Re: (TV) Alleged Boot of Television's 1st ever show at CBGB / New Book's details on Gabriel fans & Television

[Steve Rovner <serovner@mindspring.com>]

Me either.  Leo, we officially designate you to contact the author of the book and hunt down the recording!


-----Original Message-----
>From: Phil Obbard <pobbard@yahoo.com>
>Sent: Nov 29, 2011 2:00 PM
>To: "tv@obbard.com" <tv@obbard.com>
>Subject: Re: (TV) Alleged Boot of Television's 1st ever show at CBGB /  New Book's  details on Gabriel fans & Television
>
>This is interesting, but I have never, ever heard of a recording of the March
>31, 1974 show in circulation. Perhaps the author has access to an unknown
>cache of tapes, or perhaps he is mistaken/mislead... lots of poorly-labelled
>tapes floating around out there!
>
>--Phil
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Leo Casey <LeoCasey@comcast.net>
>To: tv@obbard.com 
>Sent: Tuesday,
>November 29, 2011 11:32 AM
>Subject: (TV) Alleged Boot of Television's 1st ever
>show at CBGB / New Book's  details on Gabriel fans & Television
> 
>I know
>technically we're not supposed to discuss bootlegs on this List, but
>my
>question is in the context of does a bootleg of Television's first ever
>CBGB
>show on March 31, 1974 really exist, but NOT how to get a copy.  I am
>very
>skeptical ; why wouldn't it have surfaced years ago or by now?
>
>
>
>It's
>discussed in a new book which Glen Copper posted on last week (and
>which I
>just finished. I'd give it a B+) titled Love Goes To  Buildings On
>Fire:  5
>Years in New York That Changed Music Forever" ( by Will Hermes).  I
>typed up
>most of the sections that discuss Television below.  The March 31,
>1974
>bootleg claim is in paragraph 3, p. 68.
>
>
>
>
>
>p.230:  In March, the band was
>back on stage at CBGB. But now the audience
>was full of famous people who'd
>come down to the Bowery by town car.  At one
>set, Linda Ronstadt, Paul Simon,
>and Peter Gabriel showed up. Champagne was
>sent to the 'dressing room', a
>six-by-nine storage space of graffitied
>plywood and plasterboard.  Gabriel was
>smitten, and invited the band to be
>the openers for hid debut solo U.S. tour. 
>The accepted.  The catch:  the
>tour started in a few days.  In many cases, it
>was too late to advertise the
>band in advance, so Television faced a crowd of
>Genesis fanatics expecting a
>whole night of their hero Gabriel, who had
>recently left the band.
>
>
>
>For all the musical kinship between the bands, the
>upshot of the pairing was
>inescapable:  it was a showdown between punk and
>prog rock.  Even the
>hometown show at the Palladium was a battleground.  I'd
>woken up at dawn to
>wait outside the Ticketron outlet at Macy's on Queen's
>Boulevard and scored
>fourth row seats---the best I'd ever  had for a show. 
>The band came out to
>scattered applause and a chant of "GAY-BREE-ELLLL" that
>persisted throughout
>the set.  Verlaine looked all business; Lloyd smirked
>tightly.  Verlaine
>started into the tick-tock rhythm of 'Prove It, spitting
>out the title
>refrain amid guitar spirals like he was arguing with the crowd,
>taunting
>them, yelping "Just the facts!" like Dylan shouting "I don't believe
>you,
>you're a liar!" to a heckler at Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 before
>tearing into 'Like A Rolling Stone'.  'Venus' was violent and spiky, more
>George Braque than Alexandros of Antioch, 'Marquee Moon' was accelerated but
>incandescent, notes stabbing like knives, then twisting to open the wound
>wider.  The crowd, fans of Gabriel's theatrics with Genesis, was unimpressed
>with the four guys who pretty much just stood onstage, unsmiling, playing
>their instruments.  The boos and chants competed with the cheers and finally
>overwhelmed them.. Verlaine flipped off the crowd with his spindly middle
>finger and left the stage.  
>
>
>
>Television headed off for their debut U.K.
>tour, followed by Blondie, who
>were the opening act.  There was no love lost
>between the groups.
>Television were surly and standoffish.  On top of it all,
>Chris Stein and
>Debbie Harry had to see their former bassist, Fred Smith, whom
>Television
>had poached two years prior.  At one point, Richard Lloyd and
>Blondie's
>keyboardist, Jimmy Destri, got into a fistfight.    
>
>
>
>p. 68: 
>Television played there [CBGB] on Sunday, March 31.  ...The set was
>sloppy but
>intense and, at moments, stunning.  Hell's 'Love Comes In Spurts'
>dated back
>to the Neon Boys ; 'Venus, 'I Don't Care', and 'Eat The Light
>were new.  So
>was 'Blank Generation', a song that on a bootleg recording of
>that night,
>Can't seem to decide what it wants to be.  Hell's vocals are
>pinched ,
>inflamed, not fucking around:  "I belong to the blank generation",
>he sneers,
>"I can take it or leave it each time.".  Ficca's drums lumber
>behind, while
>guitars careen:  chattering, squealing, sputtering, following
>a shifty melody
>that at one point resembles 'Big Spender', the campy come-on
>from Sweet
>Charity best known  at the time as the soundtrack to a Muriel
>cigar
>commercial.  The guitarists sound like they're goofing, except when
>lines
>occasionally synch and bloom like fireworks. 
>
>
>
>p. 229:  Television's Marquee
>Moon was released by Elektra Records on
>February 8 . To celebrate the album's
>completion, Verlaine treated himself
>to a London vacation, his first ever
>visit.  At a Notting Hill Gate
>newsstand, he saw the February 5 issue of NME
>with his band on the cover.
>The review was a two-page spread.  The critic Nick
>Kent called it "a
>24-carat inspired work of pure genius.".  Notwithstanding
>the U.K. Music
>press hyperbole, this was deserved praise.
>
>
>
>Figuring he
>should maybe call up the London office of Elektra, which had no
>clue he was in
>town, Verlaine found them startled that he'd been there all
>week, sightseeing
>by himself and chain-smoking  (he had a two pack a day
>habit) when he could
>have been doing press to promote the record.
>
>
>
>Back in the States, meanwhile,
>Television's debut was apparently no big
>priority for Elektra.  One can
>imagine the meetings.  What the hell is this
>record?  Punk rock?  With guitar
>solos and ten-minute songs?  Art rock? With
>no synthesizers or oversized drum
>kits?  Why is the band called Television,
>anyway?
>
>
>
>p. 67:  Hell and Verlaine
>settled on the name because they both hated the
>medium and they figured they
>could be a living, breathing alternative to it.
>They thought they could "tell
>a vision".  And though he didn't crow about
>it, Verlaine thought it fit nicely
>with his initials. 
>http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/11/21/interview-will-he
>rmes-author-of-love-goes-to-buildings-on-fire
>
>
>(TV) Love Goes To Buildings On
>Fire
>
>  _____  
>
>
>*    To: tv@obbard.com <mailto:tv%40obbard.com>  
>*   
>Subject: (TV) Love Goes To Buildings On Fire 
>*    From: Glenn Cooper
><glennwaynecooper@gmail.com
><mailto:glennwaynecooper%40gmail.com> > 
>*   
>Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:06:32 +1100 
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>  _____  
>
>size=2 width="100%"
>align=center>
><http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/11/21/interview-will-h
>ermes-author-of-love-goes-to-buildings-on-fire>
>http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/11/21/interview-will-he
>rmes-author-of-love-goes-to-buildings-on-fire
>
>New book. Looks good.
>
>Glenn C.
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