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Re: (TV) Leave Hell out please, and de-emphasize the punk-rock NYC scene, concentrate on the 331/3 rpm album itself



Understanding and acknowledging the fundamental truth of what you say, there
really will never be any prying the discussion of Television apart from that
of "punk rock".  It's horridly reductive, true, but there it is.

If I were to say, honestly, that the music of Television, Talking Heads,
Patti Smith Group and Blondie, very little of which is formalistically "punk
rock", were of interest to me, I'd already be well on the road to having
wasted my time with too many words when most people would get the same
picture if I professed to interested in "early NY punk rock".  Considering
that I do also like the Voidoids, Ramones, Dead Boys and a bunch of other
more (sort of) arguably "punk rock" artists from the same time frame and
"scene", venue-wise, it starts to seem silly to me not to just go ahead and
use the shorthand.  I'd happily list the specific artists and discuss each
at length afterwards, and if I'm talking to a lunkhead who can't get his
head around the idea that I'm talking about a more diverse type of music
than, say, hardcore, then the conversation's pointless anyway.  If they have
half a brain, they'll know I'm talking about, well, exactly the bands I'm
talking about, and appreciate the depth of the field while acknowledging the
inadequacy of the genre label (and if they have more than half a brain,
they'll appreciate the inadequacy of ALL genre labels).

Now, with regards to the idea of writing a book on Marquee Moon itself,
you're dead right; there's going to be more need to refer to Ayler and the
Stones or Dylan, for starters, than the Ramones, and more than a chapter's
worth of band history detailing the Hell years is off-message overkill.
(Cross-reference with Patti's work might be a little more expected and
appropriate, I guess.)

But more generally, when Television is discussed, you're going to hear
references to Hell, and CBGB, and Patti, and eventually most/all of the
contemporaneous artists I mentioned above, and the shorthand "punk rock" is
going to be used.  I've come to understand that that it's no good a alll to
say "Hey, I like punk rock", but if I put the modifier "early NY" or even
"CBGB" in front of it, most people will either (A) understand exactly what
bands I mean, or (B) not have enough of a frame of reference for it to mean
anything either way.

Erm... not sure that all made sense... just saying that you're totally
right, but at the same time this stuff is increasingly such a specialized,
obscure-ish subgenre that I occasionally embrace the sloppy shorthand label.
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