(TV) Tom as proto-Sting / Meltzer!

["Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@volpe.dot.gov>]

Marquee Mooners, 

Maybe I'm just suffering from having watched the Red Sox lose in 19 freakin' innings last night in Seattle, or I'm just trying to avoid having to write my Regulatory Impact Assessment for work, but I'm sorry, I can't let R. Meltzer 's characterization of Verlaine as  "...a proto-sting"  ("by the by, meltzer hates verlaine, hell, etc...").  Them's fighting words!

Yes, Meltzer's he is/was a brilliant writer/philosopher/critic --if somewhat pretentious smart ass -- but he really shows his small-mindedness and ignorance with his
proto-Sting comment.  

I mean, Jesus, I'm not sure I could come up with two more totally dissimilar characters/musicians than Sting and Verlaine if I tried.  The former slick, solipsistic, a huge commercial success,  relatively soulless musically (albeit his work for good political causes), jazz-wannbe bass player and singer, who hasn't rocked out since circa "Message in a Bottle" (and that was mostly Copeland's drumming and Summers' guitar) ------the latter a fabulous songwriter/composer, arranger, lead/rhythm guitarist,  slightly paranoid, misunderstood genius who languishes in obscurity.  I will  grant Meltzer that they both are solo artists who have blonde hair (now thinning) and both might be considered handsome guys.  

And while I'm on it-----I'm sure Meltzer's a fun person to hang out with in Portland, but it always struck me that he's just another one of the school of brilliant intellectuals who despite all their erudition --when it comes to rock music,  prefer to take their pleasures downward by wallowing  in music by artists who play rather puerile, simplistic, unsubtle, cartoonish stuff for the masses. (Don't let me be misunderstood:  I like to my musical pleasures downward also; I can appreciate simple, primitive, primordial elemental music like Link Wray, The Stooges, The Ramones, The VU, or even TV''s 'Coming Apart' or 'Pillow' or (Roky's) 'Fire Engine' ).  

If my memory is not totally gonzo, Meltzer was a big fanatic about musicians like The Flamin' Groovies and The Blue Oyster Cult (or was that the late Lester Bangs, and yes, fuck you, Lester, another genius who couldn't stand Television/Verlaine). Give me Robert Christgau or Greil Marcus anyday, and no Christagau never sucked up to Verlaine (Christgau in a review of  a Verlaine solo album in The Village Voice claimed something along the lines of  Tom's antiseptic/aseptic studio work was finally catching up with him ..." and that he really should try to get out more often".)  I had to admit he always tried to speak the truth no matter how much it might hurt. In fact, he wrote the best dead-on review/cum Lloyd persona analysis of a post-Television Richard Lloyd concert that I ever read.  

Sorry for the rant, I'm done now.  For my penance maybe I'll type out Christagau's Lloyd analysis.   

(Full disclosure:  I read Meltzer's The Aesthetics' of Rock in my dissolute youth as well as many of his writings in ancient rock mags like 'Fusion', etc..)  
			
		Leo

>  i hang out with meltzer here in portland & that old crank's been promising to tape
> the damn thing (as well as a non-lp single "searchin") for me for a while...he
> never got round to it (thank god my upstate ny friend found his old copy...the
> damn thing pops up on ebay once in a while, tho rarely sells for less than 40
> bucks or so...too steep for moi...i emailed buddha who own the rights to it,
> asking em to reissue it with the single...after 3 pleas, the guy wrote back saying
> only if 10,000 folk write in with similar requests...ha.)
> anyhow, meltzer now claims to hate most rock & roll but he swears he'll never let
> "one kiss leads to another" get away...check out his comments on the rec in 
      by the by, meltzer hates verlaine, hell, etc...called verlaine a proto-sting.
>  > 
> Jeff Strell wrote:
> 
> > That's what I love about this list -- ya never know when the Hackamore Brick
> > LP's gonna come up.  I just recently latched onto this one myself.  Supposedly
> > it got a great writeup from R. Meltzer in Rolling Stone, and also numbers
> > Greil Marcus among its supporters.  (Even Christgau, from whom it receives
> > only a "B," notes the similarity to the Velvets' third.  Recommended to power
> > poppers everywhere.
> >
> > - Jeff
> >
> > ____________________________________________________________________
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