Television began life as a punk band—Richard Hell made sure of that. But Tom Verlaine soon tired of Hell’s determined amateurism and wildman antics (didn’t like him, you know, MOVING on stage) and so out went Hell, and as time passed Television became something very different. Twin guitars, lots of soloing, no “fuck rock ’n’ roll” nihilism—Television went from Dionysian to Apollonian, from raw and visceral to tight and (somehow) both wound up and ethereal. They weren’t America’s answer to the Sex Pistols—they were America’s answer to Wishbone Ash.
Television had a short but brilliant run—epochal debut (1977’s Marquee Moon), a second album that disappointed most but was at its best utterly sublime (1978’s Adventure), plus a live album that was released post-breakup (1982’s The Blow-Up) and an album they recorded after reforming briefly in the nineties (who cares). They weren’t a better to burn out than to fade away proposition—they succumbed to sheer fatigue and disappointing record sales, and went their separate ways with the usual “Why aren’t we stars, fuck this.”
Richard Hell had an interesting thing to say about the Tom Verlaine (then still Paul Miller) he’d first met at school in Delaware. He said Verlaine “…had this fundamental belief in his absolute inherent superiority to everyone else on this earth.” Such people tend to be control freaks, have delusions of grandeur and to be intolerant of the shortcomings of others, so it was perhaps inevitable that he’d end up a solo artist. Fellow Television guitarist Richard Lloyd’s drug problems, and the group’s failure to achieve commercial success mentioned above, didn’t help.
Verlaine didn’t let much time pass before he released his first solo album, 1979’s Tom Verlaine. It didn’t hurt that more than half of its songs—including the two best—dated back to Verlaine’s time in Television. Like Lou Reed, Verlaine didn’t walk away from his old band without taking a few mementos with him. Getting a fresh start is easier when you don’t have to make a fresh start.
Verlaine abandoned Television’s distinctive two-guitar line-up—the chemistry between Verlaine and Lloyd was virtually alchemical, and Verlaine didn’t even try to reproduce it. And your love or lack thereof for Tom Verlaine will depend in part on how much you miss that chemistry. Take away Lloyd and you’re left with Verlaine’s voice and his utterly idiosyncratic axemanship. Verlaine could perform astounding feats on guitar, and he does so (although not as often as this guitar nut would like) on his debut. But something’s missing and it isn’t Television bassist Fred Smith, who Verlaine brought along for the ride. Or Television drummer Billy Ficca, who went on to join the Waitresses (the Patti Smith Group’s Jay Dee Daugherty plays drums on Tom Verlaine).
Verlaine does includes some very un-Television-like songs on Tom Verlaine, and the album’s chief weakness is that some of them don’t work. But such isn’t the case with the “I Shall Be Released”/“All Along the Watchtower”-themed slow builder “Kingdom Come,” which Television had been performing since forever but doesn’t work here. The lyrics flunk Poetry 101 (the line “The face of doom was shining in my room” makes me faintly ill) but that isn’t its real problem.
The problem is the song’s ponderous beat and the fact that it plows straight ahead, relentlessly plodding and undynamic, without rewarding the listener for the time and energy spent listening to it. The big “workin’ on a chain gang”-school backing vocals don’t help, and the slow build towards the end can’t save it. Some guitar pyrotechnics would have helped, but Verlaine can’t be bothered. Richard Hell once said that Verlaine “basically was a folk musician,” and while that’s a gross exaggeration “Kingdom Come” is basically a folk song—an unsuccessful one.
“Yonki Time” isn’t a throwaway, but it’s close. A slow, Caribbean-flavored bit of stop start, it includes all kinds of sound effects (breaking glass, blowing noses) along with some organ and piano but precious little guitar and has Verlaine saying things like “So nice to meet you, isn’t it?” The basic joke (and it is a joke song) has Verlaine asking “What time did you say it was?” and the band replying, singularly or in unison, in wacky voices, “It’s Yonki time!” It’s the kind of thing artists making their first solo albums put at the end of side two to prove they’re human beings, just like you and me, and more importantly because they can. Verlaine puts it at the end of side one to prove he’s a different kind of human being and because he can.
“Flash Lightning” sounds like a collaboration between Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith, and I checked the credits twice because I was sure it was a collaboration between Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith. It has that “artist reaching for the mainstream” feel to it. The organ that opens the song is too big, Verlaine omits to play any cool guitar on it, and the lyrics once again drag the song down. “Well I walked the plank/And crawled through the mine” and the recurring line “You’re the keeper of the flame” (followed shortly thereafter by “Your royal highness I’m at your call”) are pedestrian stuff, lazy and cliched. “Flash Lightning” is not a bad song, but it has a thick, produced vibe—it should be more wiry. It feels like the workmanlike product of a pro, not an artist whose best songs are positively incandescent.
“Last Night” (another Television-era number) is lovely, a ballad, all organ and piano and gorgeous guitar, and when Verlaine stretches out on guitar you remember what made Television such a great band. Once again, the lyrics don’t impress, but you’ll forgive him, I swear you will. The Television souvenir “Souvenir from a Dream” opens with a pounding piano, then a slinky guitar line comes in. The spoken word parts remind me of the Mick Jagger of “Miss You,” that “Thirty lights in a row/Every one of them green” reminds me of the Mick Jagger of “Faraway Eyes,” and I hear the Talking Heads in the chorus. But the song’s dislocated feel works well enough, even if Verlaine’s guitar is missing in action. And that recurring “You were living five lives in one” is nice.
“Mr. Bingo” is an oddball rave-up, jumpy and with backing vocalists wailing in the background, and for once Verlaine completely cuts loose on frayed nerve end guitar, and it’s a joy. Nobody sounds like him; the guys in Sonic Youth go to great ends to sound as fractured but Verlaine does it without straining (and more importantly) without sacrificing melody—he’s taking you forward when he sounds like he’s going nowhere at all. Great stuff, even if I have no idea who this Mr. Bingo fellow is.
“Red Leaves” is another Television rerun. It has mucho momentum and backing vocals from a human being named Deerfrance on the choruses, and Verlaine keeps things simple. Aside from a clunker or two (“I see you weaving/What dost thou sew?”) the lyrics have that good old-fashioned Verlaine absurdist touch, but aside from the scratchy guitar he puts between the lines and a brief guitar solo in the middle he refrains from pyrotechnics, too bad. Pretty melody though. Song’s over before you know it, and that’s what the pyrotechnics are for. A long solo at the end would have made this one.
I’ve saved the best for last. Opener (and Television-era survivor) “The Grip of Love” is all loud guitar, a rocker with attitude, and Verlaine sings it with as much urgency as he plays it. It may or may not be about a handjob (“Sure had it in your hand” he sings, and if that isn’t the grip of love what is?), the lyrics contain the occasional pleasant surprise (“You found out how I felt/Now you say, “Get lost!”/Well don’t that buckle my belt?”) but what makes the song is its simple cumulative power—it never lets up, and while Verlaine never lets loose on guitar, on this one that’s a good thing. It would dispel the urgency.
Closer “Breakin’ My Heart” is my fave. It’s yet another one Verlaine put in his briefcase when he left the Television studio, and B-52s co-founder Ricky Wilson throws in on second guitar. What it is is a loosey-goosey extended vamp, six-plus minutes of Verlaine pontificating over that gorgeous guitar that never lets up, reaching ecstatic heights. You get a punk rococo solo, the boys join in on the “breakin’ in my heart,” and for once we have the transcendental, a song that bursts its bonds and soars, and that captures the same glory as the best of Television’s songs. It’s like Verlaine’s forgotten himself, forgotten about his solo career and everything else. On most of the songs on Tom Verlaine you can hear him trying, straining even. He’s not straining here.
I’m not one of those who were disappointed by Television’s second LP, probably because I may well be the only person on Planet Earth who heard it first, and hence didn’t have their debut to compare it to. The same can’t be said for Tom Verlaine’s debut. It’s no embarrassment, but it’s no triumph either, and includes songs I’d sooner not hear—which is shocking, really, when you consider that there’s no such thing as a dispensable Television song.
It’s not just the absence of Lloyd, either—there’s something intangible missing, something I only hear on “The Grip of Love,”“Breakin’ My Heart,” and to a lesser extent “Last Night.” Call it the ineffable. Call it urgency. Call it what you will, no one will suffer from not owning Tom Verlaine. This album will not save your life. Tom Verlaine is a paradox—turning off his Television actually made him a less interesting person.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B-
