From: LeoCasey@comcast.net
To: tv@obbard.com
Subject: (TV) Some Ominous News on Waterman's '33 1/3: MM' Approach
Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:05:14 -0400
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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