This Is Not Earth Music

Reintroducing Tom Verlaine

A A A Comments By Brendan Bernhard Wednesday, May 10 2006

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“There are so many recordings from the 1920s or ’40s or ’50s that are still really great and available, so whether a record was made in ’77 or ’89 doesn’t matter to me,” he says. “My perspective on [Marquee Moon] is that maybe somebody in 2030 will be able to find it and go, ‘This is a pretty interesting record,’ and they won’t care about the New York scene or the punk scene, it’ll just be a piece of music they listen to and like. I remember finding a Louis Armstrong record made in 1927, and I was just really amazed by it. So to me, it’s like when I put out a record, [the hope is] that 30 years from now when I’m dead, someone will listen to it and go, ‘That’s kind of interesting, or that’s kind of good’ — you know?”

Though commercial success has eluded him, and some would say he has failed to fulfill his gargantuan promise, Verlaine remains a talismanic figure and a guitarist for the ages. His live performance of Television’s first single, “Little Johnny Jewel,” on the now “official” bootleg, The Blow Up, captures the madness and turmoil of 1970s New York as indelibly as Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. It’s also one of the greatest 14 minutes and 56 seconds of scarily intense and imaginative lead guitar you’ll ever hear.

Tom Verlaine Around/Songs and Other Things Thrill Jockey Live: The Roxy June 16

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In James Wolcott’s novel The Catsitters, ?you can find the following passage:

As I crossed the street, I recognized the lean specter of Tom Verlaine, the legendary guitarist from Television, walking past the iron bars of the church, slipping a slim paperback into his coat pocket like a gin flask. Village lore had it that whenever you spotted Verlaine in daylight, it was a good omen.

Fame and massive record sales have their glories, but there is a beauty to enigmatic shadows, too.

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