(TV) Some Ominous News on Waterman's '33 1/3: MM' Approach

["Leo Casey" <LeoCasey@comcast.net>]

Regarding: 

> 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.

 

I would say this description from this link
(http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=136541
<http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?BookId=136541&SubjectId=1381&Subject2Id=1396>
&SubjectId=1381&Subject2Id=1396 ) does not bode well at all: 331/3: 

"A **thoroughly researched** study of the **origins of the New York City punk scene** [emphasis
added], 

focusing on Television and their extraordinary debut record."

 

Why must we hear all the hoary cliches of the 'NYC punk scene' about Hell and his razor blades,
Hilly Kristal and 

early CBGB's, the single-chord, jack-hammer pace of Ramones' songs, 'Please Kill Me' t-shirts,
the cartoonish Dictators, 

etc., etc., once again ad nauseum.  It's all been done already by so many other writers (and
I'm someone who loved 

"From The Velvets To The Voidoids".) 

 

Forget the thorough research, how about some original, interesting analysis concentrating on
the 8 songs on the 

album M M.  (I'll  even settle for theories or conjectures on 'Torn Curtain', or on why Lloyd
obsessively chose 

the key he did on 'Elevation'... better yet ask Lloyd, himself, he'd be happy to talk about
keys for days ... or the 

influence on the song 'MM' of Elia Kazan's "Wild River"... its voiceless scene with Montgomery
Cliff and Lee 

Remick with the sound of the rain beating on the roof:  on  "I was listening / listening to the
rain / I was hearing / 

hearing something else", or Verlaine's conscious artistic choice to sing all the vocals in
Pointillist style, or .....)

 

Regarding:  "...and if I'm talking to a lunkhead who can't get *his* [emphasis added] 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 I had a dollar for every woman I was ever seriously interested in meeting but who, when they
later looked up 

the name Tom Verlaine or the band Television and read the usual "  .... famed for his
trailblazing work as the singer 

and guitarist for the seminal New York punk band Television blah , blah, blah ....", then ended
the 'conversation' 

with mw with something along the lines of "I hate that type of music", then I'd be a wealthy
man. [smile]. 

Maybe they shouldn't be, but sadly and unfortunately first impressions are very important with
many people. That's 

why 'open-mindedness' is an important criteria for me when I meet a woman (or a man) for the
first time.

 

RE:  "Anyway, I think Hell is a pretty big part of Television's story."

I think his role is vastly overblown (as is Hell's influence in the NYC scene back then, or as
a writer/musician).  

I'll grant him the original "Destiny Street"; it's a work of art.  

 

RE: "Would Verlaine have ever started a band, much less Television, without Richard Hell's
involvement?"  

Using that logic is akin to saying Einstein's father should get part of the credit for the
'Theory of Relativity', 

or that the Beatles never would have created "Rubber Soul" if Pete Best hadn't been 

their original drummer (just kidding, Philip). 

 

Look .... if this Waterman guy wants to spend two say 2 chapters on how Hell and Verlaine both
loved the 

French Symbolists, how the two boyhood pals influenced each other's poetry, writing, or even [a
stretch] their 

music. I'm all for it.  But to regurgitate "the origins of the New York City punk scene" is
boring, and wastes 

valuable pages.  Remember, it's not suppose to be about "thorough research"; it's supposed to
be an analysis 

of a single masterpiece, M M.

 

I have the 331/3 by Hugo Wickken on my favorite Bowie album, "Low".  It's only 138 pages; it's
serious, but fun, 

and very well-written, and he doesn't waste any of the book revisiting Bowie's earlier
glam-rock history and 

the whole Ziggy and the Spiders from Mars nonsense. 

 

I would be much happier if 331/3 was being written not by someone from academia with an
interest/specialty in 

revisiting NYC history, but someone such as Ellen Willis or Robert Palmer or Robert Christgau
or Lisa Robinson 

or Greil Marcus or John Pareles, or *especially Richard Meltzer* [but no Dave Marsh or the
dull-as-dishwater 

Simon Frith!]), i.e., people who know music and know M M intimately. 

 

Speaking of intimately, with apologies to the few women on this List, what it ultimately comes
down to 

[and I'm half-serious here] in a crude, sort of NYC-punk-rock way, is that I am still extremely
pissed-off 

that I missed-out getting laid about 50 times because of the stranglehold that the term 'punk'
has had on 

Television these many years.   

 

Leo (the dirty old man) 

 

PS: "We are sorry that we are unable to take advance credit card orders for out-of-stock or
not-yet-published 

titles [331/3: M M] on this website. If you would like to place a credit card backorder, please
contact customer 

service at 1-800-561-7704"  

 

I just placed mine.
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