Tom Verlaine – guitarist & main songwriter from Television and one of the architects/building blocks of the New York City punk scene of the mid-1970’s – passed away over the weekend at 73 years old after what was described as a “brief illness.” The announcement was made by Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of Patti Smith, with whom Verlaine constructed the myth & reality of the CBGB’s scene that spawned household names The Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie, among many others.
Being the only member of the Pencil Storm team who is eligible for Medicare it’s fallen to me to write today’s In Memoriam.
I have to be truthful; I was never into Television that much, one reason being I never got to see them play live. The Ramones played Columbus as early as 1976 at – of all places – The Sugar Shack; a dive bar that featured mainly (and I’m gonna get in Big Trouble with Jim Johnson for sayin’ this) lunkhead hardrock and heavy metal acts. I didn’t attend that show (which featured Willie Alexander – a Boston rocker I ADORED – opening) because when Matt Wyatt of Vorpal Gallery (one of Columbus’ earliest proto-punk bands) called to tell me about it I said, “Yeah, right, The Ramones are gonna play The Sugar Shack,” and hung up on him.
But that’s kinda the story of the New York City punk-rock scene in the 70’s: The Ramones - working class kids from Queens - toured their asses off, playing anytime & anywhere they could; and art-school kiddies like Television and Johnny Thunder’s Heartbreakers just played when they felt like it and stayed home reading press raves about themselves in their critics’ darlings nirvanas.
So I’m just gonna apologize in advance for the rather backhanded/half-assed nature of this “tribute” to Tom Verlaine and let the music do the talking; when Television were on the rock & roll money, they were fucking GREAT.
Ricki C. turned 70 years old sometime last summer. His first favorite rock & roll song was Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” when he was five years old, riding in his sainted Italian father’s Oldsmobile. He figures his last favorite rock & roll song will be by either Elliott Murphy or Ian Hunter, sometime in the future.