Post by KotO on Jan 29, 2023 15:41:58 GMT
www.yahoo.com/entertainment/tom-verlaine-singer-guitarist-seminal-224219305.html
Tom Verlaine, the singer and guitarist who fronted the singular, ambitious and oblique New York band Television, with whom he made two of rock’s most acclaimed albums, died Saturday in Manhattan. He was 73.
Verlaine’s death was confirmed to The Times by his former manager, John Telfer, who stated that it followed “a brief illness.”
Jimmy Rip, a friend who played with Verlaine for decades, wrote on Instagram, “At the end, he was surrounded by love and passed peacefully with the hands of myself and four more of his nearest and dearest friends on him.
Although Television first attracted attention at the New York punk rock club CBGB, Verlaine wasn’t a fan of punk, which he described as “just amped-up bubblegum with angrier lyrics.” Among other things, punk bands eschewed solos; Verlaine and fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd did not. In 2012, Spin magazine placed Verlaine and Lloyd seventh on a list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, likening their soloing to that of the Grateful Dead; Mojo magazine ranked Verlaine 34th on a similar list (one place ahead of Jerry Garcia), and Rolling Stone slotted him at 90.
The first two Television albums — “Marquee Moon,” released in 1977, and “Adventure,” a year later — were enough to cement the band’s legend. But the records didn’t sell, and the band broke up, reuniting for a third album, “Television,” in 1992 before disappearing again. They toured sporadically, even after Lloyd left in 2007, having grown frustrated at Verlaine’s unwillingness to record new music.
Television introduced ideas that hung around rock for decades. Subsequent generations of musicians seemed to base their styles on one song or even part of one; the bridge to the stupendous 10-minute track “Marquee Moon” anticipates much of Sonic Youth’s output, and R.E.M.’s first decade seemed to spring from the cascading arpeggios in “Days,” from “Adventure.”
Verlaine was passionate about harmonically complex music, especially jazz saxophonists John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, classical composers Henryk Gorecki and Krzysztof Penderecki and film composers Bernard Herrmann and Henry Mancini. He was also a sophisticated fan of literature, including the French Symbolists of the late 1800s, including the poet Paul Verlaine, to whom he paid tribute when inventing a pseudonym.
A great favorite of mine:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnpdMAJBbqM&ab_channel=TomVerlaine-Topic
Tom Verlaine, the singer and guitarist who fronted the singular, ambitious and oblique New York band Television, with whom he made two of rock’s most acclaimed albums, died Saturday in Manhattan. He was 73.
Verlaine’s death was confirmed to The Times by his former manager, John Telfer, who stated that it followed “a brief illness.”
Jimmy Rip, a friend who played with Verlaine for decades, wrote on Instagram, “At the end, he was surrounded by love and passed peacefully with the hands of myself and four more of his nearest and dearest friends on him.
Although Television first attracted attention at the New York punk rock club CBGB, Verlaine wasn’t a fan of punk, which he described as “just amped-up bubblegum with angrier lyrics.” Among other things, punk bands eschewed solos; Verlaine and fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd did not. In 2012, Spin magazine placed Verlaine and Lloyd seventh on a list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, likening their soloing to that of the Grateful Dead; Mojo magazine ranked Verlaine 34th on a similar list (one place ahead of Jerry Garcia), and Rolling Stone slotted him at 90.
The first two Television albums — “Marquee Moon,” released in 1977, and “Adventure,” a year later — were enough to cement the band’s legend. But the records didn’t sell, and the band broke up, reuniting for a third album, “Television,” in 1992 before disappearing again. They toured sporadically, even after Lloyd left in 2007, having grown frustrated at Verlaine’s unwillingness to record new music.
Television introduced ideas that hung around rock for decades. Subsequent generations of musicians seemed to base their styles on one song or even part of one; the bridge to the stupendous 10-minute track “Marquee Moon” anticipates much of Sonic Youth’s output, and R.E.M.’s first decade seemed to spring from the cascading arpeggios in “Days,” from “Adventure.”
Verlaine was passionate about harmonically complex music, especially jazz saxophonists John Coltrane and Albert Ayler, classical composers Henryk Gorecki and Krzysztof Penderecki and film composers Bernard Herrmann and Henry Mancini. He was also a sophisticated fan of literature, including the French Symbolists of the late 1800s, including the poet Paul Verlaine, to whom he paid tribute when inventing a pseudonym.
A great favorite of mine:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnpdMAJBbqM&ab_channel=TomVerlaine-Topic