to the voidoids

yonki time is super annoying to me but i always put up with it just to hear his speaking voice. i don't even have anything to add about it, i just, y'know, used to like being able to hear what he sounded like before youtube immersed the world in omnivideo. ha i've never even gone to yt to see his interviews. it's yonki time w/e that means.

*realizes yt also stands for: YONKI TIME*

There’s a cool spoken word over improv track from the reunion album sessions, “The Revolution”, where you can get your fill. It was included at the end of The Miller’s Tale.

Xpost

4a) and a bump in earnings every time Scary Monsters was reissued.

... was about to say.

google says tv had an estimated net worth of 3mil but who knows. i'm not sure he always lived in the same apt, because some articles say e11th and others (dean wareham) say chelsea so he might have moved.

Those Google net worth things are total BS I think.

Do not underestimate the amount of reputable downtown musicians living in rent controlled apartments in soho, the east village, alphabet city and the LES.

One of those networth googlebait pages also suggests that TV married Lizzie Mercier Descloux in 1997 - surely that's not true?

Dan otm. There is some kind of grandfather clause or something.

I visited Elliott Sharp in the mid 90s at his apt in alphabet city, was a storied building. I think Richard Hell lived there as well. And many years before Ginsberg and Kerouac I think. The bathtub was in the kitchen, classic.

Meanwhile I have a friend who grew up in soho on Prince st in a loft the length of a building. I believe they’re still paying 700 a month.

Until he died in 2013 my uncle in Jackson Heights paid $390 a month for a two-bedroom.

great great album, that Quine/Mori/Ribot. belongs in the "wide open desert music" thread.

Pretty sure I put it in there!

About his apartment, a photographer named Stefano Giovannini posted this on Facebook along with nine photos of tv:

Several years ago I spent an afternoon taking photos of Tom Verlaine. He was one of the most representative musicians of the New York I was drawn to. Television's Marquee Moon, still sound so fresh, with long guitar passages that make you feel that in life everything is possible.
(…)
He lived at London Terrace in Chelsea. he told me he bought the apartment for very little with a record advance he got from a Television record (could have been Marquee Moon), but he lamented how the maintenance expenses were going up significantly, as wealthier people were now on the coop condominium board.

It was a very chilly February day,. it was snowy and Tom's eyes were teary from the wind.

We ended up at the art bookstore Printed matter.

Did you ever visit that uncle, Alfred?

oh too have bought in London Terrace. To rent a 1 bedroom there now you're looking at $4,950 a month in rent. There's two 1 bedrooms listed right now, who knows, maybe one of them was Tom's.

My aunt moved to chelsea in the early/mid 80s, it was a very different place back then obviously.

Fond memories of Midnight Records on 23rd and the comic book store across the street.

Yes xpost

No doubt it hastened his death, but a part of me appreciates Tom Verlaine still smoking while hanging out at The Strand's outdoor dollar bins.

Now I kind of want to know exactly what block your uncle lived on but maybe that's TMI.

I feel like the record advance being referenced (that he used to buy his apt) could have been for the 1992 self titled album rather than MM

Also it’s like two blocks from my work and I have walked past it thousands of times, there’s no way I didn’t obliviously walk right past tv at least once, probably with my headphones on lol