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(TV) February 8, 1977
I was hoping that this might generate some discussion.
(Often the formatting/spacing of my e-mails get's radically
altered from its original; hopefully that won't occur this time.)
February 8, 1977:
Alan Alda directed MASH episode airs (Father Mulcahy comes down
with infectious hepatitis while B.J. performs a very difficult operation
and Hawkeye deals with a psychosomatic back pain).
Dave 'Phoenix' Ferrel bass player of the 'Nu Metal' band Linkin Park is
born.
Italian police search Sophia Loren's home for documents related to tax
fraud.
Nevada's Senate voted to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to U.S.
constitution.
5.0 earthquake hits San Francisco.
Album Marquee Moon released in U.S.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
One Man's Take On Marquee Moon - Excerpts From Tim Mitchell's 2006
Book 'Sonic Transmission' [Permission granted by the author via-mail.
All rights reserved] No web-link exists.
Sonic Transmission, pages 70-77.
Once Television's contract with Elektra had been signed and the
schedule set for the recording of their debut album, one of the first
thing's Verlaine had wanted to sort out was the cover artwork.
Although Verlaine was not personally much interested in the visual
appeal of the band, he had strong ideas about its identity and that
identity had to be conveyed forcefully on the album's sleeve.
Mapplethorpe later commented that Verlaine was "sort of fanatical
about [the cover] coming out the way he wanted" and didn't want
" 'the art director to touch it' " [Mapplethorpe, 12/76].
Before beginning the recording sessions for Marquee Moon, the band
had first of all finalized the list of songs for inclusion (the tightness of
the
budget Elektra had given them did not allow for much experimentation
with material). In the weeding out process 'Double Exposure' was rejected
as too old and 'Kingdom Come' ... as too long. There were other problems
too with Kingdom though - despite a neat descending guitar line, its
melody was rather strained, and it relied on some rather turgid riffing. .
Once they had decided on the material they were going to record, the
band put themselves through an intensive period of rehearsal, working six
or seven days a week, as they concentrated on perfecting both the
arrangements of the songs and their performances of them..
Marquee Moon's first track, 'See No Evil', was to provide one of the great
all-time openings to a rock album. Its insistent, declarative riff signals
a
revolutionary intent, before the bass flickers insouciantly and the lead
guitar
line stencils out a path with the bite of a needle. Even the tiny crackle of
static
that was to be a feature of the initial pressing of the album would seem
right.
Recording took place in October at Phil Ramone's A&R Studios on West
48th Street. The studios had been built in 1959 and then used over the
years by amongst many others, John Coltrane, Bob Dylan, and the Velvet
Underground. By 1976, though, A&R was, according to Verlaine, "a really
rundown place. real old-fashioned" [T.V., 7/10/77], with a mixing desk that
was idiosyncratic and unreliable.
Richard Lloyd had once playfully suggested to Craig Golson of 'New
York Rocker' that Television should record in an automobile graveyard:
"The amps would be placed in the seats of the wrecks or in the trunks
thereby obtaining the vibrations of all of the events that went on in
those cars: the driving around, listening to the radio, the petting at the
drive-in, and the crash" [Lloyd, 3/12/77].
Verlaine, however, had no interest in this Ballardian scenario - or
anything like it. He had chosen the most basic, authentic rock and roll
studio he could find because it would provide the straightforward, pure
sound that he wanted for the band's first album..
Once it [the recording] was all over, a couple of the band at least were
not convinced by what they had achieved. For Billy Ficca, the band
had simply not had enough time to come up with the album they wanted,
while Verlaine said:
"Nothing is ever perfect enough for me. If someone gave me the time
and money I'd take that whole album and record it in a different studio"
[T.V., 8/13/77].
Whatever misgivings they had, however, were not to be shared by many
of those who heard Marquee Moon when it was released in early 1977.
Verlaine's vocal is almost a snarl as he delivers the album's opening lines:
'What I want / I want now / and it's a whole lot more/ than anyhow'.
It is a statement reminiscent of Jim Morrison's 'We want the world and
we want it now', and as defiant in its own way as Johnny Rotten's 'I
Wanna Be Anarchy' ..but more individualistic than Morrison's call to
arms and positive where Rotten was nihilistic."
While being played live in the months leading up to the recording of the
album, 'Venus' had lost the original jerkiness of its rhythm, as well as its
hints of whimsicality, and instead had acquired a fluidity and a serenity
that brought it a new, rapturous beauty...
Part of the song's ecstasy comes from its landscape of bright
thoroughfares in a 'tight toy night', which is shared with equal joy
with a girl who has literally gotten between the narrator's 'bones and
skin'. This is an image Verlaine had also used in a poem for the
magazine, Buffalo Stamps. The poem's narrator, Julius, unable to
reconcile the gap between the physicality of his skull and heart, and
the thoughts and feelings inside them, finds that 'a nervous woman'
has wedged herself beneath his skin - and he finds himself under the
'uncomfortably electric gaze' of 'Madame L'. She is fascinated by the
idea of 'allowing one's self every extreme' and draws his nerves,
flying from 'their little hollows', 'into the rich red perimeter' of her
lips.
.There is also a street-smart cockiness in its backing vocals- 'Didja
feel low?... Huh?' - and part of the song's charm coming from the image
of Verlaine as a kind of gang leader calling for responses, as if acting
out West Side Story.
.['Friction'] was one of the first songs wrote, a story about stories,
about communication and perception and differences rubbing up
against each other and producing sparks - friction and fiction. It is
also about growing up and exchanging childhood for adulthood.
There is an element of 'Peter Pan' about it (as there was of Alice In
Wonderland in 'Venus' as Verlaine 'falls' into a strange new world).
In 'Friction', the men who 'dig holes' are separate from the boys who
are going to lose their freedom if they grow up - those boys will
exchange 'friction' for 'contradiction', and end up in jail.
'Friction', full of confrontation, has an aggressive vocal, a warring riff
and a menacing lead guitar line. The sparring guitars of its verses and
the chord progression of the chorus push it further towards a conflict
that Verlaine portrays in his solos. When he plays his first solo on
'Friction' he prefaces it (as he sometimes would in live performances)
with the line, 'Here's the depiction.'
For him, this first lead break is a "picture solo. it didn't have anything
to do with tonality at all [T.V., 1/13/79]". This attempt to 'paint with
music, as with so many of his instrumental ideas, comes from his
interest in the improvisations of jazz - one album in particular he cited
as an influence for it was 'Oh Yeah' by Charles Mingus.
There is another example of in 'Friction of sexual wordplay, which had
been a feature of Verlaine's song writing since the days of The Neon
Boys - here he emphasises the first syllable of the word 'diction'. This
adds a punning humour to a song that is all about different levels of
meaning - and a little more edge, too, to the friction between the narrator
and the woman he's talking to. 'Friction' ends with a little barely audible
laughter and a whirring sound, cut short - the end of the 'spinning' of
the tale.
'Marquee Moon' was a song of similar vintage to 'Friction' and another
one like 'Venus' that Verlaine had played on acoustic guitar during his
performances in folk clubs. Since those days, although its melody had
stayed the same, he had altered its tempo, added lead guitar parts and
carefully arranged it."
Bizarrely for a band with Television's track record - and pretty much
unrecognizable, too - 'Marquee Moon' now had a slowed-down reggae
rhythm and a lead guitar riff based on the horn part from James Brown's
'I Feel Good'. As a piece of ground-breaking rock and roll, somehow it
works perfectly. The two guitars bounce off each other and push the
song forward, emphasized by Billy Ficca's shuffling drums, while it is
grounded by Fred Smith's metronomic bass line. ...
'Marquee Moon' had originally been twenty or thirty verses long, but
Verlaine had whittled it down until he was left with the three that he
reckoned were the "essence of the whole thing" [T.V., 07/10/76]. The
result was a piece that still lasted over ten minutes - and even then
had to ne cut ' back to basic' (a move Verlaine had espoused and
practiced as much as anyone), this was a bold step. Verlaine's desire
in creating the song had been to convey scenarios and states of mind
that demanded time and space, but its length was a defiant statement
of individualism. That lengthy, too, though, meant that it was a chance
to allow Television guitarists to shine in all their glory. All in all,
Verlaine knew that, with this track, the centerpiece of the album, the band
were creating a tour de force that would simply blow listeners away.
"Despite its length, the song was recorded in one take - and despite,
too the fact that Ficca had to contend with a runaway bass drum:
"Half way through the song, near the jam-out ending, somehow my
bass drum wasn't anchored. it was sliding across the floor and I was
basically sliding after it, trying to play the bass drum as the whole
drum kit was moving away from me. I said, 'Oh man, now we gotta
do another take!" and they said. 'Nah, that was good!' "
'Marquee Moon's see-sawing guitars reflect the song's concerns with
oppositions. A mini-drama in three acts, it deals with free will and
pre-destination, sanity and madness, and the living of life in the
knowledge that death lies at the end of it. The drama is played out on
the nocturnal streets of Manhattan, under the glow of a 'marquee moon'
and also in the Gothic setting of a dark graveyard amid electric storms."
"Card number 18 in the Tarot, the set of medieval playing cards used to
predict the future is 'The Moon', which is both the card of both the
irrational and the imagination.
"The biographer Richard Holmes writes in his book 'Footsteps' - in a
section dealing with the French poet Gerard de Nerval - that in this part
of the Tarot:
"The Hero is at the critical stage in his journey, where his existence hangs
in the balance. If he allows himself to be entranced by the glamour of the
Moon, his quest is at an end. His life will be drained from him, until he
is
only a hollow shell. If, on the other hand, the Hero forces himself
onwards,
not straying straying from the narrow path, nor deceived by the spells and
allusions all around him, he will eventually win through the dark land and
the dismal cavern, and emerge into the light of day" [Holmes, 1995].
Gerard de Nerva, who was a precursor of both Symbolism and Surrealism,
wrote beautiful, hyper-Romantic, visionary verse that influenced Tom
Verlaine as much as it did Richard Hell. There is evidence that Nerval
lived his life under the influence of the Tarot, and he experienced bouts
of insanity before tragically committing suicide by hanging himself. His
death may have been a fulfillment of the destiny told by the final card of
the pack, 'The Hanged Man' - and it was an end that he prefigured
himself in his story 'The Enchanted Hand'.
'Marquee Moon' dramatises the weighing up by the Hero of this choice
and the final positive decision, which Nerval had been unable to make,
to move through darkness into light. Its musical structure parallels the
process, with its alternating guitars, a surging climax and a resolution
into
ethereal cascades of notes - and the process of is reflected in Verlaine's
solo, which matches it, stage for stage.
The penultimate section of 'Marquee Moon, however, returns to the song's
opening and to its first verse, before the final climax. In this return,
it
acknowledges that true enlightenment only comes from understanding that
decisions such as these are part of a process and will have to be taken
again
and again. In order to learn and move on, it is necessary to understand,
too,
that the use of imagination will always result in coming face to face with
the
irrational.
The irrational had always been a force in both Verlaine's life and his song
writing - the secret to dealing with it, for him, was to explore it and use
it
without surrendering to it. A 'marquee moon' is itself a bewitching symbol
of the magical attraction of the irrational and its links to the
imagination. It
is, Verlaine later said, a moon that appears at dusk, when its own natural
illumination combines with the artificial light of Broadway theatre
marquees - just lighting up - to create a unique, mysterious glow.
If side two of Marquee Moon fails to pack the punch of side one, it is due
to the lightness of 'Guiding Light' and the darkness of 'Torn Curtain' -
the former does not really seem substantial enough for this company,
while the later is arguably too melodramatic and somber.
Although 'Elevation', the side's opening song, deals with sadness and
solitude, it has such ethereal melodies that it seems to transcend its own
melancholy (in a way similar to that of Charles Baudelaire's poem
'Elevation', which celebrates the power of the soul to rise above earthly
misery). The repeated, staccato chord from Verlaine's guitar at the
beginning of his song sounds like a Morse-Code distress signal, while
Lloyd's, when it arrive, wails as if in mourning for the song's
relationship,
lost o the 'cold wild seas'. 'Elevation' is in a minor key (a comparative
rarity for Television), which allows it to create its aching beauty - a
beauty taken to icy peaks as Lloyd wrenches his guitar upwards in the
chorus and higher again in his perfectly paced solo.
The word 'elevation' is like 'See No Evil', a near-anagram of 'Television'.
A couple of points during the choruses of the song, Verlaine even sings
'Television' instead of 'elevation'. In the studio, a mechanical harmonizer
was used on his voice on these particular words, adding a third, a fifth,
and an octave to its pitch and giving it a ghostly extra dimension. If
'Elevation' is read as a song about the ending of Verlaine's relationship
with Patti Smith, it can be seen, too, as a statement of his 'elevation'
above her - and of the superiority of Television's music to her own.
'Guiding Light's' tale of surviving the end of a relationship and rising
above its trauma - this time 'Up on the throne' - to achieve a kind of
regal personal salvation, has echoes of 'Elevation', but little of its
musical drama. Finely crafted and graceful, with serene guitar work
from Richard Lloyd, it just seems out of place amid the tension, drive
and intensity of the rest of the album.
In 'Prove It', Verlaine distances himself from the direct personal
involvement of 'Elevation' and 'Guiding Light' (there is no first-person
narration here) with an almost playful examination of a relationship and
its contradictions (one of its lines echoes the 'Just the facts' catchphrase
of Sergeant Friday in the TV series 'Dragnet'). The song, as it looks at
its 'evidence', presents different ways of seeing and interpreting the
world, with a chattiness echoed by the music, as one guitar prattles, the
other interrupts and Billy Ficca taps out an irritated tattoo on the frame
of his drum. The tone becomes darker again, though, with Verlaine's
intense, exploratory solo and the song ends on a dramatic, crashing
minor chord - paving the way for 'Torn Curtain'.
'Torn Curtain' does, at least, leave the listener with the impression that
this is a 'weighty' album, one of real substance. What it does not do,
though, is state resoundingly that this is one of the best albums ever
made - which, despite its flaws, it certainly is.
Billy Ficca once defined the work of Television as "very physical music"
which, he hoped, had "everything. humour, anger, love, beauty, and
tears. every emotion" [ Ficca, 1977] - and Marquee Moon fulfills that
vision gloriously. .
Robert Mapplethorpe had taken several shots of the band at a photo
session in his studio and Verlaine and Lloyd chose one for the album
cover. What Verlaine wanted, though, was something "less
professional" than a straightforward print - he wanted to use a colour
Xerox. Mapplethorpe was surprised - colour Xerox printing had never
been used for album cover artwork before - but he liked the idea and
agreed to try it. The innovatory approach brought striking results - an
image that once more mythologized the band, as Richard Hell had once
done. Now, though, they were presented, not as literate street punks,
but as creatures of the New York underworld, with veins bulging from
their skin, caught by bright lights in the night.
The nocturnal cover of Marquee Moon reinforces the presence of the
night on the album itself ( five of its eight songs are at least partly set
during the hours of darkness). Verlaine thought of himself as "basically
a night person" [T.V., June 77] and, although this was partly a matter of
his natural sensibility, it sprang from necessity:
"Living in New York you become very night-oriented. Especially in the
summers, when it gets so hot and the streets get so dirty" [T.V., 1977].
The inspiration that Verlaine took from New York was very much tied
up with its nature as the 'city that never sleeps', a place where nocturnal
life often outdid its daytime equivalent in energy, excitement, and beauty.
Verlaine and Fred Smith appear on this cover image dressed in black and
somber blues, against the electric blue of the background, while Lloyd
and Ficca stand together, almost at attention, in red. Smith holds his
arms against his body, but Verlaine's huge hands seem caught in an
almost messianic gesture. While the rest of the band stare at the camera,
Verlaine's eyes aim higher, and are focused on a point above it. (On the
sleeve of the reissued album of 2003, there is a round circle of light above
Smith's head, a tiny, ghostly 'marquee moon', not visible on the original
cover.)
It is the cover that creates the immediate, vivid impression of the band and
their music, an impression that is developed on the inner sleeve. Here the
band are pictured playing in near darkness against a brick wall with
covered windows, as if buried deep in the city )the shot was actually taken
in Terry Ork's loft). Their equipment is simple and unostentatious and the
emphasis is on the guitars and on Verlaine and Lloyd, who are seated rather
than standing. The impression is of people not playing but rock and roll,
but
creating art, too. Lloyd looks straight at Verlaine here (as does Fred
Smith),
but Verlaine, who seems at first glance to be looking back at Lloyd, could
also be staring just above his head.
Marquee Moon, the album, was released in the US in February and in Britain
in March. It sounded like nothing else on earth. The quivering emotion of
Verlaine's voice as he delivered his fractured urban poetry blended with the
beauty and refined strength of the guitars to conjure up visions of a
magical,
nocturnal New York. It was mysterious, visceral, and revelatory in a way
that
nothing had been since the early days of the Velvet Underground. The first
side of Marquee Moon is arguably the best in rock music, a perfect
distillation of 'punk' attitude, lyricism, melody, and power. It defiantly
launched rock and roll into a new era by taking its essence and setting it
in a
landscape higher and broader and deeper than it had occupied before.
===================================================================
MusicRadio 77WABC Weekly Survey, February 8, 1977
THE TOP TEN ALBUMS:
Hotel California - The Eagles (Asylum)
Songs In the Key of Life - Stevie Wonder (Tamla)
Wings Over America - Wings (Capitol)
A Day at the Races - Queen (Elektra)
Boston - Boston (Epic)
A Star Is Born - Original Soundtrack (Columbia)
A New World Record- Electric Light Orchestra (United Artists)
A Night On the Town - Rod Stewart (Warner Brs)
The Pretender - Jackson Browne (Asylum)
Fly Like an Eagle - The Steve Miller Band (Capitol)
This Week
Last Wk
1. Torn Between Two Lovers -
Mary MacGregor (Ariola America) 6
2. I Wish - Stevie Wonder (Tamla) 3
3. Car Wash - Rose Royce (MCA) 1
4. Hot Line - The Sylvers (Capitol) 5
5. Dazz - Brick (Bang)
4
6. Blinded By the Light -
Manfred Mann's Earth Band (Warner Brs) 9
7. You Make Me Feel Like Dancing -
Leo Sayer (Warner Brs) 2
8. New Kid in Town - The Eagles (Asylum) 7
9. Enjoy Yourself - The Jacksons (Epic) 8
10. Weekend In New England - Barry
Manilow (Arista)
16
11. You Don't Have to Be a Star (To Be In My Show) --
Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis, Jr. (ABC) 10
12. After the Lovin' - Engelbert
Humperdinck (Epic)
11
13. Lost Without Your Love - Bread (Elektra) 19
14. Walk This Way - Aerosmith (Columbia) --
15. I Like Dreamin' - Kenny Nolan (20th Century) 13
16. Dancing Queen - ABBA (Atlantic) 12
17. Don't Leave Me This Way - Thelma
Houston (Tamla)
--
18. Year of the Cat - Al Stewart (Janus) 31
19. Love Theme from "A Star Is Born"
(Evergreen) - Barbra Streisand (Columbia) 28
20. Fly Like an Eagle - The Steve Miller) --
Hot Pick (HP) At Midnight (My Love Will Lift Up)
- Rufus featuring Chaka Khan (ABC)
HP Do Ya - Electric Light Orchestra (United Artists)
HP Maybe I'm Amazed - Wings (Capitol)
You Are the Woman - Firefall (Atlantic)
Nadia's Theme - Barry DeVorzon & Perry
Botkin, Jr. (A&M)
The Rubberband Man - The Spinners (Atlantic)
Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word - Elton John
(Rocket)
Whispering/Cherchez la Femme/Se Si Bon - Dr.
Buzzard's Original Savannah Band (RCA)
Tonight's the Night - Rod Stewart (Warner Brs)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Marquee Moon: LP (USA) Elektra 7E-1098, February 8, 1977,
did not chart in US;
LP (UK) Elektra K-52046 March 1977, reached #28 in UK;
'Marquee Moon' - Pt 1 / 'Marquee Moon' - Pt 2, (UK) 7" single
Elektra K.12252 1977, reached #30 in UK;
'Prove It'/'Venus', (UK) 12" single Elektra K 12262 1977,
reached #25 in UK;
CD USA Elektra/Rhino 8122-73920-2, 2003 Remastered.
See No Evil (Verlaine)
Venus (Verlaine)
Friction (Verlaine)
Marquee Moon (Verlaine)
Elevation (Verlaine)
Guiding Light (Lloyd/Verlaine)
Prove It (Verlaine)
Torn Curtain (Verlaine)
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