Tom Verlaine “The Wonder”
In 1992, I was a skinny, low alpha college freshman and Tom Verlaine was my skinny, high beta idol. Not the actual man Tom Verlaine — a 43 year old, living in 1992. Not him. The 1977 version. Black and white. A lanky, far too handsome poet who traded his typewriter for a Fender. Who played his guitar like it was wringing out tears. Who sang like love and death had him in a four-handed choke hold. That version.
Too young to have heard or seen him in the 1970s, my teenage relationship with Tom Verlaine was mediated through the reflections of Robert Christgau, Spin magazine and, most notably, the owner and clerks at Subterranean Records on Cornelia Street in Greenwich Village. None of my friends had heard of Tom Verlaine, much less had heard his semi-known music, much less had obsessed over his harder to find solo records.
Though all I had was a handful of his records and pages upon pages of legend, Tom Verlaine was my guy. “Marquee Moon” scored my imagination and “Adventure” was the soundtrack to my dreams. After mainlining those two, I went through his solo records, one by one. First, there was his eponymous debut, which sounded like high end Television outtakes — a charge that I believe to both be accurate and high praise. “Dreamtime,” his second solo record, was darker, more suffocated and completely focused. Today, it can be found for less than five bucks in used record bins everywhere, which is both a crime and a miracle. “Dreamtime” is a minor masterpiece. And from there, I spent months with each ensuing release — replaying the gems, learning to love the misses and forgiving the duds. With each passing year and each curious record, my devotion solidified and my bias swelled. So, by the late Eighties, I found myself dismissing any perceived decline as either valiant experimentation or onerous record label constraints.
Though I logically understood that Tom Verlaine and his former bandmates were still very much alive, roaming the streets of New York, my passion felt like archeology. In my mind, Tom was an anachronism and Television was extinct. But then, in 1992, Television miraculously reunited. I was a freshman in college at the time and though I should have been studying and partying, I did something completely irrational and doubly necessary. I took ten days off from my first semester to follow Television around for a bunch of east coast shows, arriving at each one hours early to stake out spots up close, in between all of the chain smoking, sweaty, middle-aged men.
The shows were straight noir. The band was barely lit. Smoke was everywhere. Eventually, Tom, Richard, Fred and Billy ambled out from shadows — Verlaine the reluctant gumshoe up front. In person, he looked older, but, not old. He would frequently, and especially early in their sets, become frustrated with the sound, as though the mix was preventing him from figuring out the mystery of the music. By the end of the first song, however, the clues would appear and the sound would coalesce. They were real. He was real. Through the smoke and glare, I was actually seeing and hearing Television.
Television’s third album, released in 1992 — fourteen years after their second album — was completely unexpected and unexpectedly wonderful. But live, they were even better. They were stunning. Any inkling I had about Tom Verlaine’s creative decline were dismissed. Anything I had read about his eccentricities or ambivalence about his musical career were set aside. Those 1992 shows validated everything that I had even wanted from my rock and roll hero.
Then, a few months later, while back at college, browsing records at In Your Ear in Providence, Rhode Island, I discovered Tom Verlaine’s “The Wonder.” And that really fucked me up for a while.
“The Wonder” was released in 1990, though it’s unclear if it was released in America at that time and it’s also unclear if Tom Verlaine actually wanted the record to be released at all. One story claims that he’d sent an unfinished version to his new label, Fontana, for feedback and heard nothing for some time. But then, when he finally connected with his A&R rep, Tom was informed that the album was to be released two weeks later.
In 1992, I thought I was aware of everything Tom Verlaine had ever released. That was the year that the Television “reunion” album and Verlaine’s instrumental record, “Warm and Cool,” both arrived. Being the early days of the internet, it was almost impossible for me to figure out what the deal was with “The Wonder.” Three records in such a short span seemed impossible — Verlaine was not known for his “hustle.” It was inconceivable to me that my reluctant musical hero had suddenly done an about face. Or worse — that I had simply missed a Tom Verlaine album.
Confounded, but excited, I paid $14.99 for the odd CD with the even odder cover and no liner notes. I ran back to my dorm room and listened to it end to end. Then I listened to it again. By that point I was seriously confused. Was this a “real” Tom Verlaine album? Was it an album of outtakes? Was it one of those albums he gave to the label to fulfill his contract? Was it a joke? Did I just not get it?
I listened to “The Wonder” about ten times. Maybe. I hated it. My best friend’s favorite bands at the time were Roxette and Savage Garden. He really liked “The Wonder.” And that would have been my review in 1992. But now, 28 years later and a middle aged man myself, I thought it was time to revisit the the oddest of my odd idol’s career. Unfortunately, it proved to not be so easy. “The Wonder” is not available on streaming services. I resold my CD copy years ago. Presently, there are seven people selling the LP on Discogs — but all in Europe. The easiest place to hear the album is (unsurprisingly) on Youtube. And so, that’s where I went.
During the last week, I’ve listened to “The Wonder” four times on Youtube. There’s no official playlist or promotional video. It’s simply the songs streaming alongside a video of the front of the album cover resting static for five songs, and then getting flipped for side B. The record includes terse, inscrutable liner notes, so attribution is a challenge. There appear to be five musicians playing on the record, but I cannot say that for sure and — for the life of me — I can’t figure out who’s singing backing vocals. “The Wonder” is an album that barely existed in the first place and which, over the last 28 years, really wanted to disappear.
“The Wonder” is the sound of a great talent content to just toss out seemingly spontaneous musical ideas and see if any of them amount to anything. Its vibe is somewhere between offhanded and half-assed. That being said, many of the “Verlaine tropes” are here — half heard conversations that pass for poetry, guitars that search and search until they start to cry, strangulated vocals, odd tunings and, of course, a song about war.
The familiar sounds tired and tossed off here. But, the familiar is not really the problem. The problem are those few occasions wherein Verlaine chooses a beat poetry slam delivery that seems unaware of what rap is but also oddly similar to a poor imitation of rap. Most of the songs begin with an idea or a lyric that is repeated incessantly until it dead ends, at which point you can almost hear Verlaine trying to find a bridge or a chorus to no avail. And, when all else fails, he throws in a guitar solo.
I think it’s fair to say that half of “The Wonder” is not worth more than a single listen. Three songs are quarter baked ideas that, with time or with Richard Lloyd and Billy Ficca around, could have been salvaged. And, then, there are two genuinely great songs — “Stalingrad” and “Coolridge” — which don’t exactly sound fully realized (the whole album kind of sounds like shit), but which are well crafted, sharp, obtuse and lyrical in the way that only Tom Verlaine can be.
In 1990, Tom Verlaine still had a cult following. But his cult was shrinking and devotees of his solo records lived mostly outside of the U.S. He had taken to wearing a beret in most of the photos from around that time. In interviews, he came off as just plain odd. In print, he was hard to get a handle on. He sounded like a man who just didn’t seem to care — like someone who could make an album that sounds like “The Wonder.”
Tom Verlaine turned 70 last December. He’s not middle aged anymore. I don’t think he wears berets anymore. When I lived in New York, I’d see him from time to time in Brooklyn or in Manhattan in bookstores. For years, I’ve wondered what he is really like. What his life is like. What his days are like. Who he spends them with. How he makes money. How he thinks about his own music. What he cares about.
“The Wonder” is the product of a forty year old man. Not young and not old. Not a popular artist and not quite unpopular. On this record, he’s not this and he’s not that. Occasionally, he’s almost, briefly good. More frequently, he’s very close to being terrible. “The Wonder” is not available on Spotify or Apple Music or Amazon. It’s barely a thing.
Almost everything Tom Verlaine made before 1992 felt important to me. This one felt like the opposite of that.