television - queen elizabeth hall, london, 21 june 2005

More from the written years ago but never used pile...

Although it said 7.45 on the ticket I think everyone was surprised when the last call bell rang at 7.45 and Television actually ambled onto the stage. Nothing in the way of Good Evening London, or even any acknowledgement that they were even on stage. Richard Lloyd looked really scruffy! Horrible red shirt and terrible sweatpants rolled up at the ankles. At least Fred Smith and Tom Verlaine wore regulation black jeans...

A surprisingly brief bit of noodling / tooning and we were off into the first of a whole bunch of new songs. Really new ones, not even the ones that they have been performing over the last few years. These were brand new. And good too - quite rocky in places. The opening new piece, apparently called "Flower Spasm" at the moment led into a spirited "Venus" and the always welcome "1880 Or So", the long jam at the end lifting the song into the stratosphere. 

Then four new ones in a row! The new songs were, on the whole, rather tasty. No idea what they were about as the words were sung in Tom's usual strangled goat voice (Richard Lloyd's description!) and he often didn't bother to get too close to the microphone. Even when he did, his voice was mixed too low for most of the first half of the show anyway and was therefore overpowered by (mainly) Richard's guitar. Of these tracks, "The Sea" is a mighty impressive slice of moody, swirly rock and one of the best tracks Television have ever done in my opinion. Since 2002 they've played about 8 or 9 new songs - so when's the album coming out? (**)

In between the songs Tom consulted with his music stand containing his "note... book" as he called it. He speaks with loooonnng pauses in the oddest places. He also muttered something about "we like to come and play in European theatres. It's like rehearsing on stage. That means we'll be really good when we get back to our practice room..."

Tom actually seemed quite cheery though, in his usual distracted manner. According to TV, Richard plays the "Strat - o - cast - or..." and Fred plays the "bass" but he pronounced it like the fish... it seemed to amuse him though! 

Lots of protracted tuning while Fred stood and watched. Billy Ficca used these times to tap everything he could find with his drumsticks and occasionally he managed, in this way, to lead these seemingly random tunings into actual songs. Richard seemed quite chirpy too but still looks like he's gonna murder someone when he takes a solo, and he holds his guitar as if it's really pissed him off somehow, so he's gonna strangle that mother soooo hard... But what magnificent playing! It's fascinating to see them up close and watch the constant swapping of lead lines. "Marquee Moon" is a good example - Tom plays the choppy riff at the start of the song as Richard does the fiddly bits, but somehow they seamlessly swap over for the long solo in the middle. As usual there's very little interaction between the band members - they barely look at each other. 

Old favourites - "Venus", "See No Evil", "Prove It", "Call Mr. Lee", "1880", and of course "Marquee Moon" were all dispatched with a freshness that pleased me. "Mr. Lee" was especially good, a really chunky sound from Lloyd. 

Then after a great encore of "Little Johnny Jewel" another, shorter mic stand appeared on stage and when they all wandered back again they were accompanied by Patti Smith in battered leather boots and a sort of tweed jacket over a lurid orange t-shirt. With her glasses and her greying frizzy hair she looked like a scary granny. She launched into a semi-improvised song / poem - about Ophelia it appeared - backed by a top new tune from Television. It was a really great, powerful piece - Patti reading most of the words from her notebook and Tom grinning occasionally at her. Must have been written / made up on the night as it referred to the summer solstice. Very cool anyway.  

Then they all wandered off again and the lights came up. It all seemed over rather abruptly but they'd played for nearly two hours, so we can't complain.

Set list...

Flower Spasm

Venus

1880 Or So

Kinks' Song

Balloon

The Sea 

Shirley's Song (Frustration)

Prove It

Persia

Call Mr. Lee

See No Evil

Marquee Moon

Little Johnny Jewel

Ophelia (?), featuring Patti Smith...

...case closed!

** - 12 years on and there's still no sign of the album, nor do we have any idea what's happened to all the new tracks, as Television have stopped playing them! 

television - brixton electric 12 june 2016

Television are not a prolific band. Not at all.

Formed in 1974 Television originally comprised of Tom Verlaine on guitar and vocals, Richard Lloyd on guitar, Billy Ficca on drums, and Richard Hell on bass. Hell left after a couple of years and was replaced with the dependable Fred Smith on bass. After being a mainstay of the New York club scene, specifically CBGBs along with Blondie, Ramones, Talking Heads and others, they eventually recorded their debut in 1977. Marquee Moon was instantly acclaimed as a classic New York album. The follow up in 1978 was the criminally under appreciated Adventure, which refined and expanded Marquee Moon's taut tension. But Television split soon afterwards with Verlaine issuing a series of excellent solo albums. Without any fanfare at all, 1992 saw a third album, the unimaginatively titled Television. This was basically the perfect Television sound condensed into 10 shortish songs, almost like miniatures. Since then the band has issued just one new song, an instrumental on a compilation about five years ago.

Over the past 24 years they have sporadically played live, and at some of the gigs ten years ago almost half the set was made up of new songs. Things looked promising for a fourth album, but then in 2007 Richard Lloyd left. He was quickly replaced with Verlaine's long time guitar partner Jimmy Rip, so the change hasn't really caused too many problems when playing live, but it does seem to have halted all the momentum in the new tracks. Currently the band is playing most or all of Marquee Moon and just a handful or other songs in their sets. Only one of which is a new piece - "Persia" has been gestating and mutating in concert for nearly 15 years and the current 20 minute plus version is full of sinuous guitar lines, satisfyingly chunky bass and Ficca at his most nimble, drumming everything in sight.

It's perhaps a little disappointing that the band's set lists have remained pretty static over the past four or five years. You'd think they could mix it up a little more, play a slightly more varied set sometimes - after all they have less than 30 recorded songs from which to choose, so it surely wouldn't be that hard to have most, or all, of them gig-ready.

Having said that, despite playing much the same set, Television rarely play songs the same way twice, so even if you witness consecutive gigs, you're actually going to experience something quite different each time.

The recent show at the Electric in Brixton was full, opening act Lail Arad was pretty solid (interesting songs, though perhaps overdoing the quirkiness a little too much) and the crowd was in a very good mood. Television ambled onto the stage at about ten past nine and Verlaine immediately started tuning his guitar. He's made this obsession into an art form, and his lengthy tuning breaks have become almost legendary. As he's fiddling and tweaking Billy Ficca started drumming, the sides of his drums, the stands, the skins, it's all percussion to Ficca - he's a wonderfully inventive and entertaining drummer to watch. Then with no warning the tuning becomes a song. "Prove It" was a cracking choice of opening tune - everyone singing along right from the start.

 

The band were perhaps not quite as tight as I've seen them previously, Verlaine seemingly a little distracted by some sound problems on stage, and this unusually resulted in a few songs sounding a little underwhelming - "Venus" for example, seemed a little half hearted. But then they'd deliver a track like "Torn Curtain" which was so full of passion and fire and crackling energy, or a stunningly delicate "Guiding Light" laced with Jimmy Rip's sterling soloing.  

 

Then you have "Persia", a tune which the band clearly enjoys playing, giving everyone chance to experiment and stretch out, and this begs the question - why only the one new tune? What has happened to all the other new pieces?

 

And of course, there is "Marquee Moon". It might seem obligatory for Television to play "MM" every set, but bloody hell this is a monster of a song. It is utterly enthralling, hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck thrilling, every single time I hear it. The build up at the end of the middle section is one of the most exciting sections of music as you'll ever hear, and then it all tumbles down with that glorious cascading shimmering guitar. Stunning.  

 

The encore, "I'm Gonna Find You" was only ever going to be an anti-climax after "Marquee Moon". It's a decent enough song, but a poor choice on which to end the show I feel, as it's simply too slow, and not really interesting enough to warrant it's position as an encore track.

 

Anyway, even if Television were occasionally coasting, this band is still head and shoulders above most other bands. They seem to be enjoying themselves - lots of smiles between Verlaine and Rip - and can still more than deliver the goods. Long may they continue.

 

And, you never know, maybe one day that fourth album might get finished... 

tom verlaine - vanity fair

Tom Verlaine on the iPod today.

Specifically the Vanity Fair sessions from 1986. This is a complete album that, for reasons that no-one understands, was rejected by Verlaine's record label Fontana. It's been suggested that the songs weren't commercial enough, which is rather baffling. This is Tom Verlaine we're talking about - he's never been commercial! And Tom came up with a replacement album, Flash-Light, the following year, an album that I would suggest was considerably less commercial than the original submission… but that’s Verlaine for you...

The original sessions were recorded in London with Dave Bascombe producing and the only track that survived the rejection was a remixed "The Scientist Writes A Letter". For no obvious reason unknown the original Bascombe recording is referred to as the ‘Paris version’ despite having been recorded in London… that wacky Verlaine humour, huh? "One Time At Sundown" is the only other overlap with the Flash-Light album, but it was totally re-recorded for the released album, so this London version is different (though not that much…)

Some, but not all, of the other Vanity Fair tracks cropped up as b sides over the next few years, and some also appeared on The Miller’s Tale, the now hard to find compilation that came out in the mid 1990s. 

But the album, as originally planned, would have run as follows -

1. Sixteen Tulips

2. Caveman / Flashlight

3. Anna

4. The Scientist Writes A Letter 

5. Call Me The

6. Circling

7. Smoother Than Jones

8. Vanity Fair

9. One Time At Sundown

It's a great collection with lots of chunky guitar work from Tom and sterling support from Fred Smith on bass, Andy Newmark on drums and Jimmy Ripp on guitar.

Many of the songs are solid rockers, such as the delightful "Sixteen Tulips" or "Smoother Than Jones". In fact, these two are extremely catchy, and make me wonder about the 'not-commercial-enough argument. The melody of "Sixteen Tulips" is also suspiciously close to "Say A Prayer" on the Flash-Light album, which also makes the non-commercial argument fall apart even more.

There are gnarly, twisted guitarfests too, such as "Caveman / Flashlight" or the title track. But it's perhaps on the quieter numbers that this album really shines.

"One Time At Sundown" is light and airy and "Anna" is beautiful, and gloriously lovely in a way that most Verlaine songs aren’t. I love the offhand way Tom mumbles ‘I must lay down, but I’m not tired…’

But it's "The Scientist Writes A Letter" that floors me every time with how brilliantly clever it is, and how brilliantly emotional it is too. The guitar synths work well here, and the closing guitar solo is absolutely stunning. Tom’s vocal on this track is also worth mentioning. Frequently his vocals give the impression of being an afterthought, tossed out with little care. But here the vocal is superb – perfectly pitched, half spoken, half sung, excellent timing, and extremely well acted too. I also love the way that the lyric is written out as a letter on the lyric sheet. When you read the letter it’s almost impossible to imagine how the words could ever fit into a song, but they do, and Verlaine makes them work perfectly.

Dear Julia,
Unless chance finds us face to face again, this is the last you'll hear from me. I spent this Sunday, a long afternoon, freezing at my friend's house by the sea. We men of science... you know.

I've returned to my research in magnetic fields. It's funny how attractive indifference can be. My sense of failure... it's not so important. Electricity means so much more to me. We men of science... you know...

It's snowing again, seems like it's always snowing. Sit down to write and it's so cold. Outside my window, there's a tree so white I can hardly look at it.

It's quiet here. I look thru my glass at patterns all so well defined. Please send my winter coat soon as you can ...I find I have no other lines... we men of science... you know... all the best... all the best Julia…

The conceit of the whole vocal being a letter could come off as being daftly pretentious, but it works; it’s invested with a sharp emotional pull, and makes me buy entirely into the song. It’s the little touches – the repeated self deprecating line ‘we men of science’ is followed by a barely audible weary murmur of ‘you know…’ which doesn’t sound like much when written down but it’s wonderful when Tom does it! The Vanity Fair version is slightly different from the more familiar Flash-Light release. The synths are slightly more prominent, the whole mix is more punchy and interestingly less dreamy, and the middle part has an entirely different spoken section – instead of the tree that is so white that Tom can hardly look at it, we have some mumbled nonsense about men on a train talking about icicles… I think he made the right choice in changing this bit.

Most copies of Vanity Fair contain a bonus track - a brilliant live version of "Marquee Moon" from the 1987 tour. What a performance. I mean it’s hard to get this track wrong, as it’s so fantastic anyway, but Verlaine and Jimmy Ripp really nail "MM" just as well as Tom and Richard Lloyd did when Television played it. Tremendously exciting stuff.

Enough – I'm going to play it again.