Tom Verlaine was my kind of guitar hero. Not for him the power chords or false histrionics of heavy metal riff-makers. At a time when anyone playing more than three chords for more than three minutes could be accused of selling out, the title track to Television’s debut album in 1977 came like a bolt from the blue. This was punk rock elevated to a whole new level.
I first heard the track ‘Marquee Moon’ on the John Peel show while driving home late at night and had to pull over to give it my full attention. That solo guitar was like nothing I had heard before and the opening lyrics drew me into a world where poetry and rock’n’roll merged beautifully: “I remember how the darkness doubled, I recall lightning struck itself.”
‘Marquee Moon’ is as pivotal a record as Patti Smith’s ‘Horses’ which came out two years earlier. Smith and Verlaine briefly dated and must have been the coolest couple in New York City.
Television’s debut is so perfect that it was perhaps inevitable that their second album and eponymously titled 1992 release fail to reach the same heights.
I would have liked to see Television live at their peak in a small sweaty club; – CBGB’s for example! As it was, I finally caught them in a half empty Birmingham Odeon in 1979 , a venue hardly suited to such a vogueish band.
In the late 1980s, I saw Verlaine play a solo show at Bloomsbury Theatre, London looking so immaculately wasted that he seemed at death’s door even then. But his beaufifully chiselled featured and skinny physique have always held a special fascination for me. This was what a garret room poet ought to look like. I had no idea what his politics were or, indeed, much at all about his background, but that’s fine. He was a blank slate that I could built all my bohemian hopes and dreams upon.
Now he has finally fallen into the arms of Venus de Milo, the world is a poorer place.
Tom Verlaine (December 13, 1949 – January 28, 2023)
