A tribute to Tom Verlaine by a critic who reviewed Television’s “Marquee Moon” for downtown New York City newspaper the Soho Weekly News.
“A kiss of death, the embrace of life.” — “Marquee Moon”
The notice came in the form of a Facebook post with a broken heart emoji. “Rest in Peace, Tom,” wrote CBGB’s veteran Brooke Delarco. Tom Verlaine (ne Thomas Miller) was gone at a way-too-young 73 from prostate cancer.
Verlaine’s passing — officially announced, appropriately enough by Patti Smith’s daughter Jesse Paris to the New York Times — hit particularly hard given the fact my own rock critic career launched 46 years ago — March 24, 1977, to be precise — with a Soho Weekly News review of Television’s debut album, “Marquee Moon.” It began with a quote from John Lennon (“Talking is just breaking up sound into little pieces”) and continues to an opening paragraph that remains my only appearance in Wikipedia: “Forget everything you’ve heard about Television, forget punk, forget New York, forget CBGB … hell, forget rock and roll — this is the real item.” I was paid the not-so-princely sum of $5 for my efforts.
Comparing it to the New York Dolls’ lack of success outside of New York, I thought “Marquee Moon” would be the album to carry the torch for a commercial breakthrough after the late A&R maven Karin Berg signed the band to Elektra, where they remained for two albums, including the follow-up “Adventure,” released a year later.
Television’s inclusion of such Nuggets punk prototypes like the Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction” and the 13th Floor Elevators’ “Fire Engine” in their sets was also enticing to someone of my age, just two years younger than Verlaine. But as rockcrit emeritus Robert Christgau noted, “[‘Marquee Moon’] wasn’t punk. Its intensity wasn’t manic; it didn’t come in spurts.”
My review said something similar, “Television is a jamming band that has more in common with Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Grateful Dead or Love than with either the Ramones or the Velvet Underground… T.
