6 thoughts on “Television, “Marquee Moon”

  1. Ya know, it goes to show. I was disappointed in this album when it came out. Not a huge letdown because I wasn’t expecting greatness, but disappointed just the same. With the exception of the wondrous “Venus,” I thought “OK record, not really my thing.” But it sure has held up, especially the guitar interplay between Verlaine and Lloyd.

  2. Totally different experience on my part. I loved the album, and was only surprised by how even greater Adventure was, while the zeit panned it. That holding up is the whole story, of course. Both Television albums are pretty timeless, if you don’t know what time they came out of.

  3. Examining my earlier attitude, it was the result of the split into “art” and “rocker” camps at the time. Nowadays it’s all “We were one big struggling family” but then there was all kinds of backbiting, envy, and just plain nastiness. In particular, the art wing led by Patti Smith looked down their noses (“greaser nostalgia”) at Mink Deville, Tuff Darts and especially Blondie. I was a fan of all three bands – there was a lot more to them than greaser nostalgia although that was one aspect sure – and the rocker camp retorted with “pretentious bullshit” which was also unfair-with-a-whiff-of-truth. The Ramones straddled the line and The Heartbreakers were above it all (or below it all, given their habits). But The Heartbreakers gave opening slots to all the rocker bands and were especially nice to Blondie, in contrast to almost everyone else. The post-Hell Television was firmly in the art-rock camp (they also “stole” Blondie’s original bass player Fred Smith), and I did not give them their due. It all seems so silly now.

  4. I remember when the CBGB album came out, there was lots of complaining about the Shirts, whose chick singer was in the hippie movie Hair! Outrageous. Willy DeVille hated being lumped in that CB’s scene, but when Johnny Thunders died in New Orleans Willy was living right next door. Hmm, not sure what that demonstrates, except maybe things are complicated and silly at once.

  5. The main songwriter and keyboard player in my old band The Slumlords, Andy Towns, was also in the movie Hair! He played a Hari Krishna and got paid enough to buy a new keyboard. For some reason the casting director went to Hilly for extras. I think Hilly was Annie Golden’s manager, maybe that was the reason.

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