Richard Lloyd “The Radiant Monkey”
Late in the summer of 1974, someone—I assume Richard Hell—made a poster for a run of concerts that Television was co-headlining with Patti Smith. The poster’s design was simple: a black and white portrait of Patti on top of a black and white picture of Television, with the venue (Max’s) and dates (August 28th to September 2nd) listed below. The photo of Patti is typically beguiling—staring off poetically, half kissed in shadow. The Television pic, while perhaps less enchanting, is captivating nonetheless. Billy Ficca on the far right, in a leather jacket, drumsticks tucked into the front of his pants, caught somewhere between smirking and trying to look tough. To his left is the aforementioned Richard Hell—hair spiked, eyes glazed, holding a television set, looking cool as absolute fuck. Next to Hell is, of course, Tom Verlaine—a half head taller than his bandmates, lackadaisically helping prop up that TV set, disinterested to the point of annoyance. And then, finally, on the far left, is young Richard Lloyd—temporarily blonde, head resting gently on Verlaine’s shoulder, holding a white guitar while looking sweetly doe-eyed. And while Patti is clearly the most entrancing of the bunch and Hell the most ravishing, it’s bottle blonde Lloyd I can’t keep my eyes off. The more I look at him—just twenty-two at the time—the more I want to scream: “Run!”
My vicarious flight instinct is triggered by a deep seated careerism. Because, for as much as I love the band Television (and I really, truly do), I’ve spent years wondering what Richard Lloyd’s career would have been had he never met Tom Verlaine. Obviously, we would not have gotten “Marquee Moon” and “Adventure.” But what would have become of young Richard Lloyd—so talented and full of hope? Would he, like most, have given up on a career in music? Would he have become a great guitarist for hire? Would he have gotten strung out and faded into something worse than obscurity? Or would he have hung around CBGBs and formed some other era-defining, genre-breaking band? I wonder these things, in part, because of Lloyd’s complicated relationship to Verlaine. But more so because I am fascinated with the choices we make as young adults and how they affect the long term of our careers.
For instance, rarely is one’s career defined by where they went to school, the name of the company that hired them out of school, their title at that first job, the salary they got paid in that job or—even—how hard they worked in that job. And yet, most young job seekers do still obsess over brands—the college and the company—and the bounties—the salary and the title. But a diploma does not make a career. Neither does one job. Or one title. Or one year’s salary. But that first boss? They can lift you up or keep you down. Which is why—for the last twenty years—my advice to young job seekers has been insistent and consistent: Seriously consider who you want to be your boss. Pursue them diligently and choose them wisely. Because, years from now, the value of your career will be correlated to the relative greatness (or terribleness) of your very first boss.
I was born in June of 1974, three months after Television made their debut at The Town House Theater and two months before those shows at Max’s with Patti Smith. As a result, I was unable to impart this advice to Richard Lloyd. In the late Sixties, Lloyd, who was a precocious musical talent but an aimless student, dropped out of two high schools right before graduation. In the ensuing years, his career was aimless and complicated mostly because—many years earlier—he had resolved that he would one day be the guitarist for a legendary Rock and Roll band. The path from dropout to professional guitarist was a bumpy one, requiring Lloyd accept the good graces of benefactors and the possibly less good graces of sex work customers. Along the way he’d obviously had bosses, just never in his vocation of choice—music. But that all changed in late 1973, when Richard Lloyd agreed to join Tom Verlaine, Richard Hell and Billy Ficca—formerly The Neon Boys—as the guitarist in a new band called—simply—Television.
I suspect that when he joined Television Richard Lloyd did not realize he was getting a boss. But, that is precisely what happened. In spite of Richard Hell’s charisma and ambition, Tom Verlaine was the de facto boss for the simple reasons that (a) he wrote and sang most of the songs and (b) nobody else applied for the job. It was not as though Verlaine wanted power so much as he needed control. And over the course of the next four years, and then on again off again between 1992 and 2007, Verlaine proved to be both an impossibly gifted talent and a completely impossible boss.
Tom Verlaine was famously, radically anti-careerist. By all accounts—including his own—Television’s mercurial frontman was much more obsessed with how music sounded than he was with the opinion of others. While his CBGBs cohort—nearly all of who arrived after Television—were hustling for record deals and hitting the road, Verlaine remained obsessive and indifferent. He was obsessed with ideas and tone. He was obsessed with the songs being his. Meanwhile, he was indifferent to the market. And to the ambitions of his bandmates. And to seemingly everything that did not fit into his insular, peculiar, poetic world view.
Richard Lloyd did not fit neatly into Verlaine’s world view. Tom Verlaine grew up in Delaware and was interested in comics and film noir and science fiction and Jazz. As skilled as he was on the guitar, he claimed to almost never practice. He was not literally sober, but he leaned that way. But, also, those who knew him well described a man with biting humor and bottomless cynicism. Richard Lloyd, meanwhile, grew up in New York City. Unlike Verlaine, whose interests were odd and diffuse, Lloyd’s were familiar and clear: Rock and Roll. And unlike Verlaine, Lloyd practiced constantly, learning trade secrets from Velvert Turner, who may have been the one, true protege of Jimi Hendrix. Verlaine was tall and waifish. Lloyd, while boyishly handsome and prototypically hip, appeared almost ordinary next to his bandleader. Certainly he had his eccentricities—he believes in reincarnation, he once faked a suicide attempt to get away from his parents, etc.—but next to Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd seemed fairly normal.
Their differences were not simply physical or temperamental—they were also musical. Lloyd had learned to play guitar like the modern, electric bluesmen, excelling in concise riffs, and whole and half note bends. Verlaine, on the other hand, learned by listening to Lou Reed, The Ventures, Albert Ayler and film noir scores. He played micro-bends, a technique better suited for modal jazz or classical violin. Their styles could not have been more different and yet Verlaine and Lloyd sounded spectacular together. Verlaine preferring the top and bottom of his instrument, approaching melodies from odd angles and inventing unreplicable solos. Lloyd, meanwhile, staying on top of the riffs, playing rhythms with the bravado of a lead guitarist, and favoring scripted, replicable runs and solos. Together, there has never been anything like them—a musical pair completely at odds and yet so completely in synch.
For a couple of years the unlikely working relationship really worked. Television, in general, and “Marquee Moon,” in particular, are often associated with lower Manhattan. But to whatever extent that association is true, it is so because of Lloyd, who made music that sounded like city pavement while Verlaine was dreaming of torn curtains, foxholes and boats made out of ocean. Lloyd was the friction in “Friction.” More so than Verlaine and Hell, Verlaine and Lloyd were twin flames. There has never been a guitar duo like them. Eric Clapton and Duane Allman spoke similar languages. Mick Taylor’s peak was a Keith’s valley. But—for two albums—Verlaine and Lloyd exceeded both of those pairs. They spoke wildly different languages and yet they fully understood each other.
One of the many oddities about Television is that, during their short prime, the band produced an album considered to be one of the greatest records in the history of Rock and Roll and yet—despite no great tragedy befalling the band—all of the members receded into obscurity within a few years of their brief prime. Verlaine’s solo career never took off. Bassist Fred Smith mostly stuck by Verlaine’s side. Oddly, drummer Billy Ficca came closest to notoriety as the drummer for The Waitresses (“I Know What Boys Like” and “Christmas Wrapping”). Richard Lloyd, meanwhile, failed to launch. He released one compelling but not more than that solo album in 1979 (“Fields of Fire”). In 1986 and 1987, he returned with two critically appreciated (but not more than that), commercially ignored albums. And then, in 1992, he and Verlaine mended fences, reunited Television, and released a frequently thrilling, occasionally boring third album.
For years, Television continued to play live at festivals and lucrative hometown gigs. According to every member of the band, they had enough material to produce at least one more record. But Verlaine was famously particular and non-committal and his procrastination or evasion or whatever it was extended all the way until his death in 2023. That same year, Rolling Stone ranked “Marquee Moon” as the one hundred and seventh greatest album in the history of Rock and Roll. There is no other artist or band in the top two hundred—other than those who died young or who were crippled by addiction—whose output and fortunes were so sparse as Television’s.
Which I think makes Tom Verlaine historically bad at the business of music. And which I also think makes him a bad boss. Richard Lloyd was the overqualified second guitarist in a critically beloved band who many people believe made one of the greatest records of all time but who were barely sub-popular and whose members did much more scraping by than thriving. Television was not doomed by any lack of talent or vision. They were doomed because their boss—the guy who made all the important decisions—was not good at making decisions. So—yes—if the boss of a band is measured by the extent to which they succeed relative to their talent and opportunity, Tom Verlaine was not a very good boss.
Though in 1973 Richard Lloyd was likely unaware of Tom Verlaine’s management deficiencies, by 1975 his youthful exuberance had turned into souring ambivalence. He briefly quit Television in 1975 and, while the musical chemistry was enough to bond the guitarists for a few more years, when they split, they really split. Unlike Smith and Ficca, Lloyd did not appear on any of Tom Verlaine’s solo albums. Aside from two solo albums, he spent most of the Eighties professionally adrift, taking odd jobs and no doubt wondering how so much promise had dissipated so quickly. Tom Verlaine’s legacy is complicated, but the misspent opportunity and talent of his bandmates is no small part of the story.
Following their reunion in 1992, Lloyd and Verlaine maintained a polite working relationship born from financial necessity and creative compatibility. The first Television breakup had cost Lloyd a good deal of his commercial prime. The sequel, meanwhile, was a long, sputtering, part time concern. Lloyd made a small splash in 1991 for his appearance on Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend.” He continued to teach guitar and produce small records. In 2001 he quietly released his fourth solo album—and his first in more than a decade. But, by 2007, he’d had enough. He’d had enough of waiting to make album number four. He’d had enough of Tom being Tom. He had a solo album in the can that he was proud of and wanted to support and realized that he could not do so while being so dependent on Television and Tom Verlaine. Lloyd had finally resolved that—no matter how much he admired Verlaine as an artist or even as a friend—he did not want him as a boss any more. Thirty-four years after he first joined the band and thirty-two years after he first quit the band and twenty-nine years after Verlaine broke up the band, Richard Lloyd quit Television.
This time it was for real. Initially Lloyd indicated that his forthcoming album was the reason for the departure—that he couldn’t support the demands of both his solo career and Television. But, as it became clearer that Verlaine was perfectly comfortable with his Jimmy Ripp permanently stepping into Television’s second chair, Lloyd’s magnanimous farewell curdled. In interviews, the “no hard feelings/I wish him well” turned into “I could simply no longer deal with my noncommittal, micromanaging boss.”
Today, Richard Lloyd is seventy-two years old. He’s released one curiously compelling, wildly revealing autobiography and nine solo albums. His debut, which arrived soon after Television’s first breakup and has a whiff of his former band, suffered in comparison both to Television’s swan song and Verlaine’s solo debut. On the other hand, “Fields of Fire,” from 1986, was an album full of hard charging, off-kilter Power Pop that compared favorably to the College Rock of its day. But, of all his solo albums, it was “The Radiant Monkey,” from 2007 that most interested me for the obvious reason that it’s the record that irretrievably separated Richard Lloyd from Tom Verlaine.
As with all of his solo albums, the first thing you notice about “The Radiant Monkey” is Lloyd’s guitar. He has the pyrotechnics of Hendrix but not the grandeur. He has the dexterity of Clapton and Beck but not the muscularity. His closest comparable might be Mick Taylor in that his solos are precise and that he plays rhythms like leads. More than any of those greats, however, Lloyd’s playing is utterly sharp. It’s Punk—but at its most elevated. The second thing you notice on “The Radiant Monkey,” and all of Lloyd’s records for that matter, is that the man is not a lead singer. Lloyd possesses pitch but no range. And that unto itself would not be so problematic if he could sing with character—after all, Tom Verlaine was no Freddie Mercury. But, unlike Verlaine, who reedy, claustrophobic vocals demanded your attention, Lloyd’s middling range is flat and dull—it’s a voice that doesn’t repel so much as it shouts “I’m doing my best here.”
The third thing you notice on “The Radiant Monkey” is that, for all of Lloyd’s idiosyncrasies—his itinerant youth, his religious intrigue, his psychedelic memories, his arthouse dabbling—his songs are relatively straightforward. To whatever extent Tom Verlaine challenged him to play differently, and better, Lloyd never seemed interested in writing his own “Marquee Moon” or “Little Johnny Jewel.” He had a knack for solos but was less inclined to jam. And if he—like Verlaine—was into avant-garde Jazz, Noir, Sci-fi or Spaghetti Westerns, those oddities never made it into his music. No—Lloyd kept things simple, excelling in three basic modes: (1) Electric Blues, (2) Power Pop and (3) Garage Rock. And as a result, “The Radiant Monkey” occasionally sounds like (1) generic but very well played bar band fare, (2) surprisingly taut College Rock and (3) The Voidoids covering The Rolling Stones.
“Monkey,” the album’s semi-titular opener, operates in that first mode—breaking down the Blues breakdowns that Lloyd clearly knows and loves. And while the guitars do thrill, the bottom of the band—Lloyd on bass and Chris Purdy on drums—plods when it should rock and roll. More to the point, the vocals are a real problem—flat, shrill and charmless and mooting the effects of his guitar skill and songwriting craft. To that point, Lloyd wrote everything on the album. And with the exception of the drums, he played all the instruments. There are very few things that Richard Lloyd cannot do in a studio. But singing the Blues is apparently one of them.
Fortunately, that first mode is also the minor mode. “Glurp” is a Power Pop zinger that answers the question: “What if Big Star had arrived after Television?” It’s deft and taut and hooky, but also weird. Lloyd doubles up his vocals in and manages to stay on melody and avoid the grate of his bluesy howl. “Only Friend” taps a similar vein with similar results. Lloyd excels when he lets his inventive guitar hooks do the heavy lifting. They’re two of the standouts—and yet both are a better singer away from being truly special.
Elsewhere, “Swipe It” reclaims the scuzzy, post-modern Blues that made Pussy Galore and Royal Trux sub-sub-popular. And throughout the album there are shards of “Nuggets” and Stones everywhere—the dirty crunch of “Amnesia’s” riff, the superb and succinct but not showy solo on “Wicked Son,” the sympathy for the harmonica on “Wicked Son.” But even more than it sounds like “Nuggets” or The Stones or Big Star, at its best “The Radiant Monkey” sounds like The Voidoids. On “Kalpa Tree” and “Big Hole,” Lloyd bleats and yelps like vintage Richard Hell and chokes the death out of the Blues like Robert Quine. There is a great irony that Lloyd prevailed as a solo act when he rid himself of his old boss and inched closer to his old boss’ great frenemy.