{"id":73448,"date":"2023-01-30T15:58:42","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T13:58:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/?p=73448"},"modified":"2023-01-30T16:04:17","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T14:04:17","slug":"reintroducing-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/reintroducing-television\/","title":{"rendered":"Reintroducing…Television!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Det er februar 1977. Det ukendte NYC-band Television stj\u00e6ler NME’s forside, da ugemagasinets stjerneskribent Nick Kent har h\u00f8rt deres debutalbum Marquee Moon<\/em>, der netop er blevet udsendt i USA og nu er p\u00e5 vej til Europa. L\u00e6s hele hans euforiske anmeldelse herunder af et dengang sensationelt debutalbum i sin rock\/punk-samtid, nu et anerkendt og etableret mesterv\u00e6rk, en af de meget, meget f\u00e5 plader, hvor alt g\u00e5r op i den h\u00f8jeste enhed og bliver et definerende v\u00e6rk (!) for sin nutid, tidsl\u00f8s musik for al fremtid…<\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/strong>Cut the crap, junior, he sez and put the hyperbole on ice.<\/strong>
I concur thus. Sometimes it takes but one record \u2013 one cocksure magical statement \u2013 to cold-cock all the crapola and all-purpose wheatchaff mix \u2018n\u2019 match, to set the whole schmear straight and get the current state of play down down down to stand or fall in one, dignified granite-hard focus.<\/strong>
Such statements, are precious indeed.<\/strong>
Marquee Moon, the first legitimate album release from Manhattan combo Television however, is one: a 24-carat inspired and totally individualist creation which calls the shots on all the glib media pigeon-holing that\u2019s taken place predating its appearance; a work that at once makes a laughing stock of those ignorant clowns, who have filed the band\u2019s work under the cretinous banner of \u201cPunk-rock\u201d or \u201cVelvet Underground off-shoot freneticism\u201d or even (closer to home, maybe, but still way off the bulls-eye) \u201cteeth-grinding psychotic rock\u201d (\u2018Sister Ray\u2019 and assorted sonic in-laws).<\/strong>
First things first.<\/strong>
This, Television\u2019s first album is a record most adamantly, not fashioned merely for the N.Y. avant-garde rock cognoscenti. It is a record for everyone who boasts a taste for a new exciting music expertly executed, finely in tune, sublimely arranged with a whole new slant on dynamics, chord structures centred around a totally invigorating passionate application to the vision of centre-pin mastermind Tom Verlaine.<\/strong>
Two years have now elapsed since the first rave notices drifted over the hotline from down in the Bowery. Photos, principally those snapped when the mighty Richard Hell was in the band, backed up the gobbledegook but the music \u2013 well, somehow no-one really got to grips with defining that side of things so that each report carried with it a thumbnail sketch of what the listener could divine from the maelstrom. Influences were flung at the reader, most omni-touted being guitarist mastermind Verlaine\u2019s supposed immense debt to one Louis Reed circa White Heat\/White Light which meant teeth-gnashing ostrich gee-tar glissando and whining hyena vocals. You get the picture.<\/strong>
Above all, one presumed Television to be the aural epitome of junk-sick boys straight off the E.S.T. funny farm \u2013 psychotic reactions\/narcotic contractions. Hell split the scene mid-75 taking his black widow spider physique and blue-print anthem for the Blank Generation, leaving ex-buddy-boy Tom Verlaine to call all dem shots, abetted by fellow guitarist and all purpose West Coast pin-up boy Richard Lloyd, a most unconventional new wave jazz-orientated drummer, name of Billy Ficca \u2013 plus Hell\u2019s replacement, the less visually imposing but more musically adept Fred Smith.<\/strong>
It\u2019s been a good two years now since Television got those first drooling raves \u2013 two long years which led one at times to believe that Verlaine\u2019s musical visions would never truly find solace encased within the glinting sheen of black vinyl. The situation wasn\u2019t helped in the slightest by Island Records sending over Brian Eno and Richard Williams to invigilate over a premature session back in \u201875, the combination of the band\u2019s possible immaturity and Eno and Williams\u2019 understanding of what was needed to flesh out the songs recorded, resulting in the taping of four or five horrendously flat skeletal performances which gave absolutely no indication regarding the band\u2019s potential.<\/strong>
Following that snafu, Verlaine became, how you say, more than a little high-handed and downright eccentric in his dealings with other record companies and potential middle-man adversaries to the point where even those who quite desperately wished to sign him threw up their arms in despair of ever achieving such an end.<\/strong>
Reports filtering through the grapevine made Verlaine\u2019s behaviour seem like that of a madman. Even when the ink had dried on the contract Joe Smith signed with the band for Elektra Records late last year; Verlaine was apparently still so overwhelmed with paranoia that he activated a policy of never properly enunciating the lyrics to unrecorded songs in performance for fear that plagiarists might steal his lyrics before they\u2019d been set to wax.<\/strong>
The only number he dared to sing close to the microphone at this point was \u2018Little Johnny Jewel\u2019, the one-off cult single of \u201876, a bizarre morsel of highly sinister nonsense verse shaped around a quite remarkably lop-sided riff\/dynamic which set off visions (at least to this listener\u2019s ears) of an aural equivalent to the visuals used in the German impressionist cinema meisterwerk Dr Caligari\u2019s Cabinet, spliced in half (the track took up both sides of a 45 \u2013 labelled Parts 1 and 2) by a guitar solo which bore a distinct resemblance to, well, yes to Country Joe and The Fish. Their first album you know. The guitar pitch was exactly the same as that utilized by Barry Melton; fluid, mercury-like.<\/strong>
That\u2019s the thing about Television you\u2019ve first got to come to terms with. Forget all that \u201cNew York sound\u201d stuff. For starters, this music is the total antithesis of the Ramones, say, and all those minimalist aggregates. To call it Punk Rock is rather like describing Dostoevsky as a short-story writer. This music itself is remarkably sophisticated, unworthy of even being paralleled to that of the original Velvet Underground whose combined instrumental finesse was practically a joke compared to what Verlaine and co. are cooking up here. Each song is tirelessly conceived and arranged for maximum impact \u2013 the point where decent parallels really need to be made with the best West Coast groups. Early Love spring to mind, The Byrds\u2019 cataclysmic \u2018Eight Miles High\u2019 period, a soupcon even of the Doors\u2019 mondo predilections plus the very cream of a whole plethora of those psychedelic-punk bands that only Lenny Kaye knows about. Above all though the sound belongs most indubitably to Television, and the appearance of Marquee Moon at a time when rock is so hopelessly lost within the labyrinth of its own basic inconsequentiality that actual musical content has come to take a firm back-seat to \u201cattitude\u201d and all that word is supposed to signify is to these ears little short of revolutionary.<\/strong>
My opening gambit about the album providing a real focus for the current state of rock bears a relevance simply because here at last is a band whose vision is centred quite rigidly within their music \u2013 not, say, in some half-baked notion of political manifesto-mongery with that trusty, thoroughly reactionary three chord back-drop to keep the whole scam buoyant. Verlaine\u2019s appearance is simply as exciting as any other major innovator\u2019s to the sphere of rock \u2013 like Hendrix, Barrett, Dylan \u2013 and, yeah, Christ knows I\u2019m tossing up some true-blue heavies here but Goddammit I refuse to repent right now because this record just damn excites me so much.<\/strong>
To the facts then \u2013 recorded in A & R Studios, New York, produced by Verlaine himself, with engineer Andy Johns keeping a watchful eye on the board and gaining co-production credits, the album lasts roughly three quarters of an hour and contains eight songs, most of which have been recorded in demo form at least twice (the Eno debacle to begin with, followed a year later by a reported superbly produced demo tape courtesy of the Blue Oyster Cult\u2019s Alan Lanier, which, at a guess, clinched the band\u2019s Elektra deal) and have been performed live innumerable times. The wait was been worthwhile because the refining process instigated by those hesitant years has sculpted the songs into the masterpieces that are here present for all to peruse.<\/strong>
Side one makes no bones about making its presence felt, kicking off with the full-bodied thrust of \u2018See No Evil\u2019. Guitars, bass and drums are strung together fitting tight as a glove clenched into a fist punching metal rivets of sound with the same manic abandon that typified the elegant ferocity of Love\u2019s early drive. There is a real passion here \u2013 no half-baked metal cut and thrust \u2013 each beat reverberates to the base of the skull, with Verlaine\u2019s voice a unique ostrich-like pitch that might just start to grate on the senses (a la his ex-sweetheart one P. Smith) were it not so perfectly mixed into the grain of the rhythm. The chorus \/ climax is irresistible anyway \u2013 Verlaine crooning \u201cI understand destructive urges \/ They seem so imperfect \u2026 I see \u2026 I see no e-v-i-i-l-l.\u201d<\/strong>
The next song is truly something else. \u2018(The arms of) Venus De Milo\u2019 is already a classic among those who\u2019ve heard it even though it has only now been recorded. It\u2019s simply one of the most beautiful songs I\u2019ve ever heard; the only other known work I can think of to parallel it with is Dylan\u2019s \u2018Mr Tambourine Man\u2019 \u2013 yup, it\u2019s that exceptional. Only with Television\u2019s twin guitar filigree weaving round the melody it sounds like some dream synthesis of Dylan himself backed by the Byrds circa \u201865. It\u2019s really damn hard to convey just how gorgeous this song is \u2013 the performance, \u2013 all these incredible touches like the call-and-response Lou Reed parody. The song itself is like Dylan\u2019s \u2018Tambourine\u2019, a vignette of a sort dealing wiih a dream-like quasi-hallucigenic state of ephiphany. \u201cYou know it\u2019s all like some new kind of drug \/ My senses are hot and my hands are like gloves! \u2026 Broadway looks so medieval like a flap from so many pages \u2026 As I fell sideways laughing with a friend from many stages.\u201d<\/strong>
\u2018Friction\u2019 is probably the most readily accessible track from this album simply because, with its fairly anarchic, quasi-Velvets feel plus (all important) Verlaine\u2019s most pungent methedrine guitar fret-board slaughter, here it\u2019ll represent the kind of thing all those weaned on the hype and legend without hearing one note from Television will be expecting. It\u2019s good, no more, no less \u2013 bearing distinct cross-breeding with the manic slant sited on \u2018Johnny Jewel\u2019 without the latter\u2019s insidiousness. \u2018Friction\u2019 is just that \u2013 throwaway lyrics \u2013 \u201cdiction\/Friction\u201d etc. \u2013 those kind of throwaway rhymes, vicious instrumentation and a perfect climax which has Verlaine Vengefully spelling out the title \u201cF-R-I-C-T-I-O-N\u201d slashing his guitar for punctuation.<\/strong>
It\u2019s down to the album\u2019s title track to provide the side\u2019s twin feat with \u2018Venus De Milo\u2019. Conceived at a time when rock tracks lasting over ten minutes are somewhere sunk deep below the subterranean depths of contempt, \u2018Marquee Moon\u2019 is as riveting a piece of music as I\u2019ve heard since the halcyon days of\u2026 oh, God knows too many years have elapsed.<\/strong>
Everything about this piece is startling, from what can only be described as a kind of futuristic on-beat (i.e. reggae though you\u2019d have to listen damn hard to catch it) built on Verlaine\u2019s steely rhythm chopping against Lloyd\u2019s intoxicating counterpoint. Slowly a story unfurls \u2013 a typically surreal Verlaine ghost story \u2013 involving Cadillacs pulling up in graveyards and disembodied arms beckoning the singer to get in while \u201clightning struck itself\u201d and various twilight loony rejects from King Lear (that last bit\u2019s my own fight of fancy, by the way) babbling crazy retorts to equally crazy questions. The lyrics mean little, I would guess by themselves, but as a scenario for the music here they become utterly compelling.<\/strong>
The song\u2019s structure is practically unlike anything I\u2019ve ever heard before. It transforms from a strident two chord construction to a breathtakingly beautiful chord progression which acts as a motif\/climax for the narrative until the music takes over altogether. The band build on some weird Eastern modal scales not unlike those used in the extended improvised break of Fairport Convention\u2019s \u2018A Sailor\u2019s Life\u2019 on Unhalfbricking. The guitar solo \u2013 either Lloyd or Verlaine \u2013 even bears exactly the same tone as Richard Thompson\u2019s. The instrumentation reaches a dazzling frenzied peak before dispersing into tiny droplets of electricity and Verlaine concludes his ghostly narrative as the song ends with that majestic minor chord motif.<\/strong>
\u2018Marquee Moon\u2019 is the perfect place to draw attention to the band\u2019s musical assets. Individually each player is superb \u2013 not in the stereotyped sense of one who has spent hour upon hour over the record player dutifully apeing solo, riffs, embellishments but in that of only a precious few units \u2013 Can is the only band that spring to mind here at the moment. Each player has striven to create his own style. Verlaine\u2019s guitar solos take the feed-back sonic \u201caccidents\u201d that Lou Reed fell upon in his most fruitful period and has fashioned a whole style utilizing also, if I\u2019m not mistaken, the staggeringly innovative Jim McGuinn staccato free-form runs spotlit on the hideously underrated Fifth Dimension album (which no one, McGuinn included, has ever bothered to develop).<\/strong>
He takes these potentially cataclysmic ideas and rigorously shapes them into a potential total redefinition of the electric guitar. As far as I\u2019m concerned, as of this moment, Verlaine is probably the most exciting electric lead guitar player barring only Neil Young. As it is, Verlaine\u2019s solo constructions are always unconventional, forever delving into new areas, never satisfied with referring back to formulas. Patti Smith once told me, by the way, that Verlaine religiously spends 12 hours a day practising his guitar playing in his room to Pablo Casals records.<\/strong>
Richard Lloyd is the perfect foil for Verlaine. Another fine musician, his more fluid conventional pitching and manic rhythm work is the perfect complimentary force and his contribution demands to be recognised for the power it possesses. Bassist Smith is always in there holding down the undertow of the music. He emerges only when his presence is required \u2013 yet again, a superb player but next to Verlaine, it\u2019s drummer Billy Ficca, visually the least impressive of all members standing \u2013 aside the likes of cherub-faced Lloyd and super-aesthetic Verlaine, who truly astonishes. Basically a jazz drummer, Ficca\u2019s adoption of Television\u2019s majestic musical mutations as flesh-to-be-pulsed-out makes his pyrotechnics quite unique. Delicate but firm, he seems to be using every portion of his kit most of the time without ever being over-bearing. As one who knows little or nothing, about drumming, I can only express a quiet awe at the inventiveness behind his technique<\/strong>
Individual accolades apart, the band\u2019s main clout lays in their ability to function as one and perhaps the best demonstration of this can be found in \u2018Elevation\u2019, side two\u2019s opening gambit and, with \u2018Venus\u2019, probably this record\u2019s most immediately suitable choice for a single. Layer upon layer of gentle boulevard guitar makes itself manifest until Lloyd holds the finger-picked melody together and Verlaine sings in that by now well accustomed hyena croon. The song again is beautiful, proudly contagious with a chorus that lodges itself in your subconscious like a bullet in the skull \u2013 \u201cElevation don\u2019t go to my head\u201d repeated thrice until on the third line a latent ghost-like voice transmutes \u201cElevation\u201d into \u201cTelevision\u201d. Guitars cascade in and out of the mix so perfectly.<\/strong>
\u2018Guiding Light\u2019 is reflective, stridently poetic \u2013 a hymn for aesthetes \u2013 which, complete with piano, reminds me slightly of Procol Harum in excelsis. \u2018Prove It\u2019, the following track, is another potential single. Verlaine as an asthmatic ostrich-voice Sam Spade \u201cThis case \u2026 this case I\u2019ve been working on so long\u201d and of course that chorus which I still can\u2019t hesitate quoting \u2013 \u201cProve it\/Just the facts\/Confidential\u201d. From Chandler, Television move to Hitchcock \u2013 at least for the title of the last song on this album: \u2018Torn Curtain\u2019 is one of Verlaine\u2019s most recent creations \u2013 a most melancholy composition again reminiscent in part of a Procol Harum song although the timbre of Verlaine\u2019s voice is the very antithesis of Gary Booker\u2019s world weary tones. A song of grievous circumstances (as with so many of Verlaine\u2019s lyrics); the facts \u2013 cause and effect \u2013 remain enigmatically sheltered from the listener. The structure is indeed strange, like some Bavarian funeral march with Verlaine\u2019s vocals at their most yearning. The song is compelling though I couldn\u2019t think of a single number written in the rock idiom I could possibly compare it to.<\/strong>
So that\u2019s it. Marquee Moon, released mid-February in America and probably the beginning of March here. I think it\u2019s a work of genius and had Charlie Murray not done that whole number about \u201cfirst albums this good being pretty damn hard to come across\u201d with Patti Smith\u2019s Horses last year then I would have pulled the same stunt for this one. Suffice to say \u2013 oh listen, it\u2019s released on Elektra, right, and it reminded me, just how great that label used to be. I mean, this is Elektra\u2019s best record since\u2026 Strange Days. And (apres moi, le deluge, kiddo) I reckon Tom Verlaine\u2019s probably the single most important rock singer\/songwriter\/guitarist of his kind since Syd Barrett, which is my credibility probably blown for the rest of the year. But still\u2026<\/strong>
If this review needs to state anything in big bold, black type it\u2019s simply this. Marquee Moon is an album for everyone whatever their musical creeds and\/or quirks. Don\u2019t let any other critic put you off with jive turkey terms like \u2018avant-garde\u2019 or \u2018New York psycho-rock\u2019. This music is passionate, full-blooded, dazzlingly well crafted, brilliantly conceived and totally accessible to anyone who (like myself) has been yearning for a band with the vision to break on through into new dimensions of sonic overdrive and the sheer ability to back it up. Listening to this album reminds me of the ecstatic passion I received when I first heard \u2018Eight Miles High\u2019 and \u2018Happenings Ten Years Ago\u2019 \u2013 before terms like progressive\/art rock became synonymous with baulking pretensions and clumsy, crude syntheses of opposite forms.<\/strong>
In a year\u2019s time, when all the current three-chord golden boys have fallen from grace right into the pit to become a parody of Private Eye\u2019s apeing of moron rock bands \u2013 Spiggy Topes and The Turds Live at the Roxy \u2013 Tom Verlaine and Television will be out there hanging fire, cruising meteorite-like with their fretboards pointed directly at the music of the spheres. Prove it? They\u2019ve already done it right here with this their first album. All you\u2019ve got to do is listen and levitate along with it.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Det er februar 1977. Det ukendte NYC-band Television stj\u00e6ler NME’s forside, da ugemagasinets stjerneskribent Nick Kent har h\u00f8rt deres debutalbum Marquee Moon, der netop er blevet udsendt i USA og nu er p\u00e5 vej til Europa. L\u00e6s hele hans euforiske anmeldelse herunder af et dengang sensationelt debutalbum i sin rock\/punk-samtid, nu et anerkendt og etableret … L\u00e6s videre Reintroducing…Television!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":283,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,15,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-litteratur","category-rocknroll"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/283"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73448\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jensunmack.dk\/wordpress-3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}