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RE: (TV) Tom as proto-Sting / Meltzer!



Alright, serve your penance. We're waiting!!!

Micah 


-----Original Message-----
From: Casey, Leo J [mailto:CaseyL@volpe.dot.gov]
Sent: Wednesday, August 02, 2000 2:30 PM
To: 'tv@obbard.com'
Subject: (TV) Tom as proto-Sting / Meltzer!


Marquee Mooners, 

Maybe I'm just suffering from having watched the Red Sox lose in 19 freakin'
innings last night in Seattle, or I'm just trying to avoid having to write
my Regulatory Impact Assessment for work, but I'm sorry, I can't let R.
Meltzer 's characterization of Verlaine as  "...a proto-sting"  ("by the by,
meltzer hates verlaine, hell, etc...").  Them's fighting words!

Yes, Meltzer's he is/was a brilliant writer/philosopher/critic --if somewhat
pretentious smart ass -- but he really shows his small-mindedness and
ignorance with his
proto-Sting comment.  

I mean, Jesus, I'm not sure I could come up with two more totally dissimilar
characters/musicians than Sting and Verlaine if I tried.  The former slick,
solipsistic, a huge commercial success,  relatively soulless musically
(albeit his work for good political causes), jazz-wannbe bass player and
singer, who hasn't rocked out since circa "Message in a Bottle" (and that
was mostly Copeland's drumming and Summers' guitar) ------the latter a
fabulous songwriter/composer, arranger, lead/rhythm guitarist,  slightly
paranoid, misunderstood genius who languishes in obscurity.  I will  grant
Meltzer that they both are solo artists who have blonde hair (now thinning)
and both might be considered handsome guys.  

And while I'm on it-----I'm sure Meltzer's a fun person to hang out with in
Portland, but it always struck me that he's just another one of the school
of brilliant intellectuals who despite all their erudition --when it comes
to rock music,  prefer to take their pleasures downward by wallowing  in
music by artists who play rather puerile, simplistic, unsubtle, cartoonish
stuff for the masses. (Don't let me be misunderstood:  I like to my musical
pleasures downward also; I can appreciate simple, primitive, primordial
elemental music like Link Wray, The Stooges, The Ramones, The VU, or even
TV''s 'Coming Apart' or 'Pillow' or (Roky's) 'Fire Engine' ).  

If my memory is not totally gonzo, Meltzer was a big fanatic about musicians
like The Flamin' Groovies and The Blue Oyster Cult (or was that the late
Lester Bangs, and yes, fuck you, Lester, another genius who couldn't stand
Television/Verlaine). Give me Robert Christgau or Greil Marcus anyday, and
no Christagau never sucked up to Verlaine (Christgau in a review of  a
Verlaine solo album in The Village Voice claimed something along the lines
of  Tom's antiseptic/aseptic studio work was finally catching up with him
..." and that he really should try to get out more often".)  I had to admit
he always tried to speak the truth no matter how much it might hurt. In
fact, he wrote the best dead-on review/cum Lloyd persona analysis of a
post-Television Richard Lloyd concert that I ever read.  

Sorry for the rant, I'm done now.  For my penance maybe I'll type out
Christagau's Lloyd analysis.   

(Full disclosure:  I read Meltzer's The Aesthetics' of Rock in my dissolute
youth as well as many of his writings in ancient rock mags like 'Fusion',
etc..)  
			
		Leo

>  i hang out with meltzer here in portland & that old crank's been
promising to tape
> the damn thing (as well as a non-lp single "searchin") for me for a
while...he
> never got round to it (thank god my upstate ny friend found his old
copy...the
> damn thing pops up on ebay once in a while, tho rarely sells for less than
40
> bucks or so...too steep for moi...i emailed buddha who own the rights to
it,
> asking em to reissue it with the single...after 3 pleas, the guy wrote
back saying
> only if 10,000 folk write in with similar requests...ha.)
> anyhow, meltzer now claims to hate most rock & roll but he swears he'll
never let
> "one kiss leads to another" get away...check out his comments on the rec
in 
      by the by, meltzer hates verlaine, hell, etc...called verlaine a
proto-sting.
>  > 
> Jeff Strell wrote:
> 
> > That's what I love about this list -- ya never know when the Hackamore
Brick
> > LP's gonna come up.  I just recently latched onto this one myself.
Supposedly
> > it got a great writeup from R. Meltzer in Rolling Stone, and also
numbers
> > Greil Marcus among its supporters.  (Even Christgau, from whom it
receives
> > only a "B," notes the similarity to the Velvets' third.  Recommended to
power
> > poppers everywhere.
> >
> > - Jeff
> >
> > ____________________________________________________________________
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