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Television tunes in after long absence

by VitWagner


The emergence of the New York neo-wave scene back at the turn of the decade
invited a lot of comparisons between an emerging crop of bands, including
the Strokes and Interpol, with the pioneering '70s outfit Television  the
most critically revered and influential group to emerge from Manhattan
outside of the Velvet Underground and, maybe, the Talking Heads.
Television frontman Tom Verlaine isn't likely to have his head turned by the
repeated name-checking. "I hear about it. But I never hear them," Verlaine
says on the line from his New York studio, a week before Television returns
to Toronto for a Phoenix Concert Theatre gig.
"I've been hearing this about the Stokes or the Strokes for two years now.
And I have yet to sit down and hear a Strokes or Stokes thing. I think I
heard something on MTV when we were in Brazil. They were playing. And
someone turned the TV up, so I think I heard maybe a minute of it."
And it isn't just the Strokes Verlaine is tuning out.
"As a musician, I like to listen to things I haven't heard or something I
can learn from," he continues, "and I don't hear anything I'm learning
anything from. There is more to be learned from and enjoyed in four minutes
of a Mozart string quartet than there is in a lot of pop stuff. Not to say
that it's bad music. It's just where it's at after years of people doing and
hearing the same things."
Nor does Verlaine feel particularly nostalgic about the punk/new wave era
currently referenced by a next generation crew that ranges from the Strokes
to Scotland's Franz Ferdinand and Canada's Hot Hot Heat.
"That era is to people who are 20 years old now what Memphis or rockabilly
was to people in the '70s, this thing that they don't really know but they
kind of like the records, so they check it out. But for me, personally, it's
so distant it means nothing."
The Phoenix gig on Friday, the quartet's first Toronto show since 1992, is
the most anticipated event at the 12th North By Northeast Music and Film
Festival and Conference, which runs Thursday to Saturday at several clubs
around the city. Friday's show features the original line-up (guitarist
Richard Lloyd, bassist Fred Smith and drummer Billy Ficca) that contributed
to the hallowed reputation of 1977's jangly, intricately-threaded Marquee
Moon and its only slightly less revered 1978 follow-up, Adventure.
Television hasn't recorded any new music since 1992, but Verlaine put out a
couple of new solo albums, his first since 1992's Warm and Cool, this past
April. Songs and other Things and a companion instrumental disc, Around,
were both issued by Chicago indie Thrill Jockey.
"I have no explanation for not putting a record for 14 years," says Verlaine
 57. "But as for putting out two together, that's easy. Basically, it was
simpler to put out both at once than wait another six months to put out the
instrumental or the vocal."
Songs and other Things was recorded during a two-day session that stretched
over a period of 18 months. Around was recorded over two nights, with
another couple of days spent mixing and editing.
Verlaine, who expects to support the solo discs with a fall tour that will
include a Toronto stop, has been at work on various other things, including
appearing on albums by Patti Smith and, intermittently, working on a new
Television album.
Some of the new material, worked up during the band's infrequent live sets
over the past few years, has turned up on a slew of concert bootlegs. "(It
s) irritating because musicians used to do their new stuff live for a year
or two to get it to sound better. Now you have people stealing set lists and
sticking idiotic names on the songs because we don't even have titles for a
lot of stuff yet. We just kind of play it."
Additional articles by Vit Wagner
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