[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

(TV) Television and tHE Only Ones



I have been obsessing about the genius of The Only Ones since catching their recent comeback tour which for a hardened gig goer of many many years ranked as one of the best I've ever seen. (OO very much a soundtrack of 'my youth'...25 years ago!!!). Just seeing Perrett alive and singing was such a result!. And Perry is definantly up there with TV and RL.

Anyway, I've been revisiting Nina Antonia's book 'The One and Only' - on The Only One's - and our boys feature quite a lot since the OO .supported on the Adventure Tour. Here is some the relevant text as printed. Warning!!! not all of it pleasant reading!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: Following some warm up dates at Harlow Technical College (September 22nd) ,,,the band launched the Planet Tour at London's Lyceum on the Strand on October 1st supported by Bram Tchaikovsky's Battleaxe and the business. The evening clouded over early. The Only One's seemed unusually fatigued and their grand finale "No Peace for the Wicked" was jarringly discordant due to the misguided efforts of Television's guitarist Richard Lloyd who came out to join the band for the last number: Peter:

Richard was totally out of tune, completely different key. It was the worst guitar playing I've ever heard. That's how the evening started with him. I should have realised he wasn't alright in the head then. (p.127).

When the party eased off Peter took Richard Lloyd back to Forest Hill.. Lloyd turned out to be a most unfortunate guest given the circumstances: Peter: Zena (Perret's wife) was in bed with a threatened miscarriage...Me and Richard were were sitting at the end of the bed. I gave him a line of smack, I know he'd been drinking. I think he'd taken some downers as well but even so, it was still a minute amount . He snorted it and and after about five minutes he just fell backwards. [Then a description of RL Turning blue etc, in serious medical trouble etc......]

Zena was trying to stop him falling off the bed. It was the last thing she needed, at 6 o'clock in the morning with a threatened miscarriage. He was too heavy to do anything about it by myself. Luckily Kellie [OO drummer] lived in an old flat just down the road...We carried Richard out into my Damlier Sovereign. I drove at a hundred miles an hour to Lewisham Hospital. Kellie jumped out got,the trolley people, out and told them what had happened. As Richard was being wheeled into the hospital they had to start heart massage. He definitley owes his life to me because if we'd waited for an ambulance it would have been too late. (p.128).


------------------------------------

John Perrry (OO guitarist) on the TV support slot:

That was a reasonable match...I got on well with Richard Lloyd. Tom Verlaine struck me as a little wound up. We toured on a coach and Verlaine who was tall he was walking along the aisle when we went over a bump. He got a great chunk of his hair caught in a skylight but he was too self conscious to say...in the end he wrenched it away and walked off obviously in great pain...a great chunk of his scalp hanging...poor man.

I think it was a 50:50 audience to see us as much as Television

There has been a certian interest in the double billing of former coterie darlings Tom Verlaine and Richard Llloyd versus...Perry and Perrett...espacially as Perry and Verlaine are credited with a love of jazz structure...Guitarists who listen to Coltrane to influence their licks are few and far between.

There's more but too late.....all best everyone

Graham

np Woke Up Sticky - Peter Perrett


The coda here is that i gave my son a CD of a collection of songs that I like and I hoped might shake him out of Hard Fi, Killers Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance etc. He was bowled over by Another Girl Another Planet and has appropriated it for his 'film co' which he posts on youtube. Inciidently he thought Televsision were crap but he's only 11. Later.......
--------------
To post: Mail tv@obbard.com
To unsubscribe: Mail majordomo@obbard.com with message "unsubscribe tv"