Tom Verlaine, Death of an Innovator

When you have thought about, designed, and recorded an album like Marquee Moon, you can sleep peacefully, aware - or not - of having marked rock history forever... Yet, Thomas Miller aka Tom Verlaine who passed away on January 28th 2023, did not stop there. The brain of the Television group continued to wander down an alternate path, his guitar as a white cane, and his strange poetry as the only roadmap... This guitar could go from cataclysmic playing to a few strands layers during a soaring track before abruptly returning to pure free jazz epilepsy.

Born on December 13th 1949 in Denville, New Jersey, Tom Miller grew up in Delaware where he studied classical music and saxophone. Eclecticism quickly became his credo, fascinated by the Yardbirds and Rolling Stones but also Albert Ayler and John Coltrane. With Richard Meyers (future Richard Hell), he wrote poetry. A literary genre that became an obsession, to the point of taking the name of the famous French poet of the 19th century as a pseudonym.

In 1972, the two friends were shocked to discover the New York Dolls and founded the Neon Boys. Verlaine got himself a Jazzmaster from Fender, and Hell got a used bass. The drums were given to a friend, Billy Ficca. The following year, Richard Lloyd joined as a second guitarist. The four men then chose a new name: Television. The line-up was short-lived: Richard Hell had a falling out with Verlaine, left to form the Voidoids and left his place to Fred Smith (not to be confused with Fred "Sonic" Smith of the MC5). Television began to buzz strongly on the punk scene at CBGB or Max's Kansas City, the two New York meccas of the time. " The most original group I've seen in New York ", David Bowie would say. All of this was enough for the label Elektra to sign Television and release their first album, Marquee Moon, in February 1977.

A masterpiece from out of the blue, this record is the perfect reflection of the genius of its creator, a rock singer and guitarist struggling with his jazz demons. "I was transposing the sax solos of Coltrane on the fretboard of my guitar," Verlaine liked to repeat. Angular and complex guitars that he opposed to those of Richard Lloyd to the point of building electric pyramids. Unexpected changes in rhythm and a voice that swirls at the border of accuracy, the semantic of Marquee Moon has nothing in common with that of its colleagues on the New York punk scene. But this cerebral, even intellectual approach never prevents Television from being first and foremost a rock band, garage at heart. By taking its atypical crashes, Tom Verlaine established in 1977 the offbeat rules of the coming post-punk and a well-urban rock'n'roll that would survive for years to come. Notably in the music of groups like the Strokes. Even the Canadians from Alvvays will title the fourth song on their 2022 album Blue Rev, Tom Verlaine...

With Marquee Moon, Television offered an alternative to Ramones, Talking Heads, Patti Smith and others like Blondie. And Verlaine became the bohemian and poetic face of the scene... A year later, the album Adventure confirmed his talent, although it surprises less and was more... adventurous? Although the critics never cease to praise the originality of the group, its leader does everything in his power to remain individual and not to pact with the system. So much so that he refuses to go on any of the big world tours. The end of Television was inevitable and Tom Verlaine was left to embark on the path of an erratic solo career (nine albums between 1979 and 2006) that begins with a simply titled album Tom Verlaine. Fred Smith would remain at his side to hold the bass which would sometimes lead him to compose instrumental works such as the surprising Warm and Cool from 1992.

During those untamed years, Verlaine would sometimes take the stage alongside Patti Smith for some guitar solos, and would even contribute to her albums Horses, Gone Again and Gung Ho. He also performed on Penthouse by the band Luna, Look to the Sky by former Smashing Pumpkins member James Iha, and co-produce Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk, Jeff Buckley’s posthumous album. In 1992, he revives Television for an album titled Television and a sold-out world tour. At the end of his nearly 50-year career, Tom Verlaine will have been more absent than present. 50 years during which Marquee Moon could be listened to on repeat without a shadow of a wrinkle coming to blur its timeless modernity...