(TV) Pt. II of 3: Longest, 1 of Best TV & Lloyd Interviews Ever?

["Casey, Leo J" <CaseyL@VOLPE.DOT.GOV>]

>From  Michael Olcsvary copy of Musician Magazine
(1992) 

TELEVISION
The Great Lost Band Finds Itself by Scott Isler
MUSICIAN Magazine, September, 1992

Part II of 3

"All of us [in the band] hate profiles," Tom 
Verlaine says of the honorable profession of journalism. 
"I really hate it."

He might have is reasons.  Over the years Verlaine 
has been subjected to his share of ill-informed, 
quasi-literate reporters quoting him out of context 
(present company excluded).  [That's not what he says, 
Scott-Ed.]  Professionally, he has gone through enough 
managers and record companies to suggest a problem with 
authority figures.  Personally, his retiring manner and 
preference for privacy aren't endearing attributes in 
the very public entertainment world to which he 
reluctantly belongs.  Taken all together, Verlaine 
strikes some people as a consummate control freak.

"A few people said, 'Don't work with him, he's difficult,'" 
notes his current managers, John Telfer.  "But he's an 
artist - and no more difficult than anybody who's 
intelligent and doesn't stand fools."

"I gotta tell ya," Verlaine (real name Rrose Selavy) laughs 
about Television's reunion, "I find it so tedious to talk 
about.  It's like asking some guy who works in a Ford 
factory for 20 years how he's come to build that engine.

"To me it's such a total lark.  Maybe 'lark' is a little 
bit too light a word 'cause it implies I'm mot serious.  
I'm serious in the context of a band - being serious about 
presentation, about doing the best you can at a given time.  
But in terms of it being an entity that has any longevity" - 
he laughs again - "that completely remains to be seen.  
It's a totally 'if' thing based on a whole pile of factors."

One of those factors, to cynical minds (present company 
excluded), could be the aura surrounding Television's name 
and status in pop-music history.  Verlaine says he 
"seriously thought about" the reunited Television taking 
a new name.  Capitol "wouldn't buy into it, though.  The 
company obviously wants to exploit the name.  Even if we 
didn't sell all that many records, it's much better having 
somebody know something about you than being a name that 
no one ever heard of.  Right now, for better or worse, 
there's a whole pile of people who never saw this group 
who want to see it."

"The whole survival joke is a huge consideration."  
Verlaine's survival is a consideration to fans of 
his ethereal, affecting music.  "it doesn't cost me 
much to live.  Except, of course, my clothes!"  he 
jokes.  Asking him to evaluate his career draws a 
laugh.  "My non-career?" he corrects the interviewer.  
"My excuse for a career?  Honestly, I never think about 
the word 'career.'  I've had managers, the minute they 
say it to me, they look at me and just roll their eyes."

He may laugh about his career, but Verlaine is serious 
about this art.  "He's very well versed in theory and 
harmony, more so than most people," says Mario Salvati, 
who has engineered all of Verlaine's albums since 1984.
	
"He called me up one day from England," Smith says, 
"and said he spent six months just practicing every day 
and kind of boldly stated that he really knew every 
millimeter of the instrument.  I went over and started 
rehearsing with him for a tour , and he amazed me.  He 
was always an interesting and really good guitar player, 
but you could tell he's studied hard; he didn't hit a 
wrong note ever.  He has a lot of musical knowledge.  
He can write a bridge in three seconds flat.  If it 
doesn't work on the first try he'll try the weirdest 
chord you can think of against the weirdest notes, and 
it usually works."

Despite a forbidding image, Verlaine has consistently 
championed one of music's most consumer-friendly 
elements:  melody.  "It's odd," he muses, "that in the 
80's melody, more than ever, should have gone out the 
window.  Not to say that we're writing great melodies; 
we're probably part of the aspect of modern life that 
has to do with the absence of melody.  In the '40s you 
had a melody that would float.  On this record that's 
definitely true of some of the guitar things I'm doing.
I have no interest in going whacko-whammo with another 
guitar solo.  It's more, 'develop something that stays 
with the heart of a song.'  "I don't think I've 
written any melodies as good as most TV show themes 
in the '50s." 

Television would be inconceivable without Verlaine, 
but there's more than Verlaine to the group.  "A huge 
part of what the group is and what it always did," 
says Verlaine, "is work things out.  Sometimes 
it's me arranging and sometimes it's Richard cycling 
around for a while and coming up with a bit that he 
places here and there.  A lot of it's repetition, 
developing a mood - when to play, when not to play, 
whether to play a chord.  It's all rehearsal.  I'll 
generally have a structure, or in some cases a song 
with a lyric or verses.  We'll just start bashing it 
out.  

Usually the first thing we might try something different 
with is the beat.  It's really down to details, like 
should the hi-hat be eighth-notes or quarter-notes.  
Then maybe we'll try harmony notes on bass, or 
Fred will throw in a bass run that the guitar will end 
up doubling somewhere along the line.  In the meantime 
words or vocal melodies are floating over the top of 
this stuff," he laughs.  "So you might have a song that's 
really raunchy end up turning more sweet."
	
"Tom writes the songs," Lloyd says, "and then the band 
contributes parts which Tom 'edits,' remaining a kind of 
musical director.  There have been times when we'll play 
something and Tom says, "I can hang a song on that."  
We're very synergistic."

Verlaine edits himself as well, sometimes ruthlessly.  
The song "1880" was inspired by sentimental poems 
printed in Gilded-Age newspapers. "I'm fond of some 
of that stuff 'cause it's so innocent.  The lyric 
basis of that song is my guitar part.  That song went 
through all sorts of changes before it ended up being 
what it is, these two guitars weaving around.  It's not 
even really rock 'n' roll except it's got this eight-note 
bass and this beat almost like a Rolling Stones song.
	
"A lot of songs get thrown out because I don't have 
patience.  The vocals are sung last in the studio but 
often I'll sing while we're doing a song just so everybody 
knows where they are.   I have had to write lyrics over 
because when the track was done it was so different than 
what the original auditory imagination of the song was, 
that the lyric wasn't gonna work.
 	
" 'Call Mr. Lee' was an example of that.  It was a real 
manic song about three months ago.  By the time it was done, 
'This doesn't really work.'  Instead of  'Let's do it again,' 
this desperate situation of some spy locked up in a foreign 
country, this cinematic kind of '60s spy film was more like a 
European spy film - kind of weird but not real exciting, like 
people sitting around in hotel rooms, a girl with a raincoat.

"I had a meeting with about eight people from Capitol and 
they all wanted lyric sheets right away, 'cause either 
they can't make them out or can't make any sense of them!" 
Verlaine laughs.  "There are definitely little stories 
and plots behind these.  But by the time they get edited 
down, the basic gist of the plot disappears.  What you 
end up with is a character talking about a situation 
they're in that doesn't really get spoken of in the song.
I guess that's what makes 'em different."
	
Lyric sheets aside, Capitol has been a model of corporate 
enlightenment.  "The record company was very cool," 
Salvati says.  "They totally left us alone.  The A & R 
guy called up once and asked if he could come down.  He 
sorta was embarrassed because nobody wanted to bother us. 
He came down and said, 'Just gotta do my job.'  He hung 
around for a bit and then split.  At one point the 
president of the record company came down and told 
everybody he liked what he heard."

As the ultimate show of faith in the band, Capitol let 
Television produce themselves; Verlaine and Smith share 
"executive producer" credits.  Verlaine, used to 
producing himself, wouldn't have it any other way.

"I've met just about every big producer in the world and 
had dinner with them," he says, "and never once came away 
impressed.  A lot of them are incredible shits.  You 
wouldn't believe it.  Real shits.  You don't even wanna 
be in the same room with 'em.  They just sit there and 
scream at you, especially the English ones.  Like, 
'Fuck you!  How'd you ever get a fucking record deal?'  
They think they're psyching you up to play a guitar 
solo and you just wanna go kill 'em.  It's an idiotic 
way of dealing with people."

So Television - like all of Verlaine's preceding albums - 
will be as uncompromised as they wanna be.  But where 
does Verlaine end and Television begin?

Having worked with Verlaine both solo and in Television, 
Mario Salvati can spot the differences.  "There are 
certain things that Television is that Tom Verlaine 
isn't - specifically, Richard's playing and Richard's 
parts within the songs.  Richard's a real rock 'n' roll 
guitar player."

"One thing that happened when we got together at the 
end of '90 and jammed," Smith says, "more than Tom or 
Richard's guitar being there, was Billy's hi-hat.  
The way he plays his hi-hat is unlike anything else.  
One day they'll discover the Television sound is Bill's 
hi-hat playing.  The rest is superfluous."  Unprompted, 
Salvati seconds Smith's notion:  "Some of the stuff 
Billy does with his hi-hat is just incredible."
	
Inevitably, though, the spotlight will be on Lloyd 
and Verlaine, together again after all these years.  
"I know everybody's waiting to find out what happened 
between the two of them," Salvati smiles. "There were 
no fights at all.  There were some discussions - nothing 
out of the ordinary.  I've been involved when bands have 
had fistfights in the studio; I shut the console off and 
I go home.  This was nowhere near anything like that."
	
"I did play a number of songs for Tom that I had written," 
Lloyd says, "and asked him, are any of these Television 
songs?  Fully expecting him to say no.  It just made no 
sense to push that.  It's counterproductive."
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