Deep Album Cuts Vol. 307: Television and Tom Verlaine
There are artists I love dearly who I generally don't consider for the deep album cuts for reasons like having a small catalog, or for being album acts who didn't really have hit singles. And Television only made three studio albums and never had much in the way of hits (although three of their '70s singles charted well in the UK, and 1992's "Call Mr. Lee" was a minor alt-rock radio hit). But after singer/guitarist Tom Verlaine died in January, I thought that maybe I should fold his first few solo albums into one discography with Television to take a look back at his incredible lifetime of work.
Television and Tom Verlaine deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):
1. Friction
2. See No Evil
3. Guiding Light
4. Elevation
5. Days
6. Careful
7. The Dream's Dream
8. Adventure
9. The Blow-Up
10. Breakin' My Heart
11. Kingdom Come
12. Red Leaves
13. There's A Reason
14. True Story
15. Swim
16. Song
17. The Rocket
18. 1800 Or So
Tracks 1, 2, 3 and 4 from Television's Marquee Moon (1977)
Tracks 5, 6 and 7 from Television's Adventure (1978)
Marquee Moon is, obviously, one of the greatest albums ever made. My friends and I would tape albums for each other in high school, and I was about 15 when my friend Scott made me a tape that had Marquee Moon on one side and A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory on the other, definitely the most influential cassette of my young life. For a long time, that was all I needed, because while the other major CBGB's acts like The Ramones, Talking Heads, Patti Smith and Blondie all had fairly long careers with large catalogs, Television split shortly after releasing their second album, and only released one more album after reuniting and intermittently touring over the last three decades.
Tracks 10, 11 and 12 from Tom Verlaine's Tom Verlaine (1979)
Track 13 from Tom Verlaine's Dreamtime (1981)
Track 14 from Tom Verlaine's Words From The Front (1982)
Track 9 from Television's The Blow-Up (1982)
Track 15 from Tom Verlaine's Cover (1984)
Track 16 from Tom Verlaine's Flash Light (1987)
Tracks 17 and 19 from Television's Television (1992)
Track 8 from Television's Adventure (Reissue) (2003)
Marquee Moon is, obviously, one of the greatest albums ever made. My friends and I would tape albums for each other in high school, and I was about 15 when my friend Scott made me a tape that had Marquee Moon on one side and A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory on the other, definitely the most influential cassette of my young life. For a long time, that was all I needed, because while the other major CBGB's acts like The Ramones, Talking Heads, Patti Smith and Blondie all had fairly long careers with large catalogs, Television split shortly after releasing their second album, and only released one more album after reuniting and intermittently touring over the last three decades.
Eventually, though, I did check out Television's other records and found things to love on them even if they never quite recaptured the magic of Marquee Moon. The reissue of Adventure features an outtake named "Adventure" that would've been one of the best songs on the album if they'd included the would-be title track, that one always confused me (Verlaine later used some lyrics from "Adventure" on his solo track "Red Leaves"). A few years after the band broke up, a 1978 live recording was issued as The Blow-Up, although the opening title track is actually a mislabeled cover of "Fire Engine" by The 13th Floor Elevators.
Most of Verlaine's solo albums featured Television's Fred Smith on bass, and Verlaine's self-titled solo debut featured a few songs that had kicked around in some form as Television songs, "Breakin' My Heart," which featured guitar by Ricky Wilson from The B-52's. "Kingdom Come" was covered by David Bowie on Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), although Bowie didn't use the guitar Verlaine himself recorded for the track. After Television reunited for its self-titled 1992 album, the band stayed together and continued gigging for decades, occasionally playing new songs. But a fourth album was supposedly recorded and never released, and Richard Lloyd (who also has some good solo albums) left the band in 2007, replaced by Jimmy Rip, who frequently collaborated with Verlaine. In fact, the only time I saw Verlaine live was when he played as a duo with Jimmy Rip, opening for Sonic Youth in 1998. This was about a year after that tape of Marquee Moon blew my mind, so I was excited just to be in the same room as the guy.
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