Television as 'Pop' / RE: (TV) Re: Tom as a punk

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

Here are some interviews in which Tom plays down descriptions of Television's songs as
'difficult', 'arty', 

'complicated' ,and dare I say it, 'punk'. .

More relevant passages marked with asteriks ***.

Leo

 

Liquid Television

Source: Details (November 1992)

by David Cavanagh 

 

Interviewer: Dare these guys talk of the future? Is Television built to last any more than it
was in 1978?

 

"Probably not," shrugs Verlaine, giggling. "We never were. We're a band of the present. ***And
peculiar as it sounds, I've always thought that we were a pop band.*** You know, I always
thought Marquee Moon was a bunch of cool singles. And then I'd realize, Christ, this song is
ten minutes long with two guitar solos.....

 

"Can I just say," says Richard Lloyd intently, "that if you asked me, I'd say Television was a
lousy fuckin' name for a rock group."

...............................................................................................
.........

 

Alternative music doesn't have to be "alternative" [mock wincing facial gesture]. ***I mean, we
COULD be weird and avant-garde if we wanted, but really, at our core is a pop band.  ***Billy
Ficca, Creem 1993

...............................................................................................
......

 

Tom Verlaine The Miller's Tale

Source: Chicago Reader December 6, 1996

By Monica Kendrick 

 

Of course anyone familiar with an artist's body of work is going to have quibbles with any
given compilation, and if the purpose of this one is to present a primer, it serves well
enough. **It boosts Verlaine's unjustly neglected status as a pop craftsman** and offers up
tantalizing glimpses of his mad genius. ***Interestingly, it doesn't cash in on his status as
an O.P. (Original Punk). Verlaine might have made himself at home onstage at CBGB, but he was
never at home with the way that scene was defined after the fact. He was a musician's musician
in a scene that was often anti-musician, never given to behavioral excesses in a scene that
came to demand them, and he is still an introvert in a business where extroversion pays.***
When his old flame Patti Smith dragged him out of his cave to play on her comeback tour last
summer, he lurked in the wings so much that some who saw her show claimed to have heard him but
not seen him at all. 

 

They say history is written by the victors, and the history of rock outside the mainstream is
no exception. As much as punk originally might have been the refuge of the unfashionable,
awkward, and weird, it has been resold to the chic and shapely at high prices many, many times
over. That process was already well under way by the time Television broke up in 1978. Since
then, Verlaine's own victories have all been artistic, arguably moral, and somewhat Pyrrhic_the
history he helped to create has largely been told by others, and this version, which may be as
close as he's come to his own telling, is available only as a British import. There's nothing
inherently antiglamorous about Verlaine: he's good-looking, he dresses well, and when I saw him
on his only other American tour this decade (the short-lived Television reunion) he turned out
to be rather charismatic. It's just that he understands the game either not at all or all too
well.

 

...............................................................................................
.............

Television

Source: Mojo (February 2001)

by Ira Robbins 

 

"To me, the songs themselves don't sound that far away from the material on the last album,"
said Verlaine. "There aren't many overdubs - just a bit of this and that, lots of guitars, some
keyboards. As far as the sound goes, generally we aim to get a different sound on each song."
Elsewhere he explained that Jansen, unlike the Velvet-minded Johns, "understood a clean Fender
guitar sound".

 

The album has a smoother, warmer tone than Marquee Moon, as if they had less to prove and more
to say. A lot of fans and critics were disappointed, and it's true the playing and singing does
lack the debut's tension, substituting catchier tunes suspended in a sophisticated, laconic
cool. But the album is true to Television's virtues, and articulates them with clear, clean
production. ***The succinct pop melodies of 'Glory' and 'I Don't Care' go handsomely with the
measured, folkish lilt of 'Days', which could be a template of sorts for R.E.M.'s later
reinterpretation of The Byrds. ***'Carried Away' is a dainty minuet with piano and organ
shading the guitars; 'The Fire' proceeds down a cautious noir alley until Verlaine uncorks a
wavering, whimpering solo against the timorous wheedle of an ondioline. Only the Stonesy
measure of 'Ain't That Nothin'', punctured by two fluid Lloyd solos, rivals the rock edge of
'Foxhole' - and neither song raises the mercury like 'Friction' or 'Prove It'.

................................................................................

 

Changing Channels

Source: Spin (July 1987)

by Eric King 

 

And so Tom Verlaine keeps moving and recording. As postcards from a cloistered room, written by
someone who would prefer to remain anonymous to people he would rather not meet, his recent
work plays well, feels right. "I saw some Shakespeare in England," he says, "and it made me
think about what makes a great artist. Is it someone who's extremely accurate in describing
something? Or is it someone who is creating something that has nothing to do with what is
actually happening?" The thing is, I'm becoming more and more detached from what it is I
thought I wanted. I don't particularly have an enormous desire to have this or that. I don't
identify with being a musician. I don't practice, I've never practiced guitar in my life.
***With my records, it's just a matter of trying to create something fresh for myself in a very
finite context, which is the pop song. I don't know anything about the people who buy my
records, and what, if anything, they get out of them."***

....................................................................

Tom Verlaine 

Musician Magazine 1987

By Scott Isler

 

Musician: You're perceived as a respectable cult figure with disreputable sales. Can Tom
Verlaine sell records? 

 

Verlaine: I don't think it's up to me, really. How do you think people sell records? ***What
kind of music am I making? [laughs] You should tell me, then I'll see if we agree. It's pop
music.... I don't hear these records as being difficult to listen to, or even demanding. I've
read reviews over the years that describe them as some very difficult thing, and I just can't
hear it--nor have any of the people I've worked with, either. It's like a joke, incredibly
simple music, it really is. ***
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