Tom Verlaine

Tom Verlaine, a founder, lead vocalist and guitarist for '70s N.Y. rock band Television, has died. He was 73 years old.

After the “Television” reunion album and the instrumental set “Warm and Cool” in 1992, he opted out on recording for nearly a decade and a half. In the studio, and on tour, he frequently served as accompanist to former paramour Patti Smith, and appeared on her albums “Gone Again” (1996), “Gung Ho” (2000), “Twelve” (2007) and “Banga” (2012). But, despite the fact that Television gelled into one of the most formidable live acts on the scene, neither the debut LP nor its successor “Adventure” managed to enter the American charts, and the group dissolved within weeks of the end of its 1978 U.S. (Some of Hell’s songs for Television were heard on “Blank Generation,” the 1977 debut by his band the Voidoids.) With Blondie’s original bassist Fred Smith enlisted to replace Hell, the band recorded a storming seven-minute track that was issued across two sides of a single released by Ork on his eponymous label in September 1975. “Up until then, the guitar was a stupid instrument to me,” he recalled in a 2001 interview with Mojo. But the New York Dolls’ glam scene inspired the pair to form a band, the Neon Boys, with Meyers on bass and Ficca recruited as the drummer. The two became close friends, and made an attempt to run away to Florida that was squelched by the police in Alabama. In 1963, he took up the saxophone after gravitating to the music of jazz avant gardists Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Roland Kirk and Albert Ayler. In 2007, Lloyd was replaced in the touring unit by Jimmy Ripp, who had for many years supported Verlaine on his solo albums and tours. A love of symphonic music led him to the piano as a child. It was a revelation and I was hoping my Jazzmaster could somehow channel his when I played the solo on ‘Halloween’ on the first Dream Syndicate album.

New York group, which broke up in 1978, best known for Marquee Moon and whose singer-songwriter also worked with Patti Smith.

His role in our culture and straight up awesomeness on the electric guitar was completely legendary. The patron saint of the impossibly cool lead guitarist. The music writer and author Corbin Reiff tweeted: “Tom Verlaine. first heard on Patti Smith’s “Hey Joe” and “Break It Up”, and Television’s “Little Johnny Jewel”, the most incredible, otherworldly guitar playing. He was the best rock and roll guitarist of all time, and like Hendrix could dance from the spheres of the cosmos to garage rock. Stuart Braithwaite of the band Mogwai tweeted: “Devastated by this news.

He first attracted attention with the band Television, a fixture of the New York punk rock scene. But his music wasn't so easily categorized.

Hell was replaced by Fred Smith in 1975 and later went on to form the punk band Richard Hell and the Voidoids. The layered, often ethereal sound that Mr. After they moved to New York, they formed a band, the Neon Boys, which in 1973 evolved into Television, with Richard Lloyd on second guitar, Mr. Although Television achieved only minor commercial success and broke up after recording two albums, Mr. Mr. He was 73.

The founding father of American punk and a fixture in the 1970s New York rock scene died Saturday as the result of a brief illness.

"Tom and I had an hysterically funny conversation that lasted the last 42 years," guitarist and Television member Jimmy Rip wrote in a statement to NPR. "He was blindingly smart, incredibly well read as well as surreally silly! "I met Tom when I was a child, not long after my dad passed away," Jesse Paris Smith wrote in a statement to NPR. Verlaine developed a cult following throughout his career, but never quite achieved mainstream status and eschewed the limelight. Verlaine thought for a moment before offering his preferred self-deprecating epigram: 'Struggling not to have a professional career.' " Born Thomas Miller in Denville, N.J., Verlaine grew up in Wilmington, Del.

Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, Chris Stein, and many more artists have paid tribute to Television's Tom Verlaine, who died at age 73.

[Sleater-Kinney](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/sleater-kinney/) noted how the guitarist informed their playing and writing. The intertwining of notes, completing each other’s sentences, toying with consonance and dissonance, beautifully colliding then breaking away; telling us so much without a single word,” [the group wrote](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn-jymJvdbV/). Both Tom and Richard Hell have told me that I auditioned for the Neon Boys but I don’t remember.” “Bless you Tom Verlaine for the songs, the lyrics, the voice! And later, the laughs, the inspiration, the stories, and the rigorous belief that music and art can alter and change matter, lives, experience. “Farewell Tom, aloft the Omega.”

Tom Verlaine, who redefined rock guitar in the punk era of the 1970s with his band Television, died Saturday in Manhattan.

But, despite the fact that Television gelled into one of the most formidable live acts on the scene, neither the debut LP nor its successor “Adventure” managed to enter the American charts, and the group dissolved within weeks of the end of its 1978 U.S. “Up until then, the guitar was a stupid instrument to me,” he recalled in a 2001 interview with Mojo. In 1963, he took up the saxophone after gravitating to the music of jazz avant gardists Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Roland Kirk and Albert Ayler. A love of symphonic music led him to the piano as a child. In 2007, Lloyd was replaced in the touring unit by Jimmy Ripp, who had for many years supported Verlaine on his solo albums and tours. It was a revelation and I was hoping my Jazzmaster could somehow channel his when I played the solo on ‘Halloween’ on the first Dream Syndicate album.

Punk rock guitarist Tom Verlaine, the frontman for the rock band Television, died at the age of 73.

“Tom Verlaine is one of the greatest rock musicians ever. He effected the way John and I play immeasurably. You introduced me to a world that flipped my life upside down. “‘I’ve lost a hero…. The group has toured on and off since 2001. [according to the Guardian.](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jan/28/tom-verlaine-frontman-and-guitarist-of-us-band-television-dies-at-73)

A hugely gifted and original musician, Verlaine kept up the exacting standards in his solo career.

Verlaine and Television honed their approach to perfection on 1977’s Marquee Moon, which was one of the greatest debut albums of its era and also so set apart from the prevalent trends of its era that it hasn’t dated at all in the ensuing 45 years. By the time Television re-formed in 1992, the extent of the influence they wielded was obvious. It was very much a DIY product – released on a label their manager, Terry Ork, had set up specifically to put it out, recorded in mono, pressed not on vinyl but the cheaper alternative styrene – but there its resemblance to anything we might think of as punk ends: it was a world away from the short, sharp shocks of the Ramones or indeed the nascent Sex Pistols. In 1975, Malcolm McLaren returned to England from a sojourn in New York with a selection of posters and set lists he had collected in the city. Television had been formed from the ashes of the short-lived Neon Boys by two childhood friends, Tom Miller and Richard Meyers, who had relocated to New York and renamed themselves Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell. Ostensibly managing the New York Dolls, he had become enamoured of another band, who appeared to be kickstarting a new movement in the city.

Visionary frontman of Television whose 1977 debut LP Marquee Moon is considered one of the most influential albums of its era.

The album was co-produced by the studio engineer [Andy Johns](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/apr/09/andy-johns-producer-dies), who had worked with the Rolling Stones, Free and Led Zeppelin, and who helped Verlaine achieve the clarity of sound for which he was searching. [Malcolm McLaren](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/apr/09/malcolm-mclaren-obituary)’s styling of the Sex Pistols, had already been sacked by Verlaine on the grounds of heroin-induced unreliability by the time Television made their first single. A second album, Adventure, made less impact and the band dissolved in 1978 after disagreements between Verlaine and Lloyd. Two albums of instrumental pieces, Warm and Cool (1992) and Around (2006), showed his gift for creating tone poems inspired by film noir. [Blank Generation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqsDXmmaEAk)) and the soaring interplay between the two lead guitarists quickly earned them a following among New York’s scenemakers. In 1995 he appeared as a guest with Smith’s band on a US tour with Bob Dylan. Smith, then beginning her rise to prominence, was another early supporter, and Verlaine played on her first single, a version of [Hey Joe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEkmoawOih0), in 1974. They had made their separate ways to New York by 1971, where they teamed up again on the Lower East Side, changed their names to Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, scuffled for work and wrote poetry together under the nom-de-plume “Theresa Stern”. But among the artfully distressed apparel, defiant haircuts and painfully skinny silhouettes of their milieu, none of those serving apprenticeships in [CBGB](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/dec/11/cbgbs-rocks-backpages)s, Max’s Kansas City and other New York clubs showed more concern for the music itself than Verlaine. But it was his exploratory guitar solos that spoke of his early interest in, and deep knowledge of, the avant-garde jazz of the 1960s. He was born Thomas Miller in Morriston, New Jersey, into a middle-class family who moved to Wilmington, Delaware, when he was six years old. Although each of those groups pursued a very different musical path, together their impact would shape what became known as the punk movement, while Television’s debut LP, Marquee Moon, released in 1977, would secure a place among the most admired and enduringly influential albums of its era.

Tom Verlaine, founding member of seminal New York punk band Television, died Saturday at age 73 "after a brief illness," according to a news release from ...

“He made incredible music that greatly influenced the US & UK punk rock scene in the ’70’s,” [wrote Idol.](https://twitter.com/BillyIdol/status/1619476443586756609) Grief is not an affliction, but a privilege.” [Blondie’s Debbie Harry](https://twitter.com/BlondieOfficial/status/1619450134819115008) and Billy Idol similarly honored the guitarist and songwriter on social media. “He was the perfect friend and support for me as a little girl.” The two were a couple in the 1970s and remained lifelong friends. The guitarist, raised in Wilmington, Delaware, was “noted for his angular lyricism and pointed lyrical asides, a sly wit, and an ability to shake each string to its truest emotion,” the release added. [picture of herself with Verlaine ](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn-efDrJ29T/)as well [another of a vase of flowers](https://www.instagram.com/p/CoAEbjiO6qA/) with the caption, “This is morning thinking about Tom.

Leader of the group Television, Verlaine was an astronomically influential figure in the New York scene.

[cited](https://rockportraits.wordpress.com/2014/10/03/television/) jazz saxophonists John Coltrane and Albert Ayler as inspiration, and early on Television covered “ [Fire Engine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq-xhBUCQAA)” by the trailblazing psychedelic group the 13th Floor Elevators. This line-up, with Billy Ficca on drums, was the one that entered Phil Ramone’s (no relation to The Ramones) A & R Studios in Manhattan in September 1976 to record “Marquee Moon” for Elektra Records. He was replaced by Fred Smith (not to be confused with Fred “Sonic” Smith of the MC5, who would eventually marry Patti Smith of the Patti Smith Group, whose name was already Smith before they wed.) Hell, who played bass and sang backing vocals, eventually split to found The Heartbreakers (with exiting members of the New York Dolls) and then Richard Hell and the Voidoids. This appears to be made up, but perhaps speaks to the shroud of mystery that surrounded this uncategorizable group.) [has died](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/28/arts/music/tom-verlaine-dead.html), according to Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of musician Patti Smith, following “a brief illness.” Though never a commercial success, Verlaine’s influence as an artist and icon of downtown cool has reverberated throughout the decades.