I had heard of the band “Television” and was an immediate fan, even though I had never heard their music at the time. I remember seeing a photograph of Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, around 1974, in Andy Warhol’s magazine “Interview.” I was struck at first by their haircut and second by their clothing. I also liked how they posed themselves on what looked like a couch. There appeared to be something intimate between them, but I didn’t feel it was sexual, but more of a common interest in one’s beauty. History has indicated that they would not remain together, but those moments were blissful. Along with Interview magazine, my father also had a subscription to The Village Voice, which at the time was a mirror to anything interesting, which is two words: New. York.
Looking at a series of images of the band over the ensuing months made me make up my soundtrack to what they may sound like. I presume they were loud, with a lot of guitars. Reading the various reviews in The Village Voice, I couldn’t get a realistic idea of what they sounded like - all the descriptions were quite poetic, and there was no explicit reference to other types of music. I figured they were on the avant-garde side with melody. Once my father finished the issue, I would take it and cut out the pictures of Television, specifically Tom Verlaine. I was (and still am) a huge Richard Hell fan, but Verlaine was (and still, to this day) a mystery. Numerous people I have met over the years have commented that he’s a strange man. They never use the word ‘eccentric’ but that he was very ghost-like and very much, in his manner, a perfectionist. He was likewise a poet and changed his name from Miller to Verlaine, while the other brother-in-arms had his name changed to Hell. Since I read French poetry, I immediately got the connection between them and Paul Verlaine/ Arthur Rimbaud. At the time, I thought that was a perfect thing to be done in a rock n’ roll context. The other thing I liked about them was their song titles - specifically “Blank Generation” and “Little Johnny Jewel.” I tried to imagine what it sounded like by repeatedly reading the two song titles. As the poet Heinrich Heine commented: “Where words leave off, music begins. ”
It may have been in 1976 that I purchased the 45 rpm single “Little Johnny Jewel: Parts 1 & 2” on Ork Records. Seven minutes or so of perfect bliss. I have never taken heroin, but I have heard that once you shoot up, especially the first time, you get a sense of warmth. I get that by just hearing his voice and the scratching guitars building to an intense final. At the time, I thought it was the most incredible piece of music ever on vinyl. It was cinematic in that it placed images in my head. The song is sketchy, reminding me how Thelonious Monk played with a melody. Just by outlining it, like a pencil drawing on paper. Or maybe by tracing the theme through tracing paper. It’s transparent, and the opening words: “Little Johnny Jewel/he’s really cool/ had no decisions,” kicked the door down, and I wondered if I was on the same landscape as Verlaine and company. I’m in another world. That is precisely what I like about art in general. I want to remove myself from a place on another plane, but I want to view my body below.
At first, “all I really want is enough to live on, a little house in the country … and a tree in the garden with seven of my enemies hanging in it.” But that changed when I heard Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, Billy Ficca, and Fred Smith (who replaced Hell). Around the same time, I also purchased Richard Hell’s EP, which was magnificent as well. So by 1977, my life tragically changed, but I now have the soundtrack to the road to hell (no pun intended) and back.
My introduction to Tom Verlaine and Television is something that can’t happen again. My whole exposure to them was through print, especially newspapers (The Village Voice) and publications like New York Rocker and Andy Warhol’s Interview. I live in a shit-hole Topanga Canyon, where these publications may have saved my life. So, without the easy world of the Internet, I had to imagine what Verlaine sounded like, just by what others had written but also by the image of this beautiful man. For me, there is a feminine quality to Verlaine’s guitar playing, especially within the relationship of masculine Richard Lloyd’s guitar sound. Seeing them live and on recordings, you can hear their relationship as they go back and forth. It’s sensuality at work and a thing of great beauty and passion.
When I first saw Television at the Whiskey right after Marquee Moon was released, I was struck by their stance on the stage. It was a stage occupied by four individuals who didn’t smile. They barely acknowledge each other, but only by their instruments are they having this aural relationship in front of the audience. I felt like a voyeur watching something intimate taking place in front of me. Tom Verlaine’s death is a strange passing. At times, as a distanced fan, he seemed like a ghost. And it is that ghost-like hold on me when I listen to his beautiful music.
P.S. My favorite Tom Verlaine solo song:
thank you Tosh for putting many of my feelings into words.. love Tom and everything he did.. I met him briefly at All Tomorrows Parties at UCLA, RIP
thank you. the shared genesis of Verlaine and Hell always seemed fitting/mystifying .