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Tom Verlaine, a founding father of American punk and a fixture of the 1970s New York rock scene, died Saturday in Manhattan as the result of a brief illness. He was 73.
His death was confirmed to NPR in a press release from Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Verlaine collaborator Patti Smith, who also once dated the artist.
„I met Tom when I was a child, not long after my dad passed away,“ Jesse Paris Smith wrote in a statement to NPR. „In him, I felt the energy of a father, a man to hug, to laugh with, to share in mischievous jokes and wild imagination.“
Verlaine was known for his jagged guitar playing style involving heavy vibrato and distortion and off-kilter lyrics, like „Life in the hive puckered up my night / A kiss of death, the embrace of life“ from the chorus of Marquee Moon’s titular track.
