UKH

So sad. Another one of the great originals has gone.

I came late to the party with Television. I was an original punk from 1976, Clash, Pistols, Ramones, loved them all. Television I somehow never actually heard. They weren't punk in the same sense, musically very different, but with the same attitude. But Verlaine was there at the start, instrumental in talking CBGB into putting on gigs by the proto punk NY bands.

10 years ago I bought Marquee Moon for a few quid and wow! Surely one of the best debut rock albums of all time! And the title song is an absolute masterpiece.

I saw Television live in Glasgow a few years ago and they were magnificent. Still fizzing with energy and enthusiasm and musically tight . Marquee Moon didn't dissapoint, the guitar work and solos were fantastic. 

RIP Tom.

A great guitar sound, he was the King of the chromatic run!

Marquee Moon was one of those albums that changed the way I listen to music. When it was released, I was transitioning from bog-standard heavy metal to punk, and especially American punk (seeing the Ramones and Talking Heads at Leeds Poly remains one of the highlights of my gig-going). I was buying pretty much any American punk, which included Television at the time, and was absolutely blown away, especially by the title track. It wasn't punk, but it was brilliant, and I still get a chill up the spine when I listen to it. Annoyingly, I got rid of the 12-inch single of Marquee Moon in a house move many years ago - as an artefact of that time in my life, I'd quite like to still have it.

There's a good chapter about the whole CBGBs scene in Lenny Kaye's book:

https://www.waterstones.com/book/lightning-striking/lenny-kaye/978147461509...

I'll have to take your word for that, no idea what that is! 😅

Whatever him and Lloyd were doing, it was fantastic. 

Aren't Television (and Talking Heads) not really post-punk?

Marquee Moon was recorded in 1976, can they really be classed as post- if their definitive album was pre-?

Not really. When they first hit the UK, they were part of the whole New York CBGBs scene, which did, in truth, cover a wide range of bands, from Television and Talking Heads, Blondie, the Ramones, Pattie Smith, the Heartbreakers, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids.

Talking Heads first album was released in 1977, a month or so before Never Mind the Bollocks, so no, not really post-punk.

Interesting, I wasn't so clear on the chronology (before my time).

I was going more off the sound in my evaluation, I always had that sort of art-rock/new-wave sound filed under post-punk in my mental library.

Only if you hold the release of NMTB to be moment zero for punk, which I don't. There were multitudes of bands, Television of course, but also many of those you mentioned, plus earlier bands like the Stooges, Pere Ubu, Destroy all Monsters, Rocket from the Tombs etc, and further back to the 60s, loads of bands from the garage scene who could be described as punk.

In a way, Television's greatness is enhanced by them being difficult to pigeonhole.

RIP to a brilliant innovator anyway.