man, screw verlaine and lloyd...

[raindog13]

I've been drinking beer and listening to "Marquee Moon" all evening, and now I'm listening to the live at the Masonic Temple thing on Youtube, and seriously, fuck these guys. How? Just how? And it's not like this is some new kinda of revelation for me. I've been enamored by this record for almost 20 years. Doesn't matter. Blows my mind every time. Very, very rarely have two guitarists synchronized so fantastically. And honest to god, it's easily the best advertisement for Fender guitars ever. Just, wow. Truly peerless. Magnificent.

[Embenny]

They were fantastic at what they did. I'm with you. It was almost 20 years ago that I heard that album for the first time, and I was immediately mesmerized by it. The interplay between the two of them was really something special.

[UlricvonCatalyst]

About a decade before when mobile phones had a very limited memory capacity I had a Sony which doubled as my Walkman. I could only fit 3 or 4 LPs on it, one of which was Marquee Moon. I must've listened to it every day for about a year and I never got sick of it. Furthermore, I'd be up for listening to it again today and am pretty sure I'd enjoy it as much as I ever did.

[antisymmetric]

I still listen. I call the Television albums my "restore factory settings" albums. Even though my tastes have gone in all different directions, and I may go a long time without listening to them, I always return and am always blown away all over again. Television is kind of a lodestone band for me. No-one like them before or since.
(Not just Verlaine and Lloyd btw- Fred Smith and Billy Ficca are both indispensable IMO)

[Maggieo]

After I heard Marquee Moon I wanted every album to be that good, but none of them are.

It's perfect. Which is so fucking weird, if you think about it.

[s_mcsleazy]

i've told this story before but first time i ever listened to marquee moon, i didnt pick up a guitar for 2 weeks because i just thought "i can never top that"

[scottT]

I don't think they could top it either.

I see Marquee Moon as a perfect storm, one of those times where circumstances came together in a specific place and time to create something singular. Verlaine and Lloyd's different styles meshed from their first meeting. Richard Lloyd has spoken a lot about it. I think the main reason they compliment each other is that Verlaine wrote many of those lead lines, and Lloyd played them (adding something of himself) because V couldn't sing and play them at the same time. Also they had a agreement that solos would be 50/50, but it usually shakes out to be 60/40 in favor of Verlaine. More in the case of the title track. Exceptions were made if it was recognized as something especially good.

Interestingly, these are two guys who respected the big rock guitarists of the day...Page and Hendrix are often referenced. They chose Andy Johns to produce largely because of his work with Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Lloyd especially is almost like a Hendrix disciple. But I don't hear that in the album.

Lloyd has said he double tracked his parts because he has always been able to replicate what he did note for note, and that Elevation was his best solo and the one he thinks his guitar heroes would have approved of. Also I love the imagery of Johns swinging the mic around like a lasso while Lloyd played that solo to imitate a rotating Leslie cabinet.

[timtam]

Lloyd has said he double tracked his parts because he has always been able to replicate what he did note for note, and that Elevation was his best solo and the one he thinks his guitar heroes would have approved of.

Been learning Lloyd's Elevation solo parts for the last week ! There's one good tab online and two decent attempts by youtube players to follow. And a bit by ear. I've got most of it down. Just getting the speed now.

Interesting what Lloyd said about 'note for note' .. because I can't find a live recording where Lloyd played his Elevation parts as on the record. It's the same with his more technical parts on the Marquee Moon track. AFAIK he never played them that way again live. Particularly this very cool bit (faster on the record) ...
https://youtu.be/WfKsv1nU5Gc?t=55

I can understand Verlaine not being able to replicate his wonderful long meandering solo on MM live, but Lloyd's stuff is just harder technically and easy to stuff up live. Jimmy Rip gets all the hard parts in the current Television incarnation and makes a good go of it but is not always 100% with the record. They don't play all the MM parts but they do attempt everything in Elevation.

Elevation on MM ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4s5bj5fZO8
Elevation live 1978 ...
https://youtu.be/Z1gxByR1qLU?t=730
Elevation live 2017 (Jimmy Rip on Tele, Verlaine on strat with lipstick pickups and bound neck)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiEF9lzhvYo
BTW they seem to play everything a half step down compared to the early days.

[scottT]

Interesting what Lloyd said about 'note for note' .. because I can't find a live recording where Lloyd played his Elevation parts as on the record. It's the same with his more technical parts on the Marquee Moon track. AFAIK he never played them that way again live. Particularly this very cool bit (faster on the record) ...
https://youtu.be/WfKsv1nU5Gc?t=55

As Lloyd tells it, Verlaine didn't know he could double track himself like that until they were in the studio and RL said, let me try this, and then Verlaine said "that sounds great" and then he wanted him to do it on every solo. I agree it is weird because they never play it the same way in concert or live footage or alternate takes that I have heard. They are almost like a jam or free jazz band. Of course, Lloyd says that Tom can't play the same solo twice if he tried.

I think Marquee Moon is the perfect recorded document of that period. Certainly I've never heard Verlaine sing better! I confess, I have The Blow up, but it is hard for me to listen to.

I never tried to do all the guitar parts, but I did do most of the bass parts. It's one of my favorite bass albums too. Maybe the best way to approach it is to play the parts as written and then forget it and play it more in the spirit of it with some improv of our own?

[UlricvonCatalyst]

Verlaine wrote many of those lead lines, and Lloyd played them (adding something of himself) because V couldn't sing and play them at the same time.

I've never heard that in any of the Lloyd interviews I've seen/read. Is there a reliable source?

It took me quite a while to figure out the Television dynamic, but my feeling is that Lloyd is the more inventive guitarist, who doesn't get the credit he deserves. A listen to his first solo album should confirm whose guitar steered the ship; sounds far closer to Television than any of Verlaine's solo stuff I've heard (and he has a better voice too). Just my opinion, of course.

[UlricvonCatalyst]

Also, re. the double-tracking note for note - I presume Lloyd was talking about his riffs, such as the unchanging parts of Marquee Moon, Venus, etc. He'd typically play those the same in concert but improvise solos, which I imagine he also did on the LP.

[scottT]

Also, re. the double-tracking note for note - I presume Lloyd was talking about his riffs, such as the unchanging parts of Marquee Moon, Venus, etc. He'd typically play those the same in concert but improvise solos, which I imagine he also did on the LP.

------------------

One ability I’ve always had is that, anything I play, I can do it again, exactly the same. And again and again and again. Tom isn’t like that. When Tom plays a solo, he never plays the same solo twice.

I was thinking about the chiming parts on “Venus De Milo,” and I said, “Let me double that.” Tom and Andy said, “Huh?” I said, “Well, let me play the part again, so you can have a stereo pair.” They said, “Uh, well, go ahead and try.”So I went out and did it. When he heard the result, Tom was like, “Holy crap. God – that sounds great. Do that to everything!”

So, for example, on “Elevation,” that guitar solo is me playing twice, double tracked verbatim, except for at the very end: you can hear it separate slightly in the last bar as I go off.

It gets a little murky, because Lloyd makes a distinction between "leads" and "solos", (lead lines I presume meaning everything not chords or solos) but then he also mentions "riffs" (synonymous with leads?):

Tom was a control freak when it came to music. For me, that was fine. A lot of time, he didn’t want me to come up with my own riffs, because he had a riff, but he couldn’t play it and sing at the same time. If he had a guitar part he couldn’t play while singing he’d give me the part, and I would make it mine. Like, on “Marquee Moon,” basically, I just took over his part so that he could solo.

The way Television worked was, when he was singing, he was playing the chords, rhythm, and I was playing leads – not solos, but leads. I played far more lead guitar than Tom did. And when it came time for the guitar solos, we would swap back and forth. The idea was, it would be 50-50 on the solos, or at the most 60-40 in Tom’s favour. We had an agreement on that.

Full interview here

btw, re: the singing. Lloyd says that while he was no Sinatra, he could at least sing in key.

[timtam]

Full interview here

That's a good read especially on early Television. The described first meeting with Hilly Kristal and what followed is in the CBGBs film from a few years back, starting here ...
https://youtu.be/8cx6TuTWYYg?t=725

[UlricvonCatalyst]

Full interview here

Thanks for that - a bit TLDR right now, but will read it when I have time. I'd heard Lloyd talking about doubling his guitar parts, but not about Verlaine being the Riffmeister General. I guess a few of the songs on Marquee Moon predate Lloyd being in the group, so that could account for it; I remember a Lloyd interview where he said he basically wrote at least one of the (riff-based) songs on Adventure, but Verlaine took the credit.

I have to take issue with "riffs" being synonymous with leads, though; a few carefully worked-out instrumental sections by George Harrison (Nowhere Man/ A Hard Day's Night/ etc.) and Johnny Marr (Shoplifters Of The World Unite/ etc.) aside, when I think of a solo I generally think of a typically looser, more spontaneous bit of playing. Satisfaction has a riff; Sympathy For The Devil has a solo....

[scottT]

I hope you get a chance to read it. I found it really informative (and often amusing!). I'm not aware of a Television before Richard Lloyd since it's my understanding he co-founded the band. He seems to take pains to differentiate leads from solos, which is interesting to me since I always associate the term "lead" guitar with the guy who does the solos. But I see the practicality of defining it this way in a band like Television where the lines can get blurred.

The way I am reading it, taking Venus de Milo as an example, what Lloyd plays behind Verlaine's vocals goes beyond what I consider a riff, but isn't a solo either. This is what I think he is referring to as a "lead". The fact that Lloyd says he played way more leads than Verlaine makes perfect sense considering Tom is the band's vocalist who can't both sing and play them at the same time.

I don't think the fact that Verlaine wrote a lot of the riffs diminishes the contributions of Lloyd. In fact, though the interview gives a rough breakdown of the division of labor, I still don't feel significantly closer to knowing who did what than I did before. Much better to learn the stylistic traits of each player (and watch video) to make specific determinations, like perhaps you did.

In fact I would love to hear your opinions, and would even welcome getting into the weeds and going all OCD track by track on it, but it may be only you and me who are interested. Not that I have any real light to shed on it myself.

One last thought. In the interview, Lloyd refers to original bassist Richard Hell as "Richie". Suddenly a light bulb went on and I thought of "Richie" in the lyric, "Richie said hey let's dress up like cops, etc..." Cool little autobiographical bit of trivia if true.