Television

^^^ really short, like two minutes

So 1/8 the duration of a Richard Lloyd string tuning session.

https://t.co/hY36qjHULh
In late 1975, two Trouser Press writers brought Tom Verlaine of the then-unsigned Television to their apartment for an interview. This conversation has never previously been published. With an introductory essay and audio clips from the conversation.

— trouserpress (@trouserpress) February 1, 2023

Ok wow I better find a comfy chair for this one

Wow

he worked at the Strand! <3

Well look at that

Original Robert Mapplethorpe photo used for the cover of Marquee Moon. pic.twitter.com/Xf94fBDz1J

— Tyler Wilcox (@tywilc) February 1, 2023

omg so good. it was mapplethorpe. huh.

Pretty blurry!

what a different vibe, feel like the dark, kinda gothic look of the cover sets a specific mood

That walking lobotomy, Lou Reed

That was one of the interviewers I think, there are two interviewers, they formatted the article really weird

Really an amazing read

i don't know why that photo is so remarkable to me. the way the lighting was edited in the final version -and i realized immediately on seeing the og how stupid this thought was- i always assumed it was an oil on canvas portrait of the band. i mean the way it ended up, lloyd looks like a friggin undead on the cover.

very cool.

the story i heard is tom verlaine took the mapplethorpe print and ran it through a xerox machine for a few iterations.

The formatting was totally weird. Italics for one of the interviewers but the other interviewer’s comments were intermingled with Tom’s, it seemed.

Did you read the thing about The Ramones on your favorite substack TSF?

yup i saw that. i was a newsday reader back in 1975 and i suspect some of those articles played a part in my decision to to to a nyc scool for undergraduate.

to *go* to. it's too too too to put a finger on.

i'd also picked up punk magazine #1 because lou's cartoon face was calling out to me from the racks in the penn station magazine shop. and i was a creem subscriber. and a friend who was a year older had already seen tv. and i had the patti smith album. i was primed.

Goodness me, "Breakin' in My Heart" is such a good performance.

i've been listening nonstop to a comp someone posted a link to uptread with 9 early tv songs that never made their way onto a record. it conculdes with tv doing 'breakin in my heart.'

so the actual lyrics to "Fire Engine" are "Let me take you to DMT space"? haha

Have heard that before.

the story i heard is tom verlaine took the mapplethorpe print and ran it through a xerox machine for a few iterations.

Richard Lloyd, apparently:

Richard Lloyd: pic.twitter.com/bMHLIWuGmd

— Tyler Wilcox (@tywilc) February 1, 2023

Do we know that is a reliable source?

j/k!

from the racks in the penn station magazine shop
Ha! Did you also visit the arcade and play Asteroids or whatever?

if there was an arcade in penn station i don't remember it. if they were fifty cents i might have blocked them from my memory. i was a "three balls for a quater" man.

richard hell says it's too soon to write about him.
https://www.richardhell.com/

that's cool he called out a relative deep cut — I love "Scientist Writes A Letter" too.

I'm okay with Richard saying that. He's usually pretty thoughtful about these things. I always compare how he talked about Robert Quine with whatever non-statement we got from Lou.

Goodness me, "Breakin' in My Heart" is such a good performance.

Possibly my favorite from his solo albums, and it's essentially my favorite supergroup of all-time - too bad it's the only track all four ever recorded together!

Because it has...Ricky WIlson?

Does anyone know if the "tell a vision" pun in "Little Johnny Jewel" predates the band name?

xp

Tom Verlaine (Television)
Fred Smith (Blondie then Television)
Jay Dee Daugherty (Patti Smith Group)
Ricky Wilson (The B-52's)

Which is a good reason of course. Anyway, listening now, sounds good.

finally got a copy of that rhino/RTI pressing from over a decade ago in the mail today, this just blows away the CD/streaming version

obv Verlaine and Lloyd are amazing, but Fred Smith's bass playing on this record is just perfect, as big an influence to me as the guitars

Some cool Hell and Verlaine interview in this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dwb9FWSTt_k

https://500songs.com/podcast/pledge-week-youre-gonna-miss-me-by-the-thirteenth-floor-elevators/

The album’s liner notes were written by Hall and had a large amount of advocacy for the use of psychedelic drugs — as did the music itself, though some of this was a little more subtle, like the song “Fire Engine”, where the line “let me take you to the empty place” was meant to sound like “DMT place”, DMT being a psychedelic drug

Xpost

Scientist writes a letter was the one that made me cry this Sunday

This one is slow-release for me. I was too stressed out and numbed out by other stuff when I heard, only last night and this morning am I starting to really feel it. I don’t think of myself as the biggest Television fan, not because I am not a fan but because there are obviously bigger fans like Tyler, to name just one. Also maybe gave into the ancestral instinct to take sides and ended up taking Richard’s side in the TV Wars. But now I am starting to just be reminded of what I always knew, how original Verlaine was, hopefully not in some tired Cult of the New Originalities way but in the sense of really hearing something else in his head and finding ways to express that without being constrained by any of the myriad cliches associated with his instrument.

Also made me really happy to see what somebody like Rob Sheffield wrote about him.

For those looking for more from TV, I offer this gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4QFgbZBNFY

Damnit, it's a Youtube upload of the 'lost' 1986 album.

Revisiting Songs & Other Things, his last vocal album — really strong stuff! Great guitar sound, some really good songs. Worth discovering if you haven't checked it out.

It has been clear tah Fire Engine was a cover of a 13th Floor Elevators song hasn't it?

Also I saw a few photos of the band over the last while and wondered how out of step with then current fashion the band seemed at the time. Seems to be a level of thrift shop- chic going on, not sure how much of a focus there has been on that. I know a lot has been said about Richard Hell ripping clothing and using safety pins to keep things together. But the way the rest of teh band looked surely isn't current to the time is it? Wonder to what extent it was noticeable to the man in the street.
They seemed to do it well so it looks somewhat iconic now but I wonder about then.

I got reminded of a couple of episodes I saw of Starsky & Hutch where coworkers were mocking them for wearing clothing way out of date and wonder if those who saw these on the street had similar ideas.

That interview upthread is fantastic. Love the Cale bits, and this:

"Our drummer, though, is real Chick Corea-oriented. Sometime when you come, you should just focus on him for like three songs. He’s really an amazing drummer. I never really listened to him but I was listening to him on our single. He’s really got so many little things going.

He doesn’t drum like a rock drummer.

No. He doesn’t. Not at all. He’s really fantastic.

The "Fire Engine" cover was mis-titled "The Blow-Up" on the archival Television live album of the same name.

And

I like John Cale’s records. His two records on Island. That’s why Patti thought he’d be so good, because the sound on those records is good. Turns out it’s a guy named John Wood, who mixes and engineers them. He’s a real ace. I’d like to get him for a record. He flies over here and only charges $600 a week, which isn’t bad. Producers cost, what? $50,000, $60,000.

yeah that was interesting! John Wood could've had yet another total classic LP to his name ...

Yes, those two things stood out for me as well. Tryiing to remember what Iggy said about Cale in I Need More: he'd come into the room with an aura of mystery and twirl his cape or something.