No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 36: Television - Marquee Moon

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

CBGB...Late 1970s...The birthplace of punk rock in New York City. Television was all up in it...at the ground floor. Join us as we dive into their debut full-length album "Marquee Moon" from 1977. Alongside Blondie and The Ramones, Television was lumped into the punk rock category, and for good reason...but their jazz-improve guitar stylings and sporadic vocals placed them on the other side of that punk rock coin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol,

and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. And welcome to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Quentin. got my brother Travis with me as always. And today we are covering television's debut album, Marky Moon, which came out in 1977. So we've been kind of hanging out in the garage rock, you know, punk rock vein for the last month or so. What do you know about this band, dude?

The first time I heard about these guys, I was reading about Spoon's influences, and they were mentioned as an influence of Britt Daniel. And that's when I first kind of dug in and, you know, listen to Marky Moon and all that kind of stuff. I just know that these guys are super influential to punk, to post-punk, you know. Yeah, these guys were just right there, like, in the moment. In New York City, in the late 70s, when, you know, punk rock emerged, at least in New York City.

And I'm going to try my hardest not to dive too much into this today because I want to cover this in more depth next week for our sidetrack. But television was one of the bands that put the music venue CBGB on the map. alongside the Ramones, Blondie, television was one of the, like, one of the bands that got that music venue on the map as far as like for the punk rock scene in that time in New York City. And the thing about television is, you know, if you think about bands like, I mean, Blondie and the Ramones, like, yeah, they're punk rock. but they're like that simple form of punk you know which is part of like a defining like that's that is what

punk rock is but television what made them different and i'm going to quote someone here and for some goddamn reason i didn't give this person cred when i pasted this quote into my notes and i tried to find it again i couldn't i don't know who said this but the thing that made television different and specifically their album Marky Moon is that this album abandoned contemporary punk rock's power chords in favor of rock and jazz-inspired interplay with melodic lines and counter melodies.

I think that's what makes television and Marky Moon so special, dude. This album is just full of what feels like improv jazz kind of moments, you know, That's to me what makes Marky Moon such an important album in the genre. So is there anything that mentions his voice as far as like, was he kind of the first to do that sound with his voice the more like, more lazy, I guess? Because we've talked about how that was kind of a style with some of those in the post-punk revival bands like, you know, the stroke.

and whatnot. Yeah, back in 77, a couple months after the release of Marky Moon, this guy that writes for Rolling Stone was reviewing the album. And he said, Tom Verlaine, which is the lead singer, and we'll name off the roster here in a bit. He says, Tom Verlaine sings all his verses like an intelligent chicken being strangled. What the hell? I mean, he's all over the place, dude. Yeah, that's kind of funny, though. It does sound like he's crying out, like last, you know, gasps of air as he's being strangled.

Yeah. Is that what you mean as far as, like, his voice? Yeah, sure. As far as like, you know, sort of all over the place. It's not very melodic, you know. Yeah. It sounds very almost like tortured, you know. Well, yeah.

sort of those like, you know, sporadic kind of like whales and like off-key moments and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the thing that stands out for me, so for one, like diving into this album and the history and all that and the history behind television, I wouldn't put them in the punk rock category. you know and so that goes along with you know when we talked about talking heads and recovered their album talking heads 77 talking heads were right there with these guys at CBGB at the ground floor yeah that's crazy man yeah it's yeah it's interesting that you talk about you know blondi Ramones television talking heads like you couldn't get like like they're so different all four of them, but they all, you know, have punk rock as sort of like this bass layer, you know.

Yeah. They're also, they're also thrown into the art punk category. And you know, this brings me back to that band that I covered for one of my side tracks when I was flying solo for a bit there, the soft voice, you know? Like, it's punk, but it's equal parts like blues and. psychedalia. You know, it's something different. Yeah.

I want to quote someone here real quick from this, uh, it's a, it's a fan site, uh, for television. If you go to the website, it looks like it's right out of like 1998,

dude, like GeoCities shit. Mm-hmm. Uh, but it's a super fan. And, um, the way he puts it,

Marky Moon, changed the way I thought about music, about the way it was created, the way it was played, and the way it sounded. Forget the way it should sound. It was like a new musical world. Or the old one twisted inside out. It was energy and brains and power and beauty. So I'm going to name off the roster real quick and then we'll just go ahead and jump right into our first clip. So we've got Tom Furlane. He's the lead singer-songwriter. He plays guitar. And we've got Richard Lloyd, who also plays guitar. And notice I said they were both just guitar. I didn't say one was lead, one was rhythm. They bounce back and forth off each other.

You know, one will do a solo, the other one will do a solo. And even like the rhythm guitar sections of each song is complex enough that that part is almost the defining guitar part of the song. You know what I mean? Like they both have very significant parts as guitar players in each song on this album. And then you've got Billy FICA on drums and Fred Smith on bass. Now that's the band. That's television once Marky Moon came along. There was another guy named Richard Hell.

who also was kind of like a co-singer songwriter and he played bass, but he left the band early on. The reason I mention him is because I'm going to bring him up again next week on our sidetrack. But anyways, it seems like television was kind of, you know, like the opposite side of the coin for punk rock, right? It was more kind of on like the new wave side of punk rock. Right, yeah. Television was kind of sort of like the founding fathers, if you will, of the term new wave.

Does television have that label on them too? I mean, not on Wikipedia, but I would definitely put them in that category. And that falls in the, you know, in the jazz. I was going to say that I wouldn't put them in the new wave camp. You wouldn't put them alongside talking hands? No. Not as far as like, I would put them along Talking Heds like early Talking Heds, kind of like we're talking about like the CBGB era. Okay.

But talking heads started to, it's kind of funny, right? Talking Heds and television, it's almost like the same band name because Talking Heds is like referring to like the news anchors on TV and stuff. But anyway, like Talking Heds started to be, you know, they were so experimental with their sounds, you know. And that's what made them like the new wave kind of thing, you know. I feel like television is more like more rooted in in punk you know yeah you know what dude and but let's let the music fucking talk man I was about to say you know with that let's just go ahead and play our first track so we're going to play track one on the album this song is called see no evil so right off the bat with this opening track the thing about television and

Markey Moon that's different than punk rock in this era, you know, with the Ramones and bands like that. They've got like this dual guitar kind of thing going on, you know? And it's definitely like more structured and more complex than like the super simple power chords, right? It makes me think of thin Lizzie a little bit. Thin Lizzie and I don't know if we're going to get shit for this, even though no ever emails us anyways, but like, it makes me think of Boston, dude.

Yeah. And the only reason, like, I even brought that up is because I looked into it and Boston's debut album came out in 76. So, well, that was only, that was a year before this came out. It's that dual guitar, you know. Well, Thin Lizzie's, I mean, Thin Lizzie's, uh, boys are back in town. Yeah. Came out in 76 as well.

So, like, you know, this might have been the, it just kind of. of the, what, what time, when did Marky Moon come out? 77. 37. So, I mean, yeah, you know, that was just kind of, you know, it's not like Thin Lizzie popularized dual guitar or Boston, you know, no, you know. No, yeah. I wouldn't, I wish I kind of, I wish I knew who popularized it, you know what I mean, to be

honest. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to quote someone here real quick from the New York Times. This was an article that was written in 78. by a journalist named John Rockwell. He says, this is a two guitar band,

but unlike most such groups, the two don't normally engage in furious improvisatory face-offs. There are improvisations in television, but such spontaneity occurs within set rules. Generally, one guitarist plays a subsidiary role within a given song and the other solos, although the nature of the, quote, rhythm guitar figurations,

is often so unusual as to define the sound of the song. So that's what I was saying earlier. Like, you can't really put one player as the rhythm guitar and the other as the lead guitar, because even the rhythm guitar section can define the sound of the song. Yeah, sure. And they are doing different things, but it does sound, you know, like almost like the math rock sound that we've talked about before. Right.

With bands like Foles and Interpol, stuff like that. Sure. Well, because I was curious, I found an article real quick on the sort of the origins of dual guitar harmonies. Okay. Like, it goes back to the 40s, but where it kind of. caught on big time as far as like rock and blues and stuff was the yard birds which would be of course Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page so there you go okay you know two guitar gods really right yeah Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page obviously like godlike guitar status or whatever or God status and as far

as like the guitar world is concerned so they were in a band together obviously with the yard birds so it makes sense that they would do dual guitar work together because they're both such tremendous guitar players, you know, you can't have one just kind of fade into the background. So anyway, yeah, that was in 66 back when, you know, the 60s and stuff when the yard birds were doing that. So it's no surprise that, like the funny thing about television and like the way that they're doing, like you said, the kind of dual guitar stuff is it's more, they don't have the distortion cranked up or the gain cranked up, you know, it's not a, it's not, it doesn't sound like a, like hard rock song you know and that goes back to like that less like stepping away from like

rock quote unquote and punk and going a little bit more like alternative you know yeah it's like a step towards all their alternative sound that like talking heads and and whatnot sort of started to define yeah yeah one thing i read that i thought was interesting you know this punk rock scene was emerging in New York City in the late 70s. And both Blondie and the Ramones released their first albums in 76. And television, although they had the material, they kind of took their time with their first release, and they didn't drop Markey Moon until 77. So this punk rock sound was already out in the mainstream, I guess, you know, with these

albums from the Ramones and Blondie. And then television just drops this album in 77 and just changes everything about, you know, these stereotypical sounds or stereotypical, you know, style that was kind of brought about by the Ramones and Blondie. Like, they kind of flip the script even just a year later. Like, this is what this sound can be. Would you say, like, I don't know. I don't know the answer to this question.

But, you know, is it the Ramones? that put CBGB on the map? Or was it just the whole scene around at that time, you know? Well, okay, dude, I'm just not going to get into this until next week, dude, because we're going to dive into CBGB and its origins, and I'm going to try to see if we can cover, you know, a few bands next week for our side drive. 77. But no, dude, it was a combination of multiple bands that put CBGB on the map.

television and Ramones being a few of those bands talking heads are thrown in there too man so yeah that that's that's the thing man that's just like both sides of that punk rock coin like I was saying you got the Ramones and Blondie you know with the more simple approach you know power chords simple lyrics and then you got the more complex bands like television and talking heads you know, with influences in surf rock, like I covered a couple weeks back, with like Dick Dale and The Ventures. And that's, I mean, that's, to me, is what's so cool. What's so cool about this garage rock, punk rock style of rock music. You know, like I was saying earlier, I didn't even think about television as,

as a band that would be put in the punk rock category. I would say they're way more punk rock than talking heads everywhere. Sure, but like it's the improv sounding, you know, more complex jazz kind of music that that kind of gets puts them away from punk rock for me. Because when I think of punk rock, I think more about that the more simple. The remotes or just like the most like obvious. example. Yeah, the Ramones are bands like the sex pistols. Yeah, sure. But I would, you know, I would say that

Tom Verlaine's voice, uh, is more, sounds more punk than, than let's say, uh, you know, David Burns voice. You know, one of the reasons that, that, the talking heads, like, nobody knew where to, how to label them is because of how, like, experimental and like different David Burns' vocal stylings were. You know what I mean? That's what made them stand out. Was how, like, how neurotic he was, you know?

Yeah. But, I mean, that's the thing, dude. I would put Tom Verlaine in that same category. Well, let's hear another song then, because I haven't heard it yet. Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, so another quote I'm going to put here real quick.

Actually, I quoted this guy earlier, but I'm going to quote the beginning of his quote. One thing about their guitar riffs, I guess. Specifically what Verlaine brought to the table. It's this kind of quote, nightmare style of guitar. Like, it just kind of sticks in your head.

His guitar riffs are just... I mean, they are kind of haunting. This next track we're going to play is one of my favorite, like, guitar riffs in the album. So I got a couple clips from this one. This is track three on the record. It's called Friction.

Yeah, I can see the haunted. I can see why that word is used, you know. Yeah. But anyway, let me tell you something. I was trying to figure out the first song he played. I knew that there was a voice, like his voice sounded like familiar to me and I couldn't place it. But on this song, I kind of, to me, I'm hearing Mick Jagger. It sounds like Mick Jagger.

Yeah, dude, absolutely. So that's. And the Rolling Stones have. were around for at least a decade before these guys came around, you know? Dude, yeah, if not more than that. More than that, for sure. Yeah, dude. I mean, this is just one of those albums that, you know, even after all these years,

it just kind of, it holds up, dude. Yeah, it really does. You said you haven't listened to it all the way through, man. I mean, this album, you can see so many bands that drew influence from this. from this sound, you know? Yeah, I was going to say the guitar style, I can definitely hear how Britt Daniel may have been influenced by that guitar style and some of the early spoon stuff.

Yeah. And he even, I mean, like I said, he mentioned television specifically as an influence. So, so there you go. And even the way Bert Daniel sings, you know, he's got a similar kind of delivery, you know. Yeah, I'm going to quote someone else here real quick. some rock journalist wrote this in Soho weekly in 77. I couldn't find the actual article, but this is just, I'm just pulling this from Wikipedia, but this is a good quote here.

Forget everything you've heard about television. So he's talking specifically about this album. You know, he had heard and seen television live before this album came out. He's saying, forget everything that you've heard about these guys before. forget about punk forget new york forget cbgbs hell forget rock and roll this is the real item so he's talking about this you know this album is it man like this is important you know like this is an important piece of rock and roll history this album here let's jump to the next one oh shit i haven't even played clip two from friction okay so i really like the just the ending of this song

It's going to sound a little familiar. Not much changes here, but I kind of like the way that they end this. It just kind of ends with another guitar solo. So here's clip two from Friction on television's 1977 release, Marky Moon. Yeah, man, I'm really into that guitar work. Yeah, dude. For sure, yeah. I'm going to quote someone who wrote an article on this album back in 96.

Many of Verlaine's solos at first listen make you feel that a real risk is being taken and that if he doesn't come up with a killer idea out of nowhere, the riffs will just peter out or noodle about and never resolve. That kind of goes along with like the, you know, kind of like that nightmarish quote. of this style of guitar work. Like, it makes you feel uneasy.

And, like, kind of like they're saying, it's, he's taking risks with his approach to guitar solos, and it's, it, you feel like you're watching, you're listening to someone improvise on the spot, you know? Yeah, I love it. Yeah. It definitely has that kind of sporadic. Yeah.

It's probably, it probably is improv, you know? Well, yeah. So that was. the thing, like, you know, that was part of their repertoire was improvisation, but mostly what you're hearing is, and I'm quoting from earlier, like I had said earlier, even if it sounds spontaneous, you know, they've got these set of rules in place for where they go with their guitar work, you know. So kind of like, you know, those garage rock revival groups, like the strokes and Balkans, you know, these are bands that are extremely well practiced and rehearsed, you know.

So even with that style and sound, it sounds simple and spontaneous, these are bands that are super well practiced and, you know, they have, you know, perfected their craft. All right. So I got one more song for us from Marky Moon. This is track five on the record. And this one is called Elevation. Man, that's a, that's, I got to say that's my favorite so far. I like it a lot. It's weird, right? Like that, like, on a dime stop. Yeah. And I mean, you know, with that the angular guitar you know is reminiscent of inner pole right so you know

to throw them into the mix and then like you know I'm starting to I'm starting to hear a similarity between him and David Byrne now for sure yeah dude so you're right thank you no I mean obviously David Byrne you know gets

you know is way over in like left field but I mean like he's definitely he's got that sort of that really like sometimes like spontaneous like whaling type delivery, you know, where it's like, it's sort of all over the map, you know? Yeah. Yeah, dude.

And I just love the fact that these guys were all, you know, playing shows together at CBGB. They were all there in New York at the same time. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah, man. That's what I love about music, dude. Just finding out, I mean, like, it keeps happening with us and fucking finding out. finding out that Nigel Godrick is on so many albums that we love, you know? You mean, you just find out that all these people are connected, you know,

and intertwined together in the history of fucking rock and roll, dude. It's good stuff. Definitely. It's always interesting to figure out all the stepping stones, you know. Yeah. That's what I always like to like to do is, you know, where does it start? Like, where did this sound start, you know? Where did the dual guitar sound start?

Yeah. You know, because somebody, a group did it first, you know? Yep, always. Yeah, and I mean, that's a good place to end it, dude. So that's all I got for this record. And for our outro, I'm going to kind of go back into the surf rock vein. But before that, I'll say real quick, as always, we've got a really awesome website that my brother Travis has created.

You all should hop on there. It's no-filler podcast.com. There we have show notes for every single episode, including the sidetracks, that, you know, provide links and video clips and lots of other cool stuff for each artist and album that we've covered. Next week, we're going to dive in. into a little bit of the history behind the historic venue CBGB. And then the following week, dude, we got ourselves another guest on the pod.

We're going to cover Nick Drake's album Brighter Later with one of my dearest friends on this planet, Larry Lodra. He's one of the guys that got me into Nick Drake. Man, I can't wait, dude. I cannot wait. Dude, he's, I mean, you know, the guy's such a talented singer-songwriter too, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, we're going to get into all that, dude.

Dude, I mean, he's, no, I won't say it. We'll save it for, we'll save it for the episode. So for our outro, one of the influences noted for television, specifically for Tom Verlaine, is a instrumental surf rock band called DaVentures. Ever heard of them? I'm sure you have.

Probably. You've heard their stuff. Do they have like a really mega hit? I want to say, okay, dude, their song is the theme song for Hawaii 5-0. Okay. Yeah.

I'm sure you can't think of the song off the top of your head because we, you know, we didn't grow up in the fucking 60s. Sure. But, yeah, man, they're just one of those... Does it sound like one of those Dick Dale surfs rock songs? Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Yeah, but... So I listened to this awesome album of theirs. I don't know exactly when this album was released officially, but this is a live record of them playing their tunes in Japan in 1965. So I did a whole sidetrack on surf rock, you know, and I tied it back to... garage rock you know this was like one of the origins of garage rock and you know i didn't really think about it like it was kind of hard for me to to put those two things together you know because i

had said that it was surf rock and psychedelia that led to garage rock but after listening to this album dude this live record by the ventures holy shit man like it a lot of it has to do with the super fast-paced drumming, and it's the way that they strum their guitar man. It's just punk rock through and through. It's fucking awesome, dude. So again, this is a live recording from Japan, live in 65. This is a band called The Ventures. And we're going to fade us out with a song of theirs called Cruel C,

parentheses, the Cruel Surf. And until next week, my name is Quentin. My name is Travis. Thank you so much as always for listening. Y'all take care.