Television “Television”
They were never famous. Never popular. But, almost from the get go, Television was mythic. There was the story of Tom Miller (Verlaine) and Richard Myers (Hell) running away from boarding school to set things on fire and — maybe also — become poets. The one about them faking their way into that legendary jalopy of a bar on The Bowery. There was the history of “Marquee Moon’s” long gestation — beginning with those rickety Brian Eno demos and arriving only after their downtown peers had already beaten them to the punch. There were the stories of Verlaine’s not so secret romance with Patti Smith. And there were the catty, though probably accurate, stories of infighting between Verlaine and Hell, and then Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. As great as their music is, Television’s legend is no doubt greater.
While there is undoubtedly some truth in every one of those tales, today they sound more like New York City fables than like facts or history. Five decades after they were born, Television is part science fiction and part film noir. Semi-legendary but mostly unknowable. They mean so much to so few. And, whatever it is that Television has come to signify, it simply cannot be extricated from their scene, their city, and, ultimately, their inscrutable lead singer.
Tom Verlaine is among the most confounding frontmen in twentieth century music. He makes Jeff Mangum seem extroverted and Glenn Gould seem like a good hang. By his own admission, Verlaine wants his own image and story to disappear from his music. He is violently anti-careerist. He is bored, boring and avoidant in his rare interviews and he cowers in publicity photos. In conversation and in concert, he seems interested in sound and tone, but less so in the songs themselves, and not at all in the audience. It is a matter of record that Tom Verlaine has lived in New York most of his life and, briefly, while in his thirties, in London. What is much less clear is how a seventy year old man who sold relatively few records and released very little music since the age of forty-three has sustained himself since his legendary brush with sub-popularity.
Was Tom Verlaine a shrewd investor? Seems unlikely. Does he still make music? If he does, he keeps it hidden. Unlike Richard Hell, who has made a modest career as a writer and by “being Richard Hell,” Tom Verlaine seems more like an unemployed ghost of New York than a working musician. By his own account, he never practices guitar or really thinks about songwriting other than when he has an album that is required of him or a concert coming up. And, as the years have passed, those events are less and less frequent. It’s frankly hard to imagine what Tom Verlaine does all day.
All of this silly guesswork begs the question: why do I even care? It’s a fair question, one I’ve considered since the first time I heard the opening chords of “See No Evil” and saw Robert Mapplethorpe’s cover photo for “Marquee Moon.” There was, of course, the music. The pinched vocals. The twin guitars. The jazzy bottom. The urgency and the violence. The celestial and the dreamy. Yes. That was all there. But, if I am being accurate and true, the appeal was in the form and idea of Tom Verlaine. He was tall and thin with an endless neck, giant hands, high cheekbones, large eyes, tousled, straight hair that he half hid behind and clothes that looked both arty and unconsidered. To see him when I was a teen, so full of confusion and hormones, and he was so cool and disaffected, was to see everything that I wished I could be. I was acned and awkward and he was effortless and handsome.
It is no coincidence that people talk about the visual style of New York’s downtown music scene of the 1970s. There was Patti Smith’s androgyny, Richard Hell’s punk and The Talking Heads’ new wave. But, in Tom Verlaine, the scene had a veritable supermodel. In his demure gaze and slender form was my own romantic, if naive, projection of adult cool. But I’d also venture that, in his image was the collective projection of a shy, poetic genius, interested in ideas more than product or fame. Like many others, I find it almost impossible to talk about the music of Television without talking about the parable of the band and the “signified” of Tom Verlaine. Unlike most of the writing I’ve read before, though, I’m copping to it up front. For the record, I struggle to talk about Television’s music free of the legend, in general, and the symbolism of Tom Verlaine, in particular.
By 1990, Television was over twelve years removed from their break-up. They were much more folk tale than rock band to me. Tom Verlaine was forty that year. He, of course, appeared older than his black and white, 1977 self, but he was still lanky and handsome. During Television’s long hiatus, Verlaine’s solo records had drifted from his iconic sound. Where there was once only guitar, bass and drums, there were now more synthesizers. His songs were shorter and more literary than poetic. His voice sounded deeper and more tired. There was a whimsy to his songs that I could not understand but that I suspected were jokes being played on the listener.
Public interest, especially in the U.S., became so scarce that, by 1990, it was fair to wonder if Tom Verlaine really had a career at all. “The Wonder,” his solo record from that year, was not properly released in America. And, while it was not a complete embarrassment, it was something close to that. All of those suggestions that Verlaine made about not practicing guitar and not enjoying songwriting or recording and wanting to disappear from his music suddenly seemed quite literal. That year, Tom Verlaine briefly got his wish. He became a ghost.
In early 1992, though, he released an interesting, if modest, album of instrumentals, accompanied by three quarters of Television. “Warm and Cool” showcased a deeper and more vibrant guitar tone. There was less of Television’s angular chime and more 1950s, sci-fi ambiance. There were no vocals. It was released on a label that was known for reissues and legacy artists. It seemed to be the final acknowledgment of what I already knew -- Tom Verlaine was not interested in writing or performing songs for the public any more. On the other hand, he seemed nominally willing to play guitar — but only out of curiosity and financial necessity. In 1978, Tom Verlaine retired Television. In early 1992, it seemed that he had retired Tom Verlaine.
But then, the unimaginable happened. Nobody could have predicted it because, by then, nobody was listening to Tom Verlaine and he certainly wasn’t sharing. But, quietly and casually, all four members of Television — Tom Verlaine, Fred Smith, Billy Ficca and, most notably, Richard Lloyd — began playing together again. A loyal cadre of younger admirers signed them to Capitol Records. And, in the Fall of 1992, fourteen years after “Adventure,” Television’s released their third, self-titled studio album. I was eighteen at the time and completely breathless with excitement.
It has now been twenty eight years since that last Television album — twice as long as the time between the second and third Television albums. Television still plays “special occasion” shows, mostly well paying festival gigs or prestigious concerts in major cities around the world. Richard Lloyd left the band over a decade ago, seemingly out of impatience with Verlaine and the meandering, almost whimsical nature of the band. He was replaced by the more amicable and professional, if less dazzling, Jimmy Ripp. There have been rumors of a long-awaited fourth Television album for almost a decade. On the basis of their live shows, it would appear that the band has enough material worked out for an album's worth of songs. But, as is often the case with Tom Verlaine, there seems to be something missing — creative resolution, the right record deal, the right occasion or, simply, possibly, sufficient ambition. Whatever the issue may be, I stopped wondering. And I stopped waiting. In the interim, I reached middle age. I passed the age that Tom Verlaine was in 1992. I felt sufficiently ready to put the legend aside and to revisit Television’s “reunion” album from 1992 not as a personal moment or as a historical act of resurrection, but simply as a piece of music.
To my 1992 ears, “Television” sounded better than most Tom Verlaine solo albums, different from previous Television records and unlike anything else being played on college radio or MTV2. Upon return, all of those observations still ring true. The first thing you notice is the bottom of Tom Verlaine’s guitar and voice. Patti Smith once noted that Verlaine’s guitar sounded like “a thousand bluebirds screaming.” In 1992, however, that instrument was less squeal and more tremolo — micd closely, so as to resemble Duane Eddy. In middle age, Television’s hooks and solos are less incendiary. They’re revealed patiently and with greater mystery, evoking vintage spy novels and Sam Fuller flicks.
The extra time and space works. They allow for audible thought — you can hear Verlaine really considering his next move en route his ultimate destination. His solos are “headier” more than they are technically astounding. But they are astounding nonetheless. And while his voice sounds nearly as deep as Leonard Cohen’s, he does still sound as though he is being strangled late at night in some dark alley in New York City. It’s all clearly still the same man, but he’s replaced speed and dreaminess with a dark, oddball sense of dramedy.
In contrast to the slower, inverted routes that Verlaine gumshoes, Richard Lloyd sounds jagged and dangerous. He plays a lot of rhythm guitar here, but he plays it with the broken shards of “Satisfaction” — if the song was performed by Robert Quine, with one hand, while on speed. It’s positively exciting to hear the taut fury of Lloyd’s rhythms against the droll playing of Verlaine. Additionally, there are several songs wherein the two guitarists trade off solos, allowing us to note and admire the contrast. In 1978, many people referred to the “dueling guitars” of Television. In 1992, it seems less like the guitars are dueling and more like they are in a conversation gone sideways, speaking a language foreign to the other. As was the case way back when, upon return their music was still unlike anything else in the idiom. If nothing else, “Television” confirmed that Tom Verlaine sounds better with Richard Lloyd than he does alone (or with a stand in). Their styles are so different and the tension so apparent that it elevates Verlaine from something unusual to something singular.
“Television” is ten songs — nearly all of which are compelling and about half of which are excellent. The opener, “1880 or So,” sounds not unlike The National if they were recorded by Rick Rubin. From the opening notes, the tone is intimate and supple. There’s the slightest jazz in the drumming. And Verlaine is loose and poetic and, of course, weird. For those who listened to “Warm and Cool” or for those familiar with Verlaine’s work on Luna’s “Twenty Three Minutes in Brussels,” the first track on Television’s long-awaited return sounds familiar and completely intoxicating.
“Shane She Wrote This” and “Call Mr. Lee” increase the velocity and dial up the volume a notch. On the former, Verlaine jumps pedals from a vintage baritone to a whine that sounds like a cello or theremin as much as it does like a guitar. It’s a very broad jump, but also the sort that he is known for. In the and athletic pace, you can almost hear the middle-aged hipsters working up a sweat. “Call Mr. Lee,” meanwhile, was the album’s “single” (in the sense that they sent copies of it to college radio and made a video for MTV2). It’s a mini spy thriller tucked inside four minutes of Richard Lloyd’s increasing anxiety. His rhythm guitar completely freaks out inside the verses, caterwauling towards an acrobatic solo that runs up and down the fretboard in an effort to escape the song’s mysterious villains. We leave the song not knowing what actually happened to whom other than that Richard Lloyd stole Tom Verlaine’s Pop song and turned it into his own guitar showcase.
Those three tracks are the unmistakable bullseyes of “Television,” but there is intrigue throughout. On a trio of charming, if offhanded, tunes like “In World,” “Beauty Trip” and “This Tune,” Verlaine pauses the noir and plays the whimsy. But, his version of whimsy is less “funny ha ha” and more obtuse, nervous giggles. Each of these three are relatively straightforward verse/verse/bridge/chorus numbers — except that the band sounds like their native language is Sanskrit or something from the future rather than English or The Beatles. The melodies are weird. The drums wait behind the vocals and the guitars are untethered. Even in their modest tracks, Television sounds otherworldly. And there is literally no songwriter other than Tom Verlaine who would write a Rockabilly song like “Beauty Trip” with impenetrable lyrics like:
De Soto
Has a cool shark fin
My humble abode
Hey, uh, where I've been
Bougie, Bougie
No, no applause
Four enchiladas, Senor
Extra sauce…
Just one face card and one ace
Put my game back in place
Crystal honey, where you been?
Turn a corner and my heart just goes boom-boom!
Like most everything Tom Verlaine made after “Adventure,” however, there are also half-baked ideas on “Television” — songs that would have benefited from more input and oxygen. There is a pleasant, though ultimately boring, tone poem (“Rhyme”) where Verlaine ventures into heavy breathing, Roxy Music territory. It’s a style that he would try out increasingly as he got older — searching, stream of conscious narration against the band’s loosely held improvisation. “Rocket,” meanwhile, is an experimental track built around an industrial beat and a yearning refrain of “Cherie Cherie.” Other than recalling the great Suicide song (“Cheree”), it sounds like an idea Verlaine and drummer Billy Ficca had in the studio when Richard Lloyd and Fred Smith were out for a smoke break.
The album’s closer, “Mars,” is ostensibly a David Lynch film in song. Halting, scary, funny and beautiful, Verlaine’s vocals are unappealing, in the same way a vintage monster movie can be. The cumulative effect, however, is completely arresting. Verlaine acts out a nonsensical B-movie while he and Richard Lloyd try to toe the line between horror and delight. The last ninety seconds of the song are pure glee, with both guitarists freaking out while the singer whispers, utters and croons:
Ding-a-ling-ding-a-ling-ling-ling time to get up
Must have some coffee, let's have some caw-fee
I die a coupla times for you
I die a coupla times a night for you
In my arms so warm and smooth
Every bone in heaven moving smooth
You crack up fine and test I'm all forever
That cop, hey, that cop's from
That cop's from Mars, baby!
“Television” sounds a lot like the Tom Verlaine I projected — odd, brilliant, lazy, romantic, hot and cold. The final minute of “Mars” alone contains all of those things, and then some. As a coda for a song, it is breathtaking. As a closer to the album, it is a bit terrifying. But if it ends up being the finale to Television’s recording career — as I suspect it will — I’d say it sounds about right. Tom Verlaine couldn’t simply disappear, as he’d hoped. But maybe, finally, he could scare us all away.