In 1977 Nick Kent devoted two pages in the NME, then the most prestigious musical weekly, to a famous review of a band’s debut album. It was by a group from New York led by Tom Verlaine, who has just passed away. While famous in the few blocks around CBGBs nightclub, Television were almost unknown outside that world. It’s hard to argue Kent called it wrong as the record regularly pops up still in Best Of charts. I dug out the original review to see what Kent had to say almost half a century ago. He starts with an overview.
This, Television’s first album 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.
Then points out it’s definitely not what you think it is:
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.
Next Kent does provide some reference points:
Verlaine’s appearance is simply as exciting as any other major innovator’s to the sphere of rock – like Hendrix, Barrett, Dylan – and, yeah, Christ knows I’m tossing up some true-blue heavies here but Goddammit I refuse to repent right now because this record just damn excites me so much.
On the episode I’ve read out Robert Forster’s response to hearing the track ‘Venus’. Here’s Kent’s:
(‘Venus’ is) simply one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard; the only other known work I can think of to parallel it with is Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ – yup, it’s that exceptional. Only with Television’s twin guitar filigree weaving round the melody it sounds like some dream synthesis of Dylan himself backed by the Byrds circa ‘65. It’s really damn hard to convey just how gorgeous this song is – the performance, – all these incredible touches like the call-and-response Lou Reed parody. The song itself is like Dylan’s ‘Tambourine’, a vignette of a sort dealing with a dream-like quasi-hallucinogenic state of epiphany.
As if that were not enough, the title track provides a new high-water mark for guitar music. The following might sound like hyperbole were it not for the fact that in 2023 it doesn’t sound dated in the least:
‘Marquee Moon’ is as riveting a piece of music as I’ve heard since the halcyon days of… oh, God knows too many years have elapsed … The song’s structure is practically unlike anything I’ve 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 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 … Verlaine’s guitar solos take the feed-back sonic “accidents” that Lou Reed fell upon in his most fruitful period … these potentially cataclysmic ideas and rigorously shapes them into a potential total redefinition of the electric guitar. As far as I’m concerned, as of this moment, Verlaine is probably the most exciting electric lead guitar player barring only Neil Young.
His conclusion is no less ecstatic:
If this review needs to state anything in big bold, black type it’s simply this. Marquee Moon is an album for everyone whatever their musical creeds and/or quirks. Don’t let any other critic put you off with jive turkey terms like ‘avant-garde’ or ‘New York psycho-rock’. 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.
I’m currently reading a memoir by the Joy Division drummer Steve Morris in which, after sharing the excitement around the first album and seeing the band play live, he describes Tom Verlaine and Television’s 1978 follow up ‘Adventure’ as ‘over-produced’ and ‘horrible’. Very sadly too many people agreed with that verdict, although if you listen to the first track on this podcast, ‘Days’, you are sure, I think, to vehemently disagree. Partly as a consequence of the hostile response, Television broke up shortly afterwards.
And, very sadly, Tom Verlaine has now left us. My friend Nigel Webb, who knows about these things, rates much of Verlaine’s solo work higher in his estimation than Marquee Moon.
But it’s no bad thing to have written one of the landmark albums of all time, no matter people’s varying opinions on the rest of their work.
Here’s a tribute to Tom featuring some of the (many) bands influenced by his work. There wasn’t even space for the Postcard stable of Orange Juice, Josef K and The Go-Betweens, all podcast favourites and all indelibly influenced by his work. Hope as ever that you enjoy the show.
Tracklist:
Days, Television
Hot rock, Sleater-Kinney
Venus, Television
Background bridge song (what could I say), True West
Little Johnny Jewel, Television
Tom Verlaine, Alvvays
Five miles of you, Tom Verlaine
Going nowhere, Dump Truck
See no evil, Television
Sex beat, Gun Club
O foolish heart, Tom Verlaine
That’s what you always say, The Dream Syndicate
Carried away, Television