Tom Verlaine, Singer and Guitarist of Punk Legends Television, Dead at 73 - Rolling Stone

Tom Verlaine, singer and guitarist for punk legends Television who crafted the band’s 1977 masterpiece Marquee Moon, has died astatine the property of 73.

Jesse Paris Smith, the girl of Patti Smith, confirmed Verlaine’s decease pursuing a “brief illness” to Rolling Stone connected Saturday. “He died peacefully successful New York City, surrounded by adjacent friends. His imaginativeness and his imaginativeness volition beryllium missed,” Smith wrote.

Born Thomas Miller, Verlaine (who adopted his past sanction from the French writer Paul Verlaine), was precocious schoolhouse classmates with chap punk icon Richard Hell, with whom he’d aboriginal signifier his earliest bands. Arriving successful Manhattan’s Lower East Side astatine the dawn of punk, Verlaine and Hell archetypal teamed up for the short-lived enactment Neon Boys earlier co-founding Television successful 1973 alongside guitarist Richard Lloyd.

Verlaine and Television honed their dependable arsenic 1 of the premier acts astatine legendary punk clubs similar CBGB — establishing 1 of the earliest residencies astatine that venue — and Max’s Kansas City. Patti Smith — who erstwhile likened Verlaine’s guitar dependable to “a 1000 bluebirds screaming” — was successful the assemblage for 1 of Television’s aboriginal shows successful 1974, and divided the measure with Television erstwhile the Patti Smith Group made their CBGB debut the pursuing year.

Hell would soon permission Television to articulation chap punk enactment the Heartbreakers. With Verlaine and Lloyd taking the reins, the duo developed a guitar dependable that merged punk riffs with jazz interplay. After making their recorded debut with the 1975 azygous “Little Johnny Jewel,” Television released what was their masterpiece — and 1 of the top albums of the punk epoch — Marquee Moon, the centerpiece of which was the album’s twisty, mesmerizing rubric track. (The medium was, arsenic Rolling Stone noted successful the review, “the astir absorbing and audacious” of a bid of 1977 releases from CBGB bands similar Blondie and the Ramones, but “also the astir unsettling.”)

“When the members of Television materialized successful New York, astatine the dawn of punk, they played an incongruous, soaring amalgam of genres: the noirish howl of the Velvet Underground, brainy creation rock, the double-helix guitar sculpture of Quicksilver Messenger Service,” Rolling Stone wrote of Marquee Moon, Number 107 connected our database of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

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“As exhilarating successful its lyrical ambitions arsenic the Ramones’ debut was successful its brutal simplicity, Marquee Moon still amazes,” Rolling Stone wrote. “‘Friction,’ ‘Venus,’ and the mighty rubric way are jagged, desperate, and beauteous each astatine once. As for punk credentials, don’t hide the cryptic energy and strangled existentialism of guitarist Tom Verlaine’s dependable and songwriting.”

Television’s classical lineup would lone merchandise 1 much medium during the Seventies, 1978’s Adventure, earlier Verlaine embarked connected his solo career. As Patti Smith wrote, Verlaine showcased connected his albums “his angular lyricism and pointed lyrical asides, a sly wit, and an quality to shingle each drawstring to its truest emotion.” (The classical Television lineup of Verlaine, Lloyd, bassist Fred Smith, and drummer Billy Ficca reunited for 1 past medium — 1992’s Television.)

In 1979, Verlaine released his self-titled solo album, which included the opus “Kingdom Come,” recorded a twelvemonth aboriginal by David Bowie for that icon’s 1980 LP Scary Monsters & Super Freaks. As a solo artist, Verlaine remained prolific implicit the adjacent fewer decades, seamlessly moving from post-punk explorations to wholly instrumental EPs, and soundless movie scores to collaborations with Smith and different erstwhile CBGB denizens.

“Tom Verlaine erstwhile complained that he’d ne'er written astir 2 of the strongest dreams successful his life, ‘because it’s hard to get crossed the connection of dreams.’ That whitethorn beryllium so, but Verlaine inactive manages to travel person to solving that occupation than conscionable astir anyone other successful his medium,” Rolling Stone wrote of Verlaine’s 1982 solo LP, Words From the Front. “As passim his assemblage of work, there’s thing truthful inspired yet effortless astir Verlaine’s songs that you person to wonderment if he’s penning them … well, successful his sleep.”

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In a 1988 interrogation with Rolling Stone, U2’s the Edge cited Verlaine arsenic 1 of his main influences. “I deliberation what I took from Verlaine was not truly his benignant but the information that helium did thing nary 1 other had done,” helium said. “And I liked that; I thought that was valuable.”