Television
Marquee Moon
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NATN Recommended
Television
Marquee Moon
Elektra, 1977
RiYL: Patti Smith's Horses, Wire, Gang of Four, Talking Heads' More Songs About Buildings And Food |
Not that Television were only about musicianship. Tom Verlaine's songs mix lyrics inspired by the fantasias of the French poets with clangy, droned guitars inspired by the realities of the big city. Verlaine and Richard Lloyd are both phenomenal guitarists, but they're not overly concerned with technicalities when pure ragged soul will do. "Marquee Moon," the song, is ten minutes of pretty much perfect guitar rock, with tricky modal leads from Lloyd and a long, trembling solo from Verlaine that the begins as a tentative one-note shuffle and blooms to envelop the listener.
Lyrically, Tom shoots for urban mythology, with verses invoking lightning, graveyards, and the rain along with Cadillacs and railroad tracks. (Although the vinyl version of this album, still available as a German import, sounds a bit better, the CD is preferable because it includes a complete, clean ending to "Moon" rather than the original fadeout.)
The rest of the record, while not as epic, is no less intense. "See No Evil" shows that TV's precise, interlocking guitar and spare bass/drum groove can produce convincing pop music. "Prove It" shows that Verlaine does indeed have a sense of humor. "Venus" is a fine slice of punk romanticism, "Torn Curtain" pure heartbreak. Throughout, the guitarists' riffs are as reliable in the foreground as the rhythm section is locked-in in the background. I've read other critics who've said that Television presupposed techno -- they're just that precise. But I don't agree with the insinuation that TV's music is inflexible. The variations don't hit you over the head, they build up slowly, in a way that's not shared by any other guitar band.
Sure, Tom Verlaine is not a traditionally gifted singer, and his warbling, nasal intonations take a fair bit of getting used to. But his songwriting and his lyrics more than make up for it. Marquee Moon is an important record. It was then and is now. It's namechecked by indie musicians to a degree unheard of for any band save the Velvet Underground. In short, it's a classic. If you don't have it, I don't as much encourage you to buy it as wonder why you don't have it already. As punk attempted to destroy rock for good, a very few visionary bands saw that that wasn't necessary -- that there was a third way, a right way, and to them we owe the existence of all indie today. In America, the greatest of those visionaries was Television.
MARK T.R. DONOHUE | Mark T.R. Donohue is a prolific freelance writer whose areas of expertise include Rockies baseball, video games, genre television, English soccer, and pub rock. He lives in Colorado, where he cultivates the largest and creepiest private collection of Alyson Hannigan memorabilia in the Mountain West.