(TV) Pan of Adventure

["Casey, Leo J" <Leo.J.Casey@Volpe.dot.gov>]

There's a response by Verlaine to this review at Keith's site: 
http://www.marquee.demon.co.uk/artics.htm in the TV interview, 
'Another Television Broadside', NME 6th May 1978, by Steve Clarke 
---------------------------------------------

The TV Backlash Starts Here

New Musical Express

April 8, 1978  by Julie Burchill

Spring again and a young man's fancy turns to product.

Yet another American artist with no guilt -- I don't know how they do it!

I don't know about you, but I'd rather sit through a Nick Lowe album than
listen 
to the latest lax waxing by yet another 'New Wave' American band, with their

selfish fantasies of individual reality and desperate desires for the root
of all evil. 

Well, why do you think Television persist in putting out records stamped on 
red or green plastic?  Is Tom Verlaine's creative genius burning?  At least 
Kiss gives you a free sheet of transfers.

Still, as the Roman Emperor who hid his money in his chamber-pot was fond 
of saying, "Non olet".  Money doesn't smell -- not like this record anyway.

Drag yourself past the 'literary' sleeve -- they're not a pretty band and
Tom 
faces up to baldness with bad grace -- and what you get is more 
acid-casualty-type gibberish in the tradition of "Marquee Moon".

You remember.  Verlaine sings like a woman from that African tribe where 
they stretch their necks to giraffe-lengths by wrapping brass coils around
them.  
There's your usual  ponderous and profound musical preening, featuring
guitar 
solos which make Segovia look like a handless man. 

The single 'Foxhole' is here, but the only good song on the record is
'Glory', a 
clean, simple, unadorned song worthy of Talking Heads.  It's good because
it's 
the only time Tom doesn't angle for a date with Salvador Dali and use dumb 
Dada-reject imagery.  "She got mad/she said 'you're too steep'/put on her 
boxing gloves and went to sleep."

Now I think that's smart, but the rest is strictly Surrealist and often
unintentionally 
funny, like when Tom really gets into his namesake Paul Verlaine's 
(Rimbaud's possessive boyfriend) skin for the immortal line "Last night I
went 
down to the docks . . ."

Verlaine did two years bed-and-breakfast courtesy of the French government 
when he shot old Artie Rimbaud in the wrist -- if there was any justice in
the world, 
Verlaine Reincarnate should do a similar stretch of boulder-breaking for
this 
arty abomination.

If you were auto-suggested into buying "Marquee Moon"., you might be
interested in 
this -- but I doubt even that, since the new little piggy isn't getting a
page-plus review 
and a front cover-ridiculous overkill.

Tom's loved one might like it (cheers, Patti Lee!), but "Adventure" is
really just wallpaper 
backing for the Woosome Twosome to read each other French poems to.

"Truth for the poet", said George Santayana, "is only a stimulus."

Which means that a poet doesn't give a damn about anyone or anything much
beyond 
his nibs-nib.  Stateside new wave bands have honed this stance to
near-perfection, 
all to the good of their bank balance.

But gee whiz, what a state to be in ...
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