Re: (TV) Richard speaks on FB/Billy's drumming

[Rex Broome <rexbroome@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 6:09 AM, postitnote <postitnote@sbcglobal.net>wrote:

> Well, this speaks to what I was asking about earlier...what Richard meant
> when
> he stated that he had to defend Billy Ficca for the last 35 yrs.  But this
> doesn't make alot of sense to me.  Richard says that Tom didn't care for
> his
> "jazz-crap" style of playing.  But Tom has a love for jazz and wasn't Billy
> playing in a jazz band already when they urged him to come to NY and join
> them?  So Tom would have already been familiar w/ his jazz-style of
> playing,
> no?   It's hard to imagine that Tom wanted more of a rock-style drummer
> when
> Billy's drumming seems to go so well w/ the music.
>
> Anyone else have any thoughts on this?
>

Well, I don't think we can really take either Richard's or Tom's word as
gospel when it comes to the history of Television.  They both have agendas
to push and they have their differing ways of serving their own versions up.
 Tom's is usually more passive or dismissive, just referring to Richard as
the band's "other guitar player" or otherwise minimizing his importance,
which is rather distasteful.  Richard's is to actively slag Tom off like
this, and his most recent round seems to revolve around putting Billy and
Fred in the middle of it, which is also not the classiest way to go about
things.

Again, I don't really see how Richard hopes to win points with either the
rhythm section (who are big boys and can make their own professional
choices) or fans this way... I'd guess that 85% or more of RL's fans are
primarily fans of Television and almost all of those would rather hear Tom &
Richard playing together again than anything else either of them is going to
do on their own.  So heaping negativity on Tom, especially all the way back
to the classic years and using the other members as playing pieces, really
only stands to alienate a portion of his own fanbase, which is relatively
small and cultish to begin with.  But Richard has his own way of going about
things, so it's nothing new... just a slightly different tactic.
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