Re: (TV) Alleged Boot of Television's 1st ever show at CBGB / New Book's details on Gabriel fans & Television

[Phil Obbard <pobbard@yahoo.com>]

This is interesting, but I have never, ever heard of a recording of the March
31, 1974 show in circulation. Perhaps the author has access to an unknown
cache of tapes, or perhaps he is mistaken/mislead... lots of poorly-labelled
tapes floating around out there!

--Phil


________________________________
From: Leo Casey <LeoCasey@comcast.net>
To: tv@obbard.com 
Sent: Tuesday,
November 29, 2011 11:32 AM
Subject: (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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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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