Television

In the mid-1970s, New York becomes the laboratory of new wave. In the underground temple of Cbgb's, Patti Smith, Ramones and Television set the audience alight with a new sound that lays the groundwork for punk and perhaps changes rock forever. Drawing on the decadent masters Velvet Underground, these New York pioneers graft onto the classic song form sonic gestures that express the neuroses of a generation that grew up without the utopian ideals of the Sixties. Of this sublime triad, the last to release their debut album are none other than Tom Verlaine's Television, the dazed, swan-necked guitarist fascinated by decadent poetry (as his stage name reveals), with a past as a dockworker and bookstore clerk.

Preceded by the single "Little Johnny Jewel", released on the independent label Ork, comes their debut album for Elektra: "Marquee Moon" (1977). The record, an absolute masterpiece of the entire new wave movement, is a haunting reimagining of old underground psychedelia, a mosaic of dissonant accompaniments and disorienting solos, both built on the monotonous repetition of the same phrase and on variations in tone. The songs are marked above all by Verlaine's extraordinary guitar lines. Blues-based grooves, irresistible riffs rich in arpeggios, feedback, tremolos and glissandi, and bizarre, vaguely jazzy solos with a hint of Eastern flavor effectively reinvent the role of the electric guitar in rock music, turning it into their "voice" - right in the middle of an era, punk, that had banned guitar solos altogether.

Patti Smith, who shared both romantic and artistic ties with the Television frontman, once said of him: "The sound of Tom Verlaine's guitar makes you think of the scream of a thousand birds." Verlaine's guitar indeed sounds acidic, shrill and disorienting, matching the guttural tones of his hallucinated, android-like vocals.

This is how the ungainly (and unforgettable) folk-rock of "Venus" comes to life, with a sharp guitar phrasing and a bassline wrapped in seductive harmonies, a delightful chorus and percussive touches of magic. Then there's the disjointed sweetness of the ballad "Elevation", built on a highly distinctive bassline intertwining with aching guitar arpeggios, and the mechanical drive of the icy "See No Evil". These are flashes of a vibrant, lyrical rock that manages to convey both jolts of neurosis and a sense of resigned desolation. And then there are the two long jams "Marquee Moon" and "Torn Curtain", unsettling forays into the human psyche painted in dark, sickly hues. The title track, a wondrous "lunar" suite, is an extended sequence of circular art rock that drifts into hypnotic effect with progressive echoes. Above all, it's a chilling display of what Verlaine's guitar can do: unsettling and evocative (the famous "scream of a thousand birds" praised by Patti Smith), but also obsessive and draining, leading the listener down a winding, subtly cerebral path. "Torn Curtain" is an electric ride with blues cadences, an acid serenade that alternates the tender warmth of organ and piano with the drive of the drums, painting a long night stretching relentlessly over the world. The track also highlights the contribution of Fred Smith on bass and Billy Ficca on drums, invaluable too in shaping the arrangements.

These are alienated, desolate jams, descendants of Coltrane's free jazz and the psychedelia of the Grateful Dead, dragging themselves majestically through endless agonies. Verlaine's strangled voice occasionally recalls Patti Smith's, but is even more tense and neurotic, while his singing could be seen as a "sophisticated" variant of Lou Reed's perverse spoken delivery.

Television's dazed, off-kilter rock is just the flipside of that same urban desolation, that same fear of the future recounted by Pere Ubu on "Modern Dance" and by bands like Devo and Ultravox: a fundamental step in the shaping of a new musical genre, new wave, which would prove to be one of the most fertile of the following decade. "Marquee Moon" would win over critics the world over, but sold poorly at home. John Rockwell of Rolling Stone wrote: "Television were too jarring and anachronistic (almost like the Byrds with exposed nerves) to achieve success." Verlaine and co. would instead become huge in England, significantly influencing the shift towards the bleaker forms of new wave embraced by Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen, Cure, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Smiths. And their legacy would remain crucial in the decades to follow, as proven by Smog, Interpol and many others.

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12/11/2006