A Time. A Place… (RIP Tom Verlaine)

I was expecting to see a thread up announcing Television’s guitarist Tom Verlaine passing:

BBC news: Television frontman Tom Verlaine dies at 73.

But instead of the “my musical past is ebbing away”, I think it’s a good time to situate the whole adventure music has played in my life.

I started playing guitar in 1982 but I have always loved music. I would play my mom’s albums while being a Latchkey kid (I did watch TV but would do my homework and listen to music more often than TV).

It was The Beatles and their solo albums, some guy named Jimi Hendrix and some band named Black Sabbath. There were some musicals but I was not interested. Then me and my older sister would stay up on New Years Eve and listen to Casey Casem’s Top 100 songs of the year (and few others). Until my sister started buying albums I was listening to Steve Martin, Robin Williams, the dangerous George Carlin and, yes, Cosby. And the Star Wars soundtrack when it came out.

Cheap Trick, Peter Frampton, and Fleetwood Mac were always playing in those days. It wasn’t until I was 14 years old and had the task of buying some music for my neighbor’s birthday that I purchased my own music: AC/DC, Judas Priest, and Blue Oyster Cult, started my rock n roll career!

Then I found other music like The Ventures, blues, and guitar jazz. Then “new” music from England called punk and the American version in some place called New York City and the Bowery.

That is where I found my own type of music. Talking Heads, Blondie, The Ramones, and some band called Television all collided with Velvet Underground and I was surrounded by that music.

High school ending, me playing classical guitar and listening to NY punk bands, drinking beer and trying to be cool…

That is what Television means to me. A moment in time just before college radio (and the Athens scene), before nu-wave and my near obsession with some band from Ireland. Before Sonic Youth, The Cure, The Cult, and the always changing Bowie.

A different sound. Different guitar styles and techniques. Me and a delay pedal in the basement for hours on end…

Oh, 80s pop, metal, and spandex too, but the weird stuff like my (still) favorite band from then, New Model Army… there is something about feeling like you are doing your part getting square kids to listen to synth music from England, nod their heads to the Clash, and sing along with the Sex Pistols.

Tom Verlaine, RIP. And thanks for the chunk of music history that you provided to a culture starved kid in the Alaskan wilderness!!

Disclosure: I am not from the wilderness! Just far removed from the cultural centers of London and NYC!!

No, I am not dumb enough to carry around dirt in a jar to claim that I am from Alaska!!!

Television was a bit before my time. But when I found Operation Ivy in 89, my life changed.

I, too, have always loved music. At 16, I started doing sound and dove head first into the scene. Television was a band whose music I got.

They helped introduce me to some of my favs: Blondie, Joe Strummer/The Clash, The Adicts, cock Sparer, The Animals, and Johnny Cash. Add in the Op Ivy influences like Rancid, I love the music. I love the attitude. The way you are true to Your Family, and the adopted family from the life.

Those Proto Punk bands from the 70's are like nothing else. Pure and raw. Like good blues and outlaw country.

(Yes, those 2 sentences contradict. You get what I mean.)

So, thanks for the music Tom. I hope in that Great Gig in the Sky, you can keep rocking. RIP

As an amateur guitarist, I always loved Television for the guitars. The guitars in "Days" are righteous.



R.I.P. Tom.

'Stalingrad' was another good one.

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