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(TV) Alleged Boot of Television's 1st ever show at CBGB / New Book's details on Gabriel fans & Television
I know technically we're not supposed to discuss bootlegs on this List, but
my question is in the context of does a bootleg of Television's first ever
CBGB show on March 31, 1974 really exist, but NOT how to get a copy. I am
very skeptical ; why wouldn't it have surfaced years ago or by now?
It's discussed in a new book which Glen Copper posted on last week (and
which I just finished. I'd give it a B+) titled Love Goes To Buildings On
Fire: 5 Years in New York That Changed Music Forever" ( by Will Hermes). I
typed up most of the sections that discuss Television below. The March 31,
1974 bootleg claim is in paragraph 3, p. 68.
p.230: In March, the band was back on stage at CBGB. But now the audience
was full of famous people who'd come down to the Bowery by town car. At one
set, Linda Ronstadt, Paul Simon, and Peter Gabriel showed up. Champagne was
sent to the 'dressing room', a six-by-nine storage space of graffitied
plywood and plasterboard. Gabriel was smitten, and invited the band to be
the openers for hid debut solo U.S. tour. The accepted. The catch: the
tour started in a few days. In many cases, it was too late to advertise the
band in advance, so Television faced a crowd of Genesis fanatics expecting a
whole night of their hero Gabriel, who had recently left the band.
For all the musical kinship between the bands, the upshot of the pairing was
inescapable: it was a showdown between punk and prog rock. Even the
hometown show at the Palladium was a battleground. I'd woken up at dawn to
wait outside the Ticketron outlet at Macy's on Queen's Boulevard and scored
fourth row seats---the best I'd ever had for a show. The band came out to
scattered applause and a chant of "GAY-BREE-ELLLL" that persisted throughout
the set. Verlaine looked all business; Lloyd smirked tightly. Verlaine
started into the tick-tock rhythm of 'Prove It, spitting out the title
refrain amid guitar spirals like he was arguing with the crowd, taunting
them, yelping "Just the facts!" like Dylan shouting "I don't believe you,
you're a liar!" to a heckler at Manchester Free Trade Hall in 1966 before
tearing into 'Like A Rolling Stone'. 'Venus' was violent and spiky, more
George Braque than Alexandros of Antioch, 'Marquee Moon' was accelerated but
incandescent, notes stabbing like knives, then twisting to open the wound
wider. The crowd, fans of Gabriel's theatrics with Genesis, was unimpressed
with the four guys who pretty much just stood onstage, unsmiling, playing
their instruments. The boos and chants competed with the cheers and finally
overwhelmed them.. Verlaine flipped off the crowd with his spindly middle
finger and left the stage.
Television headed off for their debut U.K. tour, followed by Blondie, who
were the opening act. There was no love lost between the groups.
Television were surly and standoffish. On top of it all, Chris Stein and
Debbie Harry had to see their former bassist, Fred Smith, whom Television
had poached two years prior. At one point, Richard Lloyd and Blondie's
keyboardist, Jimmy Destri, got into a fistfight.
p. 68: Television played there [CBGB] on Sunday, March 31. ...The set was
sloppy but intense and, at moments, stunning. Hell's 'Love Comes In Spurts'
dated back to the Neon Boys ; 'Venus, 'I Don't Care', and 'Eat The Light
were new. So was 'Blank Generation', a song that on a bootleg recording of
that night, Can't seem to decide what it wants to be. Hell's vocals are
pinched , inflamed, not fucking around: "I belong to the blank generation",
he sneers, "I can take it or leave it each time.". Ficca's drums lumber
behind, while guitars careen: chattering, squealing, sputtering, following
a shifty melody that at one point resembles 'Big Spender', the campy come-on
from Sweet Charity best known at the time as the soundtrack to a Muriel
cigar commercial. The guitarists sound like they're goofing, except when
lines occasionally synch and bloom like fireworks.
p. 229: Television's Marquee Moon was released by Elektra Records on
February 8 . To celebrate the album's completion, Verlaine treated himself
to a London vacation, his first ever visit. At a Notting Hill Gate
newsstand, he saw the February 5 issue of NME with his band on the cover.
The review was a two-page spread. The critic Nick Kent called it "a
24-carat inspired work of pure genius.". Notwithstanding the U.K. Music
press hyperbole, this was deserved praise.
Figuring he should maybe call up the London office of Elektra, which had no
clue he was in town, Verlaine found them startled that he'd been there all
week, sightseeing by himself and chain-smoking (he had a two pack a day
habit) when he could have been doing press to promote the record.
Back in the States, meanwhile, Television's debut was apparently no big
priority for Elektra. One can imagine the meetings. What the hell is this
record? Punk rock? With guitar solos and ten-minute songs? Art rock? With
no synthesizers or oversized drum kits? Why is the band called Television,
anyway?
p. 67: Hell and Verlaine settled on the name because they both hated the
medium and they figured they could be a living, breathing alternative to it.
They thought they could "tell a vision". And though he didn't crow about
it, Verlaine thought it fit nicely with his initials.
http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/11/21/interview-will-he
rmes-author-of-love-goes-to-buildings-on-fire
(TV) Love Goes To Buildings On Fire
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* Subject: (TV) Love Goes To Buildings On Fire
* From: Glenn Cooper <glennwaynecooper@gmail.com
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* Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2011 20:06:32 +1100
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size=2 width="100%" align=center>
<http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/11/21/interview-will-h
ermes-author-of-love-goes-to-buildings-on-fire>
http://www.thelmagazine.com/TheMeasure/archives/2011/11/21/interview-will-he
rmes-author-of-love-goes-to-buildings-on-fire
New book. Looks good.
Glenn C.
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