(TV) NPR review/interview verlaine from Warm&Cool release time

["Russ Van Rooy" <russvr@blarg.net>]

Found this from a googol search - hope this ain't a re-run . The URL is:
http://www.npr.org/programs/asc/archives/asc10/trans08.html
- Russ
n.p. Cowboy Junkies Miles from our Home
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NPR's Morning Edition
August 17, 1992

Listen to a review of Tom Verlaine's album, Warm and Cool.

Back to All Songs Considered Program 10.


RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

Tom Verlaine is a new wave rock guitar legend. In the mid-1970s, Verlaine
played, sang and wrote songs for his band Television. The group has been
credited as an important influence by such better-known and more successful
bands as U2 and REM. After Television broke up, Verlaine released several
solo albums, but none attracted the kind of attention as did his work with
Television. Andy Lyman reports Verlaine's latest, "Warm and Cool," may
please his fans. It puts the focus squarely on Verlaine's guitar.

ANDY LYMAN REPORTING:

EXCERPT OF MUSIC

LYMAN: Though he's been called the poet laureate of the 1970s new wave, Tom
Verlaine's new recording has no words. Verlaine says he's wanted to make a
wordless collection of songs for more than 10 years in spite of his record
companies.

TOM VERLAINE (RECORDING ARTIST): You know, the big labels, they--they
thought, `Oh, what a great idea.' And then--and then they say, `Well, how do
we market this?' and they were very apologetic about it. They said, you
know, `There's no way to market a record like this.' You know, it's not--you
can't throw it in a jazz bit, it's not a new age record and it's not a
soundtrack. So when I finally got off the last big label I was on, I figured
I'd just do this myself.

EXCERPT OF MUSIC

LYMAN: Though he's released this record on a small, independent label and
though Television only recorded two albums almost 15 years ago, Verlaine's
reputation as a guitar hero is a matter-of-fact around the world. That's
largely due to other artists. He says fellow musicians, as well as painters,
have told him they listen to Television's records to get inspiration from
music that was different.

VERLAINE: They weren't blues-based records, they're--they were melodic
records. They weren't overdriven guitar. I mean, the guitars were loud, but
it wasn't like a Lynyrd Skynyrd record or something, you know, and
the--the--if this whole thing sounded fresh to a whole bunch of musicians,
and I thought I--th--there's another way we can go here.

EXCERPT OF MUSIC

LYMAN: Television had two guitarists, Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd. Their
instrumental jams were long on record, even longer in concert. Steven
Simmels is pop music editor of Stereo Review.

STEVEN SIMMELS (POP MUSIC EDITOR, Stereo Review): A friend of mine once said
that he--that--that his--his take on them was that they were like really,
really talented, creative guys, but they had never listened to any other
music, you know, and they were just sort of like inventing it themselves. I
don't think that's really strictly true. I think you can clearly hear
their--they listen to a lot of--a lot of jazz probably, and it's very modal.
There's a certain folk basis to--to the guitar and to playing. It just
doesn't sound like anything else. It's really kind of amazing.

EXCERPT OF MUSIC

LYMAN: Verlaine admits that he listened to trumpeter Miles Davis and
saxophonists John Coltrane and Albert Eiler in the early 1960s. But what he
wasn't listening to then was other six-string players.

VERLAINE: If it had a guitar in it, I wouldn't buy it. I literally hated the
sound of guitar. There used to be a lot of like organ trios with organ,
guitar and drums, and I used to hate these, you know. But somehow, I think
early Rolling Stones stuff, that clattery kind of noisy or--of the
Yardbirds, I think, feedback and all that stuff. I started to think, `Well,
you can sing and play guitar a lot easier than you can sing and play
saxophone.'

LYMAN: Verlaine formed his first band in high school with drummer Billy
Thicka. Later in the group Television, they were joined by bassist Fred
Smith. Both of them accompany Verlaine on his new solo album. According to
music critic Steve Simmels, the ex-new wavers approached Verlaine's
recording much like older jazz musicians playing at a jam session.

SIMMELS: Essentially, it was--it was all edited down from snippets of longer
things that had just sort of happened in the studio. The basic approach I
think he was--he was taking in this was it--it really is kind of like
somewhere between surf guitar kind of instrumentals and kind of late-'50s,
"Naked City" kind of TV soundtrack stuff. And it's real spare and simple,
and it's--it's very moody and atmospheric and--and it really works great.

EXCERPT OF MUSIC

LYMAN: Tom Verlaine spent the mid-'80s living in Europe. His solo albums
were given spotty distribution in this country and are now hard to find, a
problem compounded by the fact that most record stores have pulled all the
vinyl albums off of their shelves. So Verlaine's CD release is a comeback of
sorts. He doesn't expect this record to make the charts, and he's worried
that some people might not even listen to what he's playing. EXCERPT OF
MUSIC

VERLAINE: Used to have instrumental hits, you know, all kinds of
stuff--Santo and Johnny, for instance, had a song coincidentally called
"Sleepwalk," which, again, was an atmospheric sort of thing and--and you had
these honky tenor saxophone things--Junior Walker. You know, you have this
history of instrumental music that's fun and it seems to have disappeared.

EXCERPT OF MUSIC

VERLAINE: And I think what'll end up happening to some of these--it'll end
up using it as background music to a musical calendar of the week where you
hear like 15 seconds of music and then a voice comes in and goes, `At the
blah blah club there's blah blah this week.' It's going to end up being a
kind of a wallpaper in--in some radio stations I guess, I don't know.

LYMAN: Guitarist Tom Verlaine says he'd like to do an instrumental
improvisational tour, but that will have to wait. Right now, he's gearing up
for a Television reunion. The band will release a new album this fall and
plans to tour behind it. Verlaine's solo album, "Warm and Cool," has been
issued by Rico Disc.

For National Public Radio, I'm Andy Lyman in New York.

EXCERPT OF MUSIC

MONTAGNE: This is NPR's "Morning Edition." I'm Renee Montagne.

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