(TV) New Q & A from Richard

[Keith Allison <keith@thewonder.co.uk>]

Just about to add this to the site and thought this would be of interest 
to all you plank spankers:

    Hi Richard,
     
    What is the deal with that white or blonde Telecaster shown in the
    liner notes to the Marquee Moon reissue?  Looks like it's missing
    the pickguard and it had the neck pickup routed for a humbucker at
    some point (but it looks like it has another Tele bridge pickup or
    something shoehorned in there).  Anyway it looks super dirty and
    really cool.  What ever happened to it?
     
    Also, I was wondering how some of the tracks on Marquee Moon were
    recorded or processed.  On Venus in particular, one of the guitar
    parts sounds kind of like it's doubled or lightly chorused, but that
    doesn't seem like a "Television" thing to do.  Every note seems to
    decay differently.  Maybe it's just a really short reverb?  Anyway
    it sounds great.

 
Dear Rob,
 
Thank you for writing.  When I was in Los Angeles during the early 70s I 
bought a Sunburst custom telly -- at the time I could not afford a 
Stratocaster.  When I got back to New York and we formed Television that 
was my main guitar.  I couldn't stand the Sunburst so I sanded it down 
to natural wood and painted it different colors -- pink at one point, 
black at another and so on.  One of the pickups broke and it ended up 
having only one pickup -- I can't remember what kind but I only used the 
one pickup from then on.  It was jerryrigged but I didn't care.  Then I 
got my 1961 Stratocaster and eventually I sold the telecaster for 
practically nothing.  If I had it now it would be worth quite a bit, but 
that's the way it goes.  Both that telecaster and the Stratocaster are 
on our first record.
 
Tom Verlaine kept talking about making a "live" sounding record.  I felt 
as if the record should have qualities which could only be accomplished 
in the studio.  I have always been able to play the same thing exactly 
over and over, whereas Tom (aside from the rhythm parts) could not play 
exactly the same phraseology in his solos.  When Andy Johns began 
recording us I suggested that I could double my parts -- I got this idea 
from both the Phil Spector productions and also from the Beatles.  I 
thought that this doubling of certain of my rhythm parts and of my lead 
solos would lend some additional credibility and phenomena to the 
record.  Andy was quite surprised that I had this skill and Tom enjoyed 
the subtle chorusing which was much more pleasant than any kind of 
chorus effect.  We used no effects whatsoever on Marquee Moon -- just 
guitars into amplifiers.
 
All of the doubling on the record including the solo to Elevation are 
mine.  In fact, one of the songs I cowrote for the record, "Guiding 
Light" has eight tracks in certain places of me doing the same part.
 
I hope that answers your question.  There is as far as I know, no 
artificial reverb on the record, and no chorusing whatsoever.  In one of 
my solos we wanted to use a revolving speaker but it was too expensive 
to rent those things they use with the organs, so Andy Johns swung a 
microphone like a lasso while I played -- it's very subtle, but it did 
the trick.
 
Best regards,
Richard Lloyd


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