Thirty-eight years ago, TELEVISION released their extraordinary debut, Marquee Moon. Now, RICHARD LLOYD reveals the whole fraught story of an epochal album – a tale of unrelenting tension, disgusting shirts, drunken producers, and the intense power trips of Lloyd’s sparring partner, Tom Verlaine...
The years went by. Then, around 1990, my manager ran into Tom’s manager and they decided to see if they could get us together again. We met up, just jammed. And it was there. It was Television.
We started talking about a new record. One day, Tom was complaining about being short of breath when he was singing. Of course, Tom smoked like a chimney and drank coffee all day. That’s all he did. I said, “Well, maybe you could take vocal lessons, to get some breathing techniques.”
That was it. Suddenly, Tom was screaming at me: “I need singing lessons!?! Listen: I’m not making a pop record! And I’m not making a rock record!”
I sat thinking, “Jesus. What business does he think he’s in? Flamenco?”
That, though, is closer to the truth. Tom is into cowboy music and old TV scores. On that third record, any time it came to record my parts, Tom would say, “I hear the amp buzzing. Could you please look into that?” Often, he would turn it down, until it was barely audible. So that nothing rustled, nothing moved. For me, that third record was Television-lite. It has a beautiful, nice sound. But it’s not rock’n’roll.
What happened next, though, was we began playing live again. That’s where the real power came out. Songs that sounded tiny on that record really blossomed to life.
Across Television’s final period, we rehearsed, we played – and we would write new songs. Then Tom would throw them away. For 14 years, from 1993 to 2007, when I finally quit, Tom would talk about us making a new record. But nothing ever came of it.
We recorded nothing. Tom would always poo-poo the notion. It was like he didn’t want to give anything to Television. Tom never really wants to share credit. When we first signed with Elektra, I found out years later that Tom had tried desperately to make the contract so he would be the only one signed as “Television”. The rest of us would be hired musicians. Elektra wouldn’t have it.
Tom had a twin, John, who died long ago. I really think Tom has a sibling rivalry thing that started in the womb. It’s the only psychological motive I can come up with for some of his behaviour.
Tom, I think, was just done. Finished. In 2007, after I left, Jimmy Rip, Tom’s buddy, took my place, and put a message on Facebook, saying he was looking forward to being on the new Television album coming that year. Well, guess what? It’s five years later, and it still hasn’t happened.
Look at it this way: I left Television in 2007. Within six months, I had my album The Radiant Monkey out. Since then, I’ve put out two more records of my own. Meanwhile, I joined Rocket From The Tombs, we put out the Rocket Redux album, and we made a new record just last year, Barfly.
Tom Verlaine is wonderful to laugh with. Tom can be the funniest guy on Earth. But, often, Tom just doesn’t want to get out of bed. I’ll certainly never do business with him again.
But there will always be Marquee Moon.
I don’t think of that album as just a collection of songs. I think of Marquee Moon as one thing. It contains so many songs that reach you, but there’s no way to separate them. These days, people download a song or two from an album. Well, Marquee Moon is not for that.
Marquee Moon is the whole thing. One thing. Like Mount Everest.
The History Of Rock – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – a brand new monthly magazine from the makers of Uncut – is now on sale in the UK. Click here for more details.
Uncut: the spiritual home of great rock music.