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Thread: Television (the band) on tour

  1. #1

    Television (the band) on tour

    04 Sep 2016 BSP Kingston (Backroom Theater) Kingston, NY
    06 Sep 2016 9:30 Club Washington, DC
    08 Sep 2016 Hopscotch Music Festival Raleigh, NC
    10 Sep 2016 Georgia Theatre Athens, GA
    14 Oct 2016 Desert Daze Festival @ Joshua Tree Retreat Center Joshua Tree , CA
    15 Oct 2016 Desert Daze Festival @ Joshua Tree Retreat Center Joshua Tree , CA
    16 Oct 2016 Desert Daze Festival @ Joshua Tree Retreat Center Joshua Tree , CA
    18 Oct 2016 Rialto Theatre Tucson, AZ

    http://www.highroadtouring.com/artis...ion/itinerary/

    Looks like I'll be going to the Athens show in the beautifully remodeled and legendary GA Theatre. Should be a treat!
    I want to dynamite your mind with love tonight.

  2. #2
    Saw them at the NYC and NJ shows when they opened for Peter Gabriel on his first solo tour. Really like the Marquee Moon album. Haven't heard much about them over the years other than Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd had a falling out a while back. Will Lloyd be touring with them?

  3. #3
    Lloyd is not touring with them.

    A friend saw them last year and said they were fantastic.
    I want to dynamite your mind with love tonight.

  4. #4
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    Marquee Moon is still a stone cold classic. Enjoy the show! Bonus points if they do Little Johnny Jewel.
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Gladiator1634 View Post
    Saw them at the NYC and NJ shows when they opened for Peter Gabriel on his first solo tour. Really like the Marquee Moon album. Haven't heard much about them over the years other than Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd had a falling out a while back. Will Lloyd be touring with them?
    From what I gather, Tom and Richard never got along all that well to begin with. Richard left about 10 years ago, and hasn't been back.

  6. #6
    Member Digital_Man's Avatar
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    I saw them about a year and a half ago. They were great. I'll never understand why they are considered a punk band not a prog band(or at least a progressive band). I guess that's why I'm not a big fan of labels. There was really nothing punk about their sound though(imo).

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Digital_Man View Post
    I saw them about a year and a half ago. They were great. I'll never understand why they are considered a punk band not a prog band(or at least a progressive band). I guess that's why I'm not a big fan of labels. There was really nothing punk about their sound though(imo).
    When they opened for Gabriel, I couldn't stand them. It was one earsplitting screeching glassy-toned guitar solo after another, plus Verlaine's mumbling, slurred, too-cool-to-enunciate vocals, which sounded like he'd just got back from having a root canal. It later hit me that they sounded more like Neil Young and Crazy Horse than anything else, but without the C&W influences. I might be a little more open-minded these days.

  8. #8
    ^ John, seriously; if you still haven't familiarized yourself with Marquee Moon, do so sooner than later - it's one of the 40-50 finest rock albums ever made, period. And their double guitar attack was second to none, not Quicksilver Messenger Service (whom Lester Bangs compared them to), not the Allmans, not the Grateful Dead, not - uhm - Iron Maiden.
    "Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
    "[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM

  9. #9
    So that was a show.

    Verlaine's voice is a little creaky nowadays, but the music still shines and sparkles and vitalizes.

    "Persia" was played.

    Jimmy Rip's solo during "1880 or So" might have been the highlight of the note--even more so than Verlaine's solo in "Marquee Moon."

    I came away with much better appreciation for Ficca. Not that I didn't notice him on the albums, but watching him live certainly made it clear how important he is to the band's sound.

    And now I have a nice gray t-shirt with "Marquee Moon" on it.
    I want to dynamite your mind with love tonight.

  10. #10
    Well, not a tour, but a show!
    http://www.ticketfly.com/event/15360...vision-sonoma/

    Maybe someone in Sonoma is interested in going.
    I want to dynamite your mind with love tonight.

  11. #11
    Member Socrates's Avatar
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    This thread prompted me to put on Marquee Moon, which is just such a brilliant album.

    But I wondered why I hadn't noticed before how much Elevation (1st track on side 2) resembles Floyd's Pigs. The intro and the bass line is virtually the same and the tunes are not too dissimilar either. It presumably is just a coincidence, since they were recorded around the same time in 1976 and neither album had come out by the time the other was being recorded. Or is there more to it than that?

    Curious how Television was badged as punk (or maybe post-punk), whilst producing music that leaned towards prog.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Socrates View Post

    Curious how Television was badged as punk (or maybe post-punk), whilst producing music that leaned towards prog.
    Well, consider the time and place. They came out of the CBGB's scene, same as Blondie, The Ramones, Talking Heads, etc. So there's probably a "guilt by association" thing going on. Keep in mind, though, that their music had that raw, punky, garage-y air to it. It's hard to explain in words, but if you listen to the records, it's there. Yeah, the guitar solos were longer and complex than anything Johnny Ramone or Chris Stein might have played, and at least some of the arrangements are more complex, but it still "feels" like punk (or post-punk, or new wave or whatever you want to call it).

    Another thing probably had a lot to do with PR. I'm sure Elektra were anxious to associate the band with a pop culture phenomenon that was on the rise (ie punk/post-punk/new wave/whatever) versus one that was already in decline (ie progressive rock). And of course, all those dorky record critics probably thought "Well, gee they sound like a punk band".

    I ended up buying Fairport Convention's Unhalfbricking because I read where at least one wag had likened Marquee Moon itself to A Sailor's Life, the long track that appears on that record.

  13. #13
    Member bigjohnwayne's Avatar
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    Guitar geek is right on this.

    They were part of the punk scene. In fact they were one of the most important bands of the CBGB scene and to some degree set the aesthetic that other bands copied. Before they recorded Marquee Moon they actually had Richard Hell on bass for a period of time, if I remember right. Yes, Richard Hell who wrote "Chinese Rock" for the Ramones and played in the Voidoids.

    The original New York punk scene was quite interesting. Lots of bands that sounded very different from each other. Even the Ramones were art-damaged in their own bizarre way.

    I'll take original NY punk over the original British punk any day.

  14. #14
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    I saw a real Television fan in Buffalo when they opened for Peter Gabriel on his first solo tour. She was running out of the theater carrying a tape recorder saying "I've got it, I've got it !" before PG hit the stage.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by bigjohnwayne View Post

    They were part of the punk scene. In fact they were one of the most important bands of the CBGB scene and to some degree set the aesthetic that other bands copied. Before they recorded Marquee Moon they actually had Richard Hell on bass for a period of time, if I remember right. Yes, Richard Hell who wrote "Chinese Rock" for the Ramones and played in the Voidoids.
    Actually, Chinese Rock was written by Richard Hell and Dee Dee Ramone. Apparently, Johnny Ramone initially refused to record the song, so it was instead recorded by Johnny Thunders, I think. It was only later that The Ramones recorded their version, on the End Of The Century album (the one that was produced by Phil Spector).

    But yeah, on his website, Richard Lloyd told of how he walked into the first Television rehearsal, and Richard Hell grabbed him, and said "No, your shirt looks too pretty", and ripped it for him. Apparently, Hell was the source of the whole "ripped shirts and safety pins" thing.

    I'll take original NY punk over the original British punk any day.
    Well, I'll certainly take The Ramones and Television over The Sex Pistols. I think The Clash would give them a run for their money, though.

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