Talk:Television (band)

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[edit] Not Wave

Television was never a new wave band. The word new wave emerged end of 1979-begin 1980. The band was contemporary of the Sex Pistols and Patti Smith. It was considered punk by the press and the business. (Well everything new was punk at those time, even Blondie was punk).

The band got its start in the famous club The CBGB's which was built in the shady block in New York. The band in the beginning... sucked. But after they started doing more gigs, they released such memroble hits as "Marquee Moon" .


There is a great discussion about the origins of the term "new wave" in Bernard Gendron's book Between Montmartre and the Mudd Club. In it, he explains the origins of new wave, which appeared in the NYC press in the mid-1970s to describe The Ramones, Television, etc. Basically, Gendron went back and read ALL of the newspapers, magazines, and zines from the period and traces the evolution of the terms "new wave" and "punk." It is really interesting, and totally convincing.Cpomeara 01:53, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Just to reiterate that the phrase "new wave" was used to label the CBGB bands (incl. Television) in 1977/78. See Gendron, B. 271-273. I can see an argument to be made that today (21st century) "new wave" refers to a different set of bands in many listeners' minds, in which case I will concede the point. But I haven't seen that point made, yet.--Cpomeara 22:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
you just made it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Petchboo (talk • contribs) 15:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Followers

I removed the Followers heading, because all it included was Sonic Youth, Strokes, and Franz Ferdinand, which was so limited as to give a pretty inaccurate (NPOV) view of their influence. Especially since it is so heavily weighted to the last 4 years. I began to put together a longer list (below), but it seems to combine bands influenced by Television (which should be a VERY long list) and bands that came out of the same scene. Anyway, since a good list of "followers" should be really long, I'm not sure it's useful for a Encyclopedia article.

--Cpomeara 19:42, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

A list like this is not allowed according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Music, see standard #7. If there are similar bands, explain in what way they are similar in a prose format. Tuf-Kat 23:53, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)
Thank you! That's very helpful. --Cpomeara

[edit] 2006 Tour?

Can anyone find a source for that little tidbit on the bottom about a tour for June of 2006? I can't find anything about a new Television tour myself, besides a show at the North by Northeast Festival in Toronto, so I wonder if it shouldn't just be removed until further notice.--Spaceboy9911 04:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Peter Laughner

Peter Laughner's audition is referred to in conjunction with Richard Lloyd joining in 1973; when in fact Laughner auditioned when Lloyd was considering leaving in 1975. I'm going to relocate that reference to a more chronologically appropriate location. Anazgnos 22:31, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quicksilver

I'm removing the following section:

"A major influence on Television's guitar work seems to be the band Quicksilver Messenger Service. For instance, listen to the Television's song "The Dream's Dream" on their album Adventure, and then that find the main guitar lick comes from a song on Quicksilver Messenger Service's live "Happy Trails" album (the lick is similar to the main lick in QMS's own song "The Fool" on their self-titled album. Also see the song Too Long/It's Been Too Long on their debut self-titled album, from which most of the main riff of the song Marquee Moon can be considered to be derived)."

It's a little too-much-info for such a minor reference, cites no references, and is a little too informal in tone. I'm replacing it with a shorter reference to QMS within a restructured "influences" paragraph. Anazgnos 22:40, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

True dat. Particularly since I've never heard Verlaine actually mention Quicksilver in any interview. Furthermore, everybody knows that the main riff of "Marquee Moon" is from Gene Clark's "Is Yours, Is Mine" (1967). - Maggie --64.229.64.62 03:16, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quicksilver Messenger Service/Television comparions by critic Lester Bangs, among others

In response to the edit:

"(cur) (last) 15:38, 1 August 2006 64.229.186.171 (Talk) (deleted speculative reference to quicksilver, which I've never heard cited by Verlaine)"


First of all, Verlaine has mentioned Quicksilver (see below). Secondly, this editor obviously overlooks the fact that there is another guitarist in the band, Richard Lloyd. Verlaine was not the only nor by any means the "main" guitar player in Television. Third, the editor then put into the Wikipedia article other influences posited by critics, so that fact that a posited influence was "never cited by Tom Verlaine" is obviously not a necessary nor a useful nor a sensible reason to delete references to posited influences, especially when influences are posited by credible and knowledgeable critics like Lester Bangs and Rolling Stone Magazine among many others, see below:

Who is a more authoritative, insightful, far-reaching, and respected rock critic than Lester Bangs?

http://www.monoculartimes.co.uk/monomusic/freejazzpunkrock_2.shtml:

or http://www.notbored.org/bangs.html

Lester Bangs:

"Almost certainly the most interesting experiments at what I like to think of as the real fusion music have occurred in New York City. A lot of people credit the late Television and their leader Tom Verlaine in this department, although for my money Verlaine's guitar playing always sounded more like John Cipollina of old San Francisco acid-hippie band Quicksilver Messenger Service than anybody else."

Or what magazine in its history can be argued to be a better long-term source of rock history than Rolling Stone?

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6598703/128_marquee_moon

"When the members of Television materialized in New York, at the dawn of punk, they played an incongruous, soaring amalgam of genres: the noirish howl of the Velvet Underground, brainy art rock, the double-helix guitar sculpture of Quicksilver Messenger Service. As exhilarating in its ambitions as the Ramones' debut was in its sim-plicity, Marquee Moon still amazes. "Friction," "Venus" and the mighty title track are jagged, desperate and beautiful all at once. As for punk credentials, don't forget the cryptic electricity and strangled existentialism of guitarist Tom Verlaine's voice and songwriting."


and

http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/tomverlaine/albums/album/116684/review/5945813/dreamtime

"In the gripping instrumental "The Blue Robe," Tom Verlaine applies free-jazz daring to exotic modal inventions in a manner reminiscent of the Quicksilver Messenger Service's John Cipollina or Roger McGuinn's twelve-string expansions in the Byrds' "Eight Miles High."


Other comparisions:

Detroit Metro Times by Fred Mills 10/22/2003

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=5534

"Indeed. Moon was an economy-minded rock muso’s delight, a combined assault of edgy, riff-fueled aggression ("See No Evil," "Friction") and dramatic, modal-tinged jamming (the title track). It featured death-defying Verlaine-Lloyd fretboard duels that eschewed standard-issue Anglo ejaculatory guitar solos in favor of esoteric yelps, glurps and improbable harmonic detours. Played out atop the Ficca/Smith rhythm section (itself an unlikely blend of discoish precision and jazz-cat extrapolation), the overall effect was akin to cueing up, simultaneously, a stack of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Velvet Underground and John Coltrane albums."


by Nick Yarn http://www.geocities.com/mjareviews/television.html

"Pretty much everything that makes Television interesting is here - the interplay between the two guitarists are at a high (not to mention the fantastic solos, whose structure is often reminiscent of psychedelic acts like the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service, as some have cited)"

http://starling.rinet.ru/music/tvc.htm


"Michael and Priscilla Bloom <netsqueech@mediaone.net> (04.02.2001)

Both guitarists were tremendous soloists. Lloyd was responsible for the solos in "See No Evil," "Elevation," and "Guiding Light," as well as that first turbulent solo in Marquee Moon itself. I think you've also misconstrued how some of the rhythm guitar parts work: in "See No Evil," the "doubletracked" lick is in fact just one guitar playing double stops, two notes at once, while the other guitar (presumably Verlaine, since he also had to sing at the same time) is just playing a power chord. Your comparing their guitar interplay to the Dead is reasonable, but I would also encourage you to go back and listen to Quicksilver Messenger Service with Marquee Moon in mind, both for the snarling quality both bands expressed and their flamenco-like note choice."



http://minitru.wordpress.com/2006/06/

"Last Monday, in the midst of a stunning Tom Verlaine performance, I flashed back to the decade I mentioned earlier, his music suddenly indistinguishable from the kind of thing I heard Quicksilver Messenger Service playing at the Forest Park Pavilion in St Louis, date forgotten"


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/B000002UTX


QMS Maiden Voyage, October 11, 2005

Reviewer: Mark Champion "autumnfair" (San Antonio, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Quicksilver's debut manages to transcend its time more effectively than many of its contemporaries. Playing at this point in their career largely electric folk-influenced psychedelia ('It's Been Too Long'; 'Light Your Windows'; 'Pride Of Man'), the Messenger Service was also never afraid to experiment with a nudge and a wink: the instrumental 'Gold And Silver' takes Brubeck's 'Take Five' and electrically expands it. Every track here is a gem, and if Dino Valenti was unable to physically participate (he was, like, temporarily in jail), Duncan, Cippolina and the rest of the gang paid tribute in his 'Dino's Song'. And Television's Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd must have been listening very closely to 'The Fool' - - the band stretches out a bit and the guitar interplay between Cippolina and Duncan sounds suspiciously, and retroactively, familiar. Start here and go forward, it gets even better.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Marquee-Moon-Remastered-Expanded-Television/dp/B0000AI45P

Incredible rock n' roll alchemy, 26 April 2005

Reviewer: "dion7t4" - See all my reviews

I don't know what ideas were tumbling through the minds of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd between Television's formation and the release of this masterpiece, but they somehow contrived a musical formula that sounds fresh on every listen. I first bought a copy of Marquee Moon in 1993 at the age of eighteen, and at thirty I still can't tire of hearing it. The brilliant guitar interplay, updating Quicksilver Messenger Service for the frenetic New Wave crowd, the machine-tight rhythm section, simultaneously funky and militaristic and Tom Verlaine's ghoulish whine and obtuse lyrics all conspire to keep your ears pricked up for the album's duration.

Though Tom Verlaine himself seems annoyed at the comparision. NOTE that he doesn't say he listened to them or doesn't deny being influenced by them (see QMS's the Fool) And what about Richard Lloyd, the other Television guitarist?

http://www.marquee.demon.co.uk/bomb.htm

"Tom Verlaine: That's pretty ironic, because I didn't like any San Francisco bands when I was growing up. After our first record came out, everybody was saying, "Oh, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Raga Rock..." It's just the twangy guitars. We sound more like the Ventures, in a psychedelic way."

  • Great, cool, awesome, you proved it. In the context of a paragraph discussing the band's myriad influences, however, the current mention is a tad bit of overkill, and sort of over-referenced compared to everything else. I'm gonna trim it, and it seems more apropos to simply note the existence of comparisons to QMS in the context of Verlaine's denial of interest in the SF groups. If you'd like to spin that section off into a seperate article discussing the links between Television and Quicksilver, feel free. Anazgnos 17:36, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Great, cool, awesome, you edited my edits in an inaccurate way based on the citations I linked to. The first three reviews above I cited above, by Lester Bangs and other Rolling Stone editors, specifically compare Television to the music of Quicksilver Messenger service, not to other San Fransisco bands. In fact, I don't see comparisons in any of the reviews the text of which I added above...just Quicksilver Messenger Service. The only comparison to other SF bands is by Tom Wizon in the http://www.marquee.demon.co.uk/bomb.htm article. I've changed the body of the article back to reflect the direct comparisons to Quicksilver Messenger Service that I cited in the article, and kept in the part about Tom Verlaine citing Ventures as a more apt comparison. I think this is a good compromise, no? Tom Verlaine mentioned "everybody" comparing Television to Quicksilver Messenger Service, and I think that is a very interesting aspect to the band's history whether a band member agrees with it or not--I think including this info gives context to the band's reception and perception of the origins of the band's sound. I don't think trimming this accomplishes much, as I think it enhances the context of understanding about the band's history and its reception by critics and the general public.

[edit] Post punk was before punk?

On the Television (band) article it says they started post punk, but Richard Hell's article talks about how the Voidoids were an early punk band... several years after Television. How is that possible?

Changed it to just "punk rock". Freshacconci 11:26, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikinews to interview Richard Hell

Wikinews is to interview Richard Hell about his life, music, career and future. If you have a serious question for Hell, please leave it on my talk page under the title "Richard Hell interview". This message will be struck out once I am no longer accepting questions. --David Shankbone 00:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)