No Filler Music Podcast - No Filler Rewind: Television - Marquee Moon

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

We're kick-starting our dive into post-punk & new wave with a look back at our episode on Television's debut record Marquee Moon from 1977. Alongside Blondie, The Ramones, and other bands that shared the stage at the birthplace of punk in New York City, CBGB, Television was lumped into the punk rock category, and for good reason. But their jazz-improv guitar stylings and sporadic vocals was a pivotal moment in post-punk that would change the game forever. Tracklist: Marquee Moon See No Evil Friction Elevation The Ventures - Cruel Sea (The Cruel Surf) live in Japan '65 This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Pantheon is a proud partner of AKG by Harman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We're done with Don Jimpo. And we're moving on to post-punk, maybe some new wave. We're going back to our comfort zone here. Yeah, dude. Back to our wheelhouse. And yeah, and we're going to kick it off with a look back at one of our episodes from 2019 where we covered television's album from 1977 Markey Moon. And man, what an album.

These guys changed everything, dude. They are the reason and like the precursor to all the bands that we loved in the 2000s, you know. Oh, yeah, man. And not to mention, you know, the bands in between there too. obviously, but like, you know, television and this record is like the ancestor to the strokes and Interpol and all that stuff. And yeah, like you said, we're probably going to talk about this in this episode, but we do. Yeah, so we just thought it would be a great way to just kind of kick things off, get us into this awesome like art punk, post punk kind of mindset. And they were,

they were playing right alongside talking heads at CBGB in the late 70s. But we kind of of dive into things that were going on in New York around this time, you know, with just kind of like the evolution of rock at the time. Really interesting stuff. And I'm sure we're going to dive into this even more when we cover Talking Hands next week. So yeah, I was going to say that. That'll be a good, a good segue because Talking Heads, their first gig was opening for the Ramones at CBGB. Yeah, dude. In 1975. So yeah, this is, this is around, you know, all in the same circles, right? the same kind of like art, punk, post-punk, avant, rock, you know, whatever you want to call it. And we're going to talk about Talking Heads record Remain in Light, which, you know, came out a little bit later.

But yeah, this is a good way to kick us off because it feels like television was kind of like this pivotal sort of band and album, right? Especially when we look back on it now. Yeah, dude, they ditched those power chords and just brought in some really, really interesting. almost like math rock kind of guitar, the way that they, their dual guitar was really, really different. Yeah, we dive into all that. So, let's, without further ado, we're just going to fade us into the episode right from the beginning.

And we'll shout at you next week when we talk about remain in light from talking heads. So again, this is our episode from 2019 on television's Marky Moon. 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 Brit Daniel. And that's when I first, like, kind of dug in and, you know, listen to Markey 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 alongside the Ramones, Blondie, television was one of the, like one of the bands that put the music venue CBGB 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, you know, 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. Like this album is just full of like 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 strokes and, 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 gasps of air as he's being strangled. Yeah. Is that what you mean as far as like his voice? Yeah, sure.

It's kind 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 wails 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 Head 77. Talking heads were right there with these guys at CBGB at the ground floor, dude. Yeah, that's crazy, man. Yeah.

It's interesting that you talk about, you know, blondie, remones, television, talking heads. Like, you couldn't get, 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 thrown into the art punk category. And you know, this brings me back to that band that I covered for one of my sidetracks when I was flying solo for a bit there.

The Soft Boys, you know? Like, it's punk, but it's equal parts like blues and psychedelia. You know, it's something different. I want to quote someone here real quick from this tele... It's a fan site. For television, if you go to the website, it looks like it's right out of like 1998, dude, like GeoCities shit. Nice. But it's a super fan, and 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 how 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 it, that that part like 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 the opposite side of the coin for punk rock right it was more 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 um does television have that label on them too i mean not on wikipedia but i would definitely put them in that category and and that falls in the you know in the in the i mean i was going to say that i was going to say that i wouldn't put them in 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 Heads like early Talking Heads, kind of like we're talking about like the CBGB era.

But Talking Hands started to, it's kind of funny, right? Talking Heads and television, it's almost like the same band name because Talking Hads is like referring to like the news anchors on TV and stuff. But anyway, like Talking Heads started to be, you know, they were so experimented. 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 punk, you know. 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 Marky Moon that's different than punk rock in this era

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 boys are back in town came out in 76 as well.

So like, I think, you know, this might have been the, it's just kind of, what, what time did Markey Moon come out? 77. So, I mean, yeah, you know, it's not like Thin Lizzie popularized dual guitar. No. I wish I knew who popularized it, you know what I mean, to be honest with you. 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, uh, by a, uh, a, uh, a, uh, a, uh,

journalist named John Rockwell. He says, this is a two-gatar 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. Almost like the math rock sound that we've talked about. before with bands like foals 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 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 okay so there you go you know two guitar gods really, right? Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, obviously

God status and as far as as like the guitar world is concerned, 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, 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 doesn't sound like a 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 their alternative sound that like talking heads and whatnot sort of started to define, you know. 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, you know, 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 even just a year later. Like, this is what this sound can be. So, yeah, that's the thing, man. This is 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 a band that would be put in the punk rock category. But I would say they're way more punk rock than talking heads everywhere. It's the improv sounding, you know, more complex jazz kind of music that kind of puts them away from punk rock for me. Because when I think of punk rock,

I think more about that the more simple. The Ramones are just like the most like obvious example. Yeah, the Ramones are like bands like the sex pistols. Yeah, sure. But I would, you know,

I would say that Tom Verlaine's voice sounds more punk than, than let's say, you know, David Burns' voice. You know, one of the reasons that talking heads, like nobody knew where to, how to label them is because of 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. Let's take a quick break. 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 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. And the Rolling Stones 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 sound. 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.

And he even, I mean, like I said, he mentioned television specifically. as an influence. And even the way Britanniel 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. 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. Forget about punk, forget New York, forget CBGBs, hell, forget rock and roll. This is the real item. 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. Yeah, man, I'm really into that guitar work. Yeah, dude. 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 nightmareish quality of

this style of guitar work. Like, it makes you feel uneasy. And, like, kind of like they're saying, he's taking risks with his approach to guitar solos, and you feel like you're listening to someone improvised on the spot, you know? Yeah, no, I love it. It definitely has that kind of sporadic.

Yeah. It probably is improv, you know? Yeah. So, you know, that was part of their repertoire was improvisation. but even if it sounds spontaneous, they've got these set of rules in place for where they go with their guitar work, you know?

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. 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 5 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 the interpole 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 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, 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.

Yeah, oh, it's crazy. It's always interesting to figure out all the stepping stones, you know. Yeah. That's what I always like to do is, you know, where does it start? Like, where did this sound start, you know? Yeah. Where did the dual guitar sound start? You know, because somebody, a group did it first, you know?

Yep, always. 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. next week we're going to cover Nick Drake's album Brider Later with one of my dearest friends on this planet, Larry Lojra. 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. So for our outro, one of the influences noted for television. specifically for Tom Verlaine is a instrumental surf rock band called The Ventures. 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. Does it sound like one of those Dick Dale surf rock songs? Yeah, yeah. Okay. 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. It was kind of hard for me 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. A lot of it has to do with the super fast-paced drumming, and it's the way that they strummed 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.