Hi,
I just needed to finally write something about Tom V. and his passing; not to appear melodramatic but mostly for my own mental and physical health. So, I hope what follows isn't too long or boring or dull or repetitive.
Given Tom's heavy smoking over his life-time (I realize he tried many, many times to give up cigarettes, and sometimes he was successful for several years at a time), I guess the son-of-a-gun was fortunate he made it to 73. Years ago, in the late 1970s early 1980s I did not think he'd even live to be 50. So, I/we should be grateful for all those extra years of life and songwriting he gave us
I was very fortunate to see Television or Tom’s solo-career Band of the 1980s a grand total of 27 times (includes one Music For Film performance and two Verlaine solo-acoustic shows). The review below of "Dreamtime" was written by Michael Howell in the October 17, 1981 Boston Phoenix. I believe it's one of the most thoughtful and beautifully written reviews of Verlaine's music. I'm also posting below another nice piece of writing on Tom again from The Boston Phoenix, September 1979 Review of Tom Verlaine (Elektra) by Milo Miles.
I first heard Television on Oedipus’ Boston late night radio show on WBCN ("See No Evil") in February 1977, and rushed out and bought Marquee Moon. I have to admit that initially I only really listened to the title song and "See No Evil"---both of which I played over and over. But that soon changed dramatically. (I had earlier read about Television/Verlaine in a 1974-75 issue of Fusion Magazine.)
Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I think the 2nd Television and 2nd Talking Heads records came out close together. I remember the Harvard Cooperative in Cambridge, MA ----where I bought all my records because of their liberal return policy on defects ---had a large display of current rock albums' covers, and I recall the red Talking Heads’ 2nd album, being placed right next to the red cover of Adventure. I bought Adventure (not because of its red cover), but accidentally missed the band's only 1978 live appearance in Boston in late May 1978.
But it wasn't until 1979 when I read a brilliant review of Tom's first solo record by Mio Miles of The Boston Phoenix that inspired me to buy it, that I became---how should I put it---totally obsessed(?) with Television and Verlaine's music. The last line of the review said something along the lines of how "...Verlaine's guitar playing on this record would make those 'walls in that room') spring to life." When shortly thereafter I listened to this record, to paraphrase Keith Allison, my life was irrevocably changed.
October 17, 1981, The Boston Phoenix , Review of the album "Dreamtime" by Michael Howell.
It was almost inevitable that Tom Verlaine would release an album with the word "dream" in the title. Since the first Television albums, dreams have been Verlaine's territory. This doesn't mean that Verlaine's music is exclusively dreamy--though there are numerous songs that could take that adjective--but it does provide a way to understand his approach. "How I love to wander," he wrote in "Breakin’ In My Heart." Trouble is, his mind doesn't often wander down gentle paths, and a dream's serendipity can quickly become dangerous. So while other surrealist or psychedelic musicians attempt to bring us into their experience, Verlaine's electrifying guitar playing is the subconscious attempt to illuminate the unknowable. If you've followed that, you're probably a fan from the album, "Marquee Moon." If not, don't be put off: "Dreamtime" may be the work of a mystic, but it's also a showcase for some of the sharpest, most devastating guitar work in years.
"There's a Reason" kicks off with a lumbering martial rhythm; Verlaine's guitar doesn't even come into the mix until the first chorus. He skates along, scattering high notes until the return to the original rhythm. Then, like Bobby Orr playing with a sluggish opponent, he glides alongside in imitation, throwing off four or five notes to the rhythm's one, yet always keeping the pace. Verlaine tires of this sport, however, by the time the chorus repeats and administers a dazzling coup de grace. First, sustained single notes are bent around the thumping rhythm; then he breaks into a three-note riff, but it's repeated eight times, and with each repetition the center note inches higher--an audible turn of the screw. When Verlaine finally releases into a starburst of high notes, you feel you've survived an experience no one warned might be dangerous.
Anxious uncertainty has always characterized Verlaine’s work. Who else would title an album centered around the idea of being "Careful" and looking for a "Foxhole" because there's "too much danger Adventure? Verlaine’s never sure what's out there in his head, so wariness seems the prudent course. In the grinding rocker that opens the second side, he's trying to place "Mr. Blur." The Stones-tinged "A Future in Noise" finds him warning both the person he's talking to and himself that "I gotta keep about a mile from you/Arm's length just won't do." The dreamer might sometimes wish he were an insomniac, but as his most revealing line puts it, Verlaine knows that he has to "face what's never there."
Yet that recognition that he’s not quite sure what to expect also translates into Verlaine’s gift as a guitarist. No one else uses hesitation, the excruciating half-beat before the guitar solo rushes in, so effectively. No rock guitarist so frequently and gloriously seizes upon the element of surprise: even on songs with a familiar tempo, Verlaine's solos come at us from an unexpected direction. To us it’s the shock of the new; to him it's a way of keeping the demons off-guard. On "Without a Word," a slow and (dare I say it?) dreamy song, you almost think it's over; there's a pause, then Verlaine flings off a breathtaking crystalline solo. Suddenly the song is transformed from something of a plodder to something special--and the mid-solo swoop into the guitar's lower register seals it.
"Dreamtime" is almost evenly divided between the post-coital dreams and the pre-heartburn dreams. "The Blue Robe" (an instrumental also available as a 12-inch import vocal version), "Without a Word," "Fragile'" and "Mary Marie" make up the first category. They are uniformly lovely, and lavished with little touches, though save for "Fragile," they're no surprise to people who are familiar with "Last Night" or "The Dream's Dream." Perhaps because there's less content, the second category has more staying power. My favorite song, "Always," yokes all Verlaine's tough-minded virtues. Opening with some nervous perimeter-patrolling by two guitars ("Marquee Moon," anyone?) and an I-dare-you-to-wake-me-up vocal, it turns a tight corner and becomes wistfully romantic--"Love remains the best kept secret in town." This line is repeated twice, aided by Verlaine's inexhaustible arsenal of embellishments, and then the song screams to a conclusion, with Verlaine whipping a stinging gu!
itar line ever higher!
What's the market for guitar heroes these days? More promising than one might expect, judging from two different Verlaine performances on his current tour. At the Paradise in Boston, Verlaine was treated with near reverence by a crowd that contained more than one local musician ("Every guitarist in town is here," whispered Mission of Burma’s Roger Miller). Verlaine responded to the audience's indulgence with a daring series of explorations. His voice was even more anemic than usual, but with the systolic support of former Television bassist, Fred Smith, he made each song an adventure. Alone in the spotlight, Verlaine seemed to be feeling his way through familiar territory that had become overgrown with brush, and his soloing had a fraught-with-peril tension. Three nights later, in Rosalyn, Long Island, Verlaine was more accessible, though no less brilliant. A cross between Lou Reed and Neil Young, he struck closer to the linear sound of his records. The band, which!
seemed to play so small a part in the Boston concert, sounded epic. And when Verlaine strummed four chords after the line in "Breakin' in My Heart" [they] "threw me in a room without walls," those imaginary walls sprang up. It was then that I knew he could build his dream house.
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Another short interview with Tom, Oct. 1977, The Boston Phoenix by Frank Rose “An Elegant Enigma”: On record, Verlaine sounds like a person who would never let anyone see into his eyes. In person, however, he flashes them coquettishly. They are limpid caverns that seem to reveal all, but actually communicate ironic distance. Verlaine says as little as possible - he doesn't speak to fill the silence - but after every sentence he flashes a signal, seeming to indicate that the interview should be taken as a joke. After all, what can Verlaine say about himself? Not much, except in small ways that reveal - and he is far too defensive to risk much of that. His work is what counts, and he cannot or will not discuss it except in "aw shucks, it's only me and my guitar" terms. He is a bit unpolished as an enigma, but his art demands enigmatic poses and he will polish them as surely as Bob Dylan did his. At any rate, what he wants is not a platform for discourse but some response !
to his art - airplay, criticism, that sort of thing. If he isn't getting it, that could be because Television seems so opposed to the trends in commercial rock. "We're also opposed to the trends in uncommercial rock," Verlaine says. "“I don’t see our style as different from any number of so-called successful rock groups,” Verlaine continues, “We're just a different sort of band”: this could be Television's epitaph. At a time when gloss and pleasant mediocrity are the recognized denominators of success, Television dares to be different. Not wild and raw, like Patti Smith, but precise and searing. Their lyrics are perfectly enunciated, but fragmented and dream-like. Their music is biting and acidic. Yet for all its frenetic qualities it is also elegant, formal and measured. The sting of double guitars is both graceful and awesome; the voice may sound fragile and wounded, but the stately pace renders the singer in- vulnerable. Verlaine turns on this record like a rev!
olving mannequin, slowly, behind glass, as if in some curiously mechanized dream.
After all, what can Verlaine say about himself? Not much, except in small ways that reveal — and he is far too defensive to risk much of that. His work is what counts, and he cannot or will not discuss it except in aw-shucks-it’s-only-me-and-my-guitar terms. He is a bit unpolished as an enigma, but his art demands enigmatic poses and he will polish them as surely as Bob Dylan did his.
At any rate, what he wants is not a platform for discourse but some response to his art — airplay, criticism, that sort of thing. If he isn’t getting it, that could be because Television seems so opposed to the trends in commercial rock. “We're also opposed to the trends in uncommercial rock,” Verlaine says. “I don’t see our style as different from any number of so-called successful rock groups .... You name ‘em — you name the successful rock groups, that’s what I'm talking about. I don’t think we’re so different from any of them.”
Surely I ask: “There must be some differences?”. Verlaine: “In the ‘70s, the trend in rock ‘n’ roll is for somebody to totally pattern themselves after someone else. Then they play 300 nights a year and make a lot of money, because the people who see you will go buy your records. I’m talking about Aerosmith or Kiss. Everybody’s out trying to be commercial. I’m not trying to be anything, really.” Verlaine grins, then picks at a fingernail with his steak knife.
“We're not some fantasy-oriented band — like Kiss goes out and projects their ... insect fantasy. But we're not out to project what might be considered common, everyday life, either.”.
Does this mean they’re out to project some kind of extraordinary life? Verlaine smiles. “Just remember — you said it.”
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It’s a virtually impossible task to choose one’s favorite Tom Verlaine songs---- maybe akin to choosing a favorite child in a large loving family. Below are some of my all-time favorites:
Guiding Light
The Dream’s Dream
Ain’t That Nothin’ [especially version from Live At The Old Waldorf, San Francisco, 6/29/78]
Kingdom Come
Breakin’ In My Heart
Last Night (with its multitude of false endings, and as far as I can determine it was never performed live)
Without A Word (only ever performed live once at a show in Providence, Rhode Island!)
Mary Marie
Always
Mr. Blur
Fragile
Postcard From Waterloo
At 4 a.m.
The Scientist Writes A Letter
1880 Or So (Rose Of My Heart), DVD Feb 2, 1993, BBC’s ‘Later With Jools Holland Show’, UK [Russ of the Marquee Moon Mailing List once wrote: “That is such an amazing performance! It perfectly showcases both Lloyds’ and Verlaine’s playing, and also is a great example of them both soloing in a modal style in a major key, which I think is unusual.] Leo says, Verlaine’s solo is impressive, almost scary[?] and otherworldly as if the robot, Gort, from the 1951 film “The Day The Earth Stood Still” was playing it!
‘Marquee Moon’ Live, June 4, 1981, The Ritz, NYC (21:09.7 is the length of just the song itself.) I attended this show! However, the song-length is an even longer 21:17.9 if we include all of the quite audible, lingering, and wonderfully long-lasting reverberation/resonance in the room (i.e., in the Ritz) at the song’s end. This reverberation/resonance begins with the last guitar-crescendo at 21:01.8 (i.e., at elapsed time 21:02.0 - 0.2 pre-song cheers), and continues for 16.1 sec. until 21:17.9 (i.e., until 21:18.1 - 0.2).] Maurice Rickard described Verlaine’s guitar playing at this show as ‘ferocious’!
The Day On You (only one live performance exists: “May 15, 2006, The 9:30 Club, Wash., D.C.)
I am sure I goofed up and left off a couple of other songs. :>)
And finally this from The Boston Phoenix, September 1979 Review of Tom Verlaine (Elektra) by Milo Miles
Tom Verlaine's songs may be the slipperiest most hermetic in rock 'n' roll. One can imagine him, like Brian Wilson, spending his life in a small room, staring out his window and spinning visions: more emaciated, of course, and looking into far more sordid scenery. Verlaine's landscape is dotted with crossroads, blank highway signs, and seedy minstrels carrying battered guitars. It's the blues according to Robert Johnson, according to a rock 'n' roll fan of French symbolism. Tom Verlaine is the first new-wave blues record, just as Verlaine's sculptured guitar flights made Television the first and only psychedelic new-wave band. Verlaine is too clever to mimic Robert Johnson's music, but is self-aware and moody enough to be Johnson's spiritual offspring.
Tom Verlaine contains such a thicket of overdubbed licks that the instrumentation seems more elaborate than it actually is---mostly Verlaine's guitars, vocals, and keyboards; Fred Smith's bass (from Television); and Jay Dee Daughterty drums (from the Patti Smith Group). Like a traditional blues player, Verlaine uses his guitar to flesh out his narrative, but as a rock 'n' roller, he creates a new protean language. Verlaine tends to speak in tumbling images ("Thirty lights in a row/Every one of them green/How it reminds me/Of your souvenir from a dream"), but he has left the ethereal heights of Television to knock about with some earthly characters and fables; moreover, the opened-up music progressions of the album, Tom Verlaine, make the chunky chord breaks and flurries of bent notes sound less willful. In "The Grip of Love," for example, Verlaine repeatedly carves a characteristically jutting guitar figure that swoops up and snaps the beat each time; for contrast, he thr!
ows out point-blank lyrics with a surprisingly smooth and well-phrased vocal: "We tried so many things/To find out how it felt/Now you say 'get lost'/Well don’t that blow my belt." Despite the comparisons that have been made, Verlaine's music doesn't unfold like the Grateful Dead's----there's no laid-back rambling, but a sense of suspension as the harsh, economical notes are arranged in cubistic designs. The songs hang in the air like the smell of cordite at the scene of a murder: slightly intriguing, slightly dangerous.
"Yonki Time" is the most outrageous juxtaposition of angles. Over a fragmented, calliope-tinged rhythm, Verlaine strings a series of lyrics ("so nice, to meetcha, isn't it ... guess I'll take the garbage out ... uh, what time did you say it was?") while a droll chorus snorts, coughs, whistles, and shouts, "It's Yonki Time!" The number is less charged than the other cuts with superhero guitar, but it's still insistent---light because sober Verlaine is pulling an out-and-out gag, but also tense because the call-and-response voices suggest a nervous straight surrounded by threatening pinheads. As the song lurches along, it's clear that Verlaine is parodying himself (the impassioned poet reduced to non sequitur small talk)---that it is Verlaine behind the pinhead masks mocking his own sense of control.
Tom Verlaine is indeed a tidy record, as minutely thought-out and worked-over as, say, a Steely Dan album, and, at times, Verlaine's sense of perfection undercuts his desire for adventure. He easily shoves aside Ricky Wilson's second guitar parts on "Breakin' In My Heart." With Television, Verlaine was forced to grapple with the prodigious counterattack of Richard Lloyd, and the result was often an exciting draw. With the album Tom Verlaine, it's only shadowboxing, and another strong player would have put Verlaine back into hard training.
Still there a virtues to Verlaine's current high polish, and you can hear most of them in "Breakin' In My Heart," an update of the guitar-epic style that was born kicking and screaming with "Marquee Moon." Redemption is a persistent theme for Verlaine, and "Breakin' in My Heart" is a choice example of how he chase the blues. The melody deftly bounces up and down for six minutes (too brittle for pop, a bit too smooth for punk) as Verlaine spouts his rough romanticisms until the music fades; he sounds boldly at the helm of his drunken boat. "Breakin' In My Heart" sails out with such conviction that you don't need to penetrate the obsessions to be transformed by listening to Verlaine work them out. --Milo Miles
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From: tv-owner@obbard.com <tv-owner@obbard.com> On Behalf Of Joe Hartley
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Subject: Re: Remembering Tom Verlaine
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