Television

Of course it was Iggy.

Cale & Betsey & cape
Awesome, thanks!

More memories of TV at the Strand https://georgeszamuely.substack.com/p/my-memories-of-tom-verlaine
as linked from James Wolcott's LRB blogpost https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2023/february/remembering-tom-verlaine

some sweet Verlaine rarities this week (including a previously uncirculated SBD tape from 1981): https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.substack.com/p/doom-and-gloom-dispatch-14-souvenir

Once Hell was replaced by Fred Smith, a bassist of the stalwart sentry-duty John Entwistle school

Also, a mention of Deerfrance, another Cale connection! Hope she is doing okay.

apparently she is

Solid Wolcott reminscence.

man i love all these reminiscences. that George Szamuely piece was fascinating & very sweet.

keep them coming!

Sometimes I want to dismiss Wolcott as yet another graphomaniac Paulette but he sure can write.

George Szamuely is a character himself: "Szamuely was arrested by the New York Police Department on October 5, 1999, for having 570 overdue library books from the New York University campus library, many of them rare or out of print, which he stored inside 29 bags in his apartment, and which he refused to return after repeated warnings. His fines ran up to $31,000, although this was allegedly the cost of replacing them."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Szamuely

i can sort of see why verlaine might have put his book recommendations back on the shelf.

Oh hi. I just went through this whole thing of wondering why I never saw him outside The Strand to realizing I probably did see him and have one of these interactions.

some sweet Verlaine rarities this week (including a previously uncirculated SBD tape from 1981): https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.substack.com/p/doom-and-gloom-dispatch-14-souvenir

― tylerw, vrijdag 3 februari 2023 18:03 (two days ago)

Been listening to some of these the past two days (thanks!), they're all amazing but holy shit @ the second half of the 1987 show - the versions of "Marquee Moon" and "Psychotic Reaction" in particular are otherwordly.
Scored this 12-inch a couple of years ago, it also contains a great 1987 live version of "Marquee Moon". Not sure where it was recorded.

This 87 show is even wilder

https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/126012509202/tom-verlaine-the-ritz-new-york-city-april-26/amp

Thanks so much!
So, the original Horses was reissued with Horses Live, feat. Verlaine: good? Does he play on the whole thing?

"You just sold Tom Verlaine a gardening manual. Things are okay."

https://lithub.com/tom-verlaine-was-the-strands-best-customer/

I don't know how I ever managed to buy this classic American poetry anthology there for $1.99. Either it eluded his grasp or he just didn't do anthologies.

did you get it inside? going inside is cheating.

Hahaha, no!

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/02/07/guiding-light-a-tom-verlaine-appreciation/

Thanks. Tbh getting a bit tired of the cart stories, especially since I already told mine elsewhere over the weekend.

great stuff. Love Licht's thing about the continuation of guitar rock bypassing the 70s.

Yeah Tyler that’s a wonderful assemblage thank you
I was worried we had now reached the phase where we no longer keep talking about Tom Verlaine every day

Please like and subscribe to my Television/Tom Verlaine podcast PEAK TV

TVOD

Tyler that's really really good.

and thanks so much.

Finally had time to read that. Stellar work as usual.

Also just reread the interview with Tom in Feeding Back and it was even grebter than I remembered it.

Read it whilst listening to The Blow Up which was potentially a risky maneuver but it worked out really well.

Nice collection of tributes here, including from the Clientele's Alasdair MacLean, who based on this and the podcast he did about the Beatles, is very good on talking about other musicians' work

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2023/02/07/guiding-light-a-tom-verlaine-appreciation/?fbclid=IwAR3zCwYhPvRHNVD4G8ZPJaGUn0pSJWi5O2DwhjzlBFjOEpzH94TWCNtsYRQ

heh, just posted upthread by the fabulous tylerw who did the compiling

very much enjoyed alasdair's perspective, what's that podcast he did on the beatles?

D'oh - sorry missed that!

Alasdair was the guest on the Your Own Personal Beatles podcast back in October 21

https://shows.acast.com/personalbeatles/episodes/alasdsair-maclean

Does anyone have any thoughts on the first line of Venus? Lyrics sites say "It was a tight toy night", which makes no sense to me but who knows? I think I always heard it as "Tight, torn night"

I thought tight torn night

Another site has it as "tight tour night" which I suppose sounds the most literally plausible.

lyric sheet on the album sleeve "tight toy night" ... don't know what it means, but I like it!

So...the only Verlaine album I hadn't paid attention to, Words from the Front, is the weakest? The title track and "Days on the Mountain" are the strongest; the rest just flits away.

The production is very odd — I think even Verlaine admitted that he did not like how it sounded by the time he finished it. I like "Postcard From Waterloo," too, and "Clear It Away" would sound great live in the next few years.

Postcard From Waterloo is gorgeous

ah forgot about the lyric sheet. I like toy better!

Postcard from Waterloo is based on an old Televsion song (never recorded?):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0yfoIa_Wgg

This thread much more fun than some others right now.

re: that early stuff, here's a Richard Hell-era Television comp I put together way back when. Cool, weird, raw sounds! https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/149945081937/television-a-season-in-hell-sunday-re-up-ive

I like the track "Coming Apart" on 'Words on the Front", it doesn't really fit but then none of the tracks seem to fit with any of the other tracks on that album.

Verlaine's vocals are so weird on Words (and a lot of his solo stuff in general). Sometimes his approach works, but often it seems like he's reaching for something and not quite getting there. Actually, his last vocal album from 2006 might have his most pleasing singing on it, a little more relaxed and warm.

(and I say all that thinking that he can be a really fantastic singer sometimes. I read someone call him the christopher walken of rock once and I can kind of see that)

That Hell-era comp, shambling, ragged, is some of my favorite music ever, you get a sense of how thrilling they must have been even early on, this weird unholy mix of both Hell's & Veraline's approaches, and while it is clear the combination could never last there is something so charming & naive about them without being cloying, it feels so light and almost goofy

totally. that early 1974 clip that surfaced last year is just amazing in its all-out strangeness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLlhYiN4gmU

I like this bit from Zach Lipez:

"I can’t imagine what it was like for Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell when they were getting started; to have a weird voice, and wanting to sing for a band in NYC, without the advantage of being able to just rip off Tom Verlaine or Richard Hell."

https://zacharylipez.ghost.io/eight-unfinished-essays-on-marquee-moon/