Real Estate’s Days turned 10 this week and to celebrate, the band have shared a cover of a song that was an inspiration for the album in more ways than one: Television’s “Days.”
The shrewd, completist bootlegger will always remember 6/30/2011 as the day that we debuted the album “Days” live in its entirety at 285 Kent in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Back then Domino Park, across the street, was still a dilapidated sugar warehouse, and our unreleased sophomore album didn’t yet have a name. Real heads (or as we like to call them, ‘agents’) might also recall that this show was a release party for the new 33 1/3 book recounting the history of Television’s “Marquee Moon“.
Somewhere in the introduction to that volume author Bryan Waterman declared that even though the song ‘Days’ was on Television’s often overlooked second record, it provided a blueprint for all of the melodic guitar-based indie rock that would soon follow in its wake. We were of course huge fans of that tune, this was in fact our second record, and we saw ourselves humbly as the torchbearers of that tradition. So the story goes like this – we were on tour, sitting in our fire engine red Dodge Ram 2500 somewhere along the I-95 when someone in the band read that sentence aloud, and said, ‘why don’t we call the album Days?’ As I recall, nobody loved it, but more importantly, nobody hated it and it stuck. It’s true, this now decade-old album is named after this fantastic, underappreciated Television tune, which was a joy for us to cover and record for you after all these years.
Real Estate – “Days” (Television Cover) out now on Domino Record Co
Luna was formed in 1991 by Dean Wareham after the breakup of Galaxie 500, with Stanley Demeski of The Feelies and Justin Harwood of The Chills. Guitarist Sean Eden joined in 1994, Lee Wall replaced Demeski on drums in 1997, and Britta Phillips replaced Harwood on bass in 2000. Luna released their final album, Rendezvous, in 2005 after playing their final concert at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. Is “Marquee Moon” the greatest rock song of all time? Perhaps. And this is a worthy cover!
A spine-tingling cover of a drop-dead classic. An audio tour-de-force!
Recorded June, 2020 in Auckland, Austin, Los Angeles and San Francisco – by Lee Wall, Dean Wareham, Sean Eden and Justin Harwood. Mixed by Justin Harwood. “Marquee Moon” written by Tom Verlaine
The Band: Sean Eden: guitars Justin Harwood: bass Lee Wall: drums Dean Wareham: vocal, guitar
“I didn’t care for the sound he got on tape or the performance much either,” said Tom Verlaine, dismissing Brian Eno’s attempt to record the quintessential New York loft act’s first LP. Five tracks were recorded at Good Vibrations studio before Verlaine pulled the plug on a putative Island album and his schoolmate, bassist and musical co-conspirator Richard Hell. “Double Exposure” shows why; Verlaine, second guitarist Richard Lloyd and drummer Billy Ficca are moving towards the chiselled arches of 1977’s Marquee Moon, while Hell plunks agriculturally behind them. Told before the session that none of his songs (“Blank Generation” included) would be recorded, Hell knew the end was nigh when Verlaine told him to stop jumping around on stage. (“He didn’t want people to be distracted,” Hell later recalled.)
In late 1973 the trio formed, calling themselves Television and soon recruiting Richard Lloyd as a second guitarist. They persuaded CBGB’s owner Hilly Kristal to give the band a regular gig at his club which had just opened on the Bowery in New York. Television was the first rock group to perform at the club, which was to become, along with Max’sKansas City, the center of the burgeoning punk scene. The members of Television reportedly constructed the first stage at CBGB’s, where they quickly established a significant cult following.
“Double Exposure’s” never-to-be-released title track and a live version of the 13th Floor Elevators’ “Fire Engine” show the jazzbo-garage vision that Television abandoned along with Hell; early versions of “Venus” and “Prove It” signpost their future as Quicksilver Messenger Service but with better hair.
This is two demo recording sessions from Television years 1974 & 1975. The bands highly acclaimed debut album ‘Marquee Moon’ was released in 1977 (Elektra Records) and was very successful in Europe however failed to enter the Billboard 200 in the USA. Both sessions were included on the bootleg ‘Double Exposure’ which surfaced in Italy (No Label No. DE-92-SC), and was first released in 1992. The original bootleg included three live tracks from CBGB’s in 1975, that are missing from this version.
The Television 1974 demos were recorded at Good Vibrations Studios in NYC with Richard Hell on bass, and produced by Brian Eno and Richard Williams of Island Records.
The August 1975 demos were recorded with Fred Smith on bass and were part of the session for Terry Ork of Ork Records which produced Television’s first single “Little Johnny Jewel” (Ork, 1975, included on expanded re-issue of Marquee Moon).
It is fascinating listening to the early versions of these songs that eventually appeared on ‘Marquee Moon’. Each session and versions are distinctly different the second having a ‘harder edge’ to them and closer to the final released editions.
The punk classic finally made available as the artist originally intended • Four complete records under one banner • The release contains new liners for Richard Hell outlining the Destiny Street saga “I’ve finally taken it all the way, and at this late date the album now moves me.
I can feel it rather than just feel frustration about it. the emotions in it are largely fear and desperation and longing, but that’s life, and can even have some kind of majesty.” Richard Hell Destiny Street was the follow-up album to one of the greatest punk albums of all time, 1977’s Blank Generation. the album was originally recorded in 1981 and released in 1982, but not to Richard Hell’s satisfaction. As he says in his new liner notes to destiny street remixed, “the final mix was a morass of trebly multi-guitar sludge.” now, for the 40th anniversary of its creation, the album is at last presented the way Richard Hell originally intended, “the sound of a little combo playing real gone rock and roll.” Richard Hell co-founded his first band, the Neon Boys, with Tom Verlaine in 1973. that band became Television. when Hell left Television in 1975, he formed, with Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan, both formerly of the New York Dolls, the Heartbreakers. after another year, Richard Hell departed the Heartbreakers and created Richard Hell and the Voidoids, which group, along with other CBGB’s bands of the era, such as the Ramones and PattiSmith, formed the template for punk, the effects of which are still being felt.
Apart from Hell on vocals and bass, the original Voidoids comprised Robert Quine (guitar), Ivan Julian (guitar), and Marc Bell (eventually “Marky Ramone”). the Destiny Street era band retained Quine, but otherwise the backing lineup became Naux (Juan Maciel) on guitar and Fred Maher on drums. Richard had wished forever that he could remix the original Destiny Street, but was told by the record company that the original 24-track masters had been lost. in the early 2000s, Hell discovered a cassette from 1981 that contained just the album’s rhythm tracks (drums, bass and two rhythm guitars) and he realized he could add new guitar solos and vocals to that to obtain a cleaner, improved version of the songs.
By 1976, Richard Hell was already the lynchpin stabbed through the tattered rags of punk before the genre barely had a name. He’d already served in seminal groups The Neon Boys, The Heartbreakers, and Television. He’d popularized the spiked hair and torn clothing aesthetic that would be soon copied by The Sex Pistols (and a million more). And that year he formed Richard Hell And The Voidoids, which wasted no time in releasing its debut (under just Hell’s name), the Another World EP, on foundational punk label Ork Records. Hell had been performing its standout track, “Blank Generation,” in his other groups for at least a year, and it shows: Although the 1976 version is slower than the one that would break wide on The Voidoids’ self-titled, Sire rercords debut the next year, there’s nothing hesitant about Hell’s performance—a sneering, yelping, nihilist cry in which Hell expounds on the existential freedom of being born into an indifferent world. “Blank Generation” became an underground hit and instant rallying cry for an entire movement, lending its title to a 1976 documentary on New York’s burgeoning punk scene (not to be confused with the rambling, faux-Godardian romance starring Hell released in 1980), and laying the blueprint for countless punk acts and proud misfits to follow.
Blank Generation, the iconic and influential 1977 debut album from Richard Hell & the Voidoids, upgrade for its 40th anniversary, albeit a limited-edition one for the 9,000 or so people that have heard of it.
The 2-LP (4,500 copies) and 2-CD (5,250 copies) deluxe edition, released November. 24th as part of the Record Store Day Black Friday promotion, includes the original album remastered, along with a second CD/LP of alternate studio versions, out-of-print single tracks and live recordings from a pair of shows at CBGB in ’76 and ’77.
I Belong to The] Blank Generation · Richard Hell Ork Records: New York, New York ℗ 2015 Numero Group Released on: 2015-10-30
Richard Hell and the Voidoids“Blank Generation” (1977) anthemic track, Led by former Television bassist Richard Hell (Lester), the Voidoids were an interesting take on punk rock. Sounding like a more aggressive version of Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band, they played high energy songs with exuberant vocals by Hell. Not a good singer or bassist by conventional standards, he was still able to communicate emotion, albeit through a nihilistic viewpoint. The songs have interesting arrangements, and don’t sound like other punk bands. The band consisting of Richard Hell – Bass, vocals, Ivan Julian – Rhythm guitar, Robert Quine – Lead guitar, Marc Bell – Drums.
Richard Hell is all over this story, passing through Television and the Heartbreakers before arriving at the Voidoids. He mastered the art of thrift store finery, pairing numb, nihilistic cool with spiked hair and safety-pin piercings. “Blank Generation,” caught here at CBGB in 1978 features a future Ramone Marky (still Marc Bell) behind the drums.
A short clip from the movie Blank Generation made in (1980), featuring Richard Helland the Voidoids playing the theme song Blank Generation at the legendary punk club CBGB. Directed by Ulli Lommel, produced by Andy Warhol. The band were formed in New York City in 1976 and fronted by Richard Hell, who had been a former member of the Neon Boys, Television and the Heartbreakers.
Richard Meyers moved to New York City after dropping out of high school in 1966, aspiring to become a poet. There he hoped he would be able start a career as a poet and immerse himself in the rich art community of the city. In his career as a poet he managed to get some of his works published in places like Rolling Stone and the New Directions’ Annuals. He also started his own
publishing imprints, Genesis: Grasp and then later Dot Books. He had little success as a poet, his imprints ultimately couldn’t be sustained and he ultimately cooled on his poetic aspirations.
He and his best friend from high school, Along with Tom Miller, founded the rock band the Neon Boys Their first group was it was a short lived group that produced only two
four-track studio recordings which became Television in 1973. The pair adopted stage names; Miller called himself Verlaine after Paul Verlaine, a French poet he admired, and Meyers became Richard Hell because, as he has said, it described his condition. Television received a good deal of hype in the New York music scene, with good write-ups in the Soho Weekly News, by Patti Smith, who was then sometimes working as a rock journalist, among others. Television was the first group on the New York scene to play at the Bowery club CBGB, which quickly became the epicenter of the emerging punk rock. There is both audio and video of the band while Hell remained, but nothing was officially released.
The group was the first rock band to play the club CBGB, which soon became a breeding ground for the early punk rock scene in New York. Hell had an energetic stage presence and wore torn clothing held together with safety pins and his hair spiked, which was to be influential in punk fashion in 1975, after a failed management deal with the New York Dolls, impresario Malcolm McLaren brought these ideas back with him to England and eventually incorporated them into the Sex Pistols’ image.
Disputes with Verlaine led to Hell’s departure from Television in 1975, and he co-founded the Heartbreakers with New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan They were a super-group of sorts on the New York scene. Expectations for the new group were high and initial performances were met with criticism. In the group Hell faced many of the same issues of songwriting and singing that he had withTelevision, and the heroin problems of Hell, Thunders, and Nolan were mutually destructive. Hell eventually quit the Heartbreakers after a year, again before the group got into the studio to record an album. Live material featuring Hell exists, but was not officially released until years later.
Hell did not last long with this band, and he began recruiting members for a new band. For guitarists, Hell found Robert Quine and Ivan Julian—Quine had worked in a bookstore with Hell, and Julian responded to an advertisement in The Village Voice. They lifted drummer Marc Bell, later Marky Ramone, from Wayne County. The band was named “the Voidoids” after a novel Hell had been writing.[
Musically, Hell drew inspiration from acts such as Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, protopunk band the Stooges and fellow New Yorker group the Velvet Underground, a group with a reputation for heroin-fuelled rock and roll with poetic lyrics. Quine’s admiration of the Velvet Underground led him to make hours’ worth of bootleg recordings of the band in the late 1960s.[citation needed] Hell also drew from and covered garage rock bands such as the Seeds and the Count Five that were found on the Nuggets compilation of 1972.[7] The Voidoids’ music was also characterized as art punk.#
Hell had written the song “Blank Generation” while still in Television; he had played it regularly with the band since at least 1975, and later with the Heartbreakers. The Voidoids released a 7″ Blank Generation EP in 1976 on Ork Records[ including “Blank Generation”, “Another World” and “You Gotta Lose”. The cover featured a black-and-white cover photo taken by Hell’s former girlfriend Roberta Bayley, depicting a bare-chested Hell with an open jeans zipper. It was an underground hit, and the band signed to Sire Records for its album debut.
The Voidoids original lineup. Marc Bell (aka Marky Ramone), Ivan Julian, Robert Quine (later in the Lou Reed band), and Richard Hell (previously in the Heartbreakers and Television).
Legendary rock guitarist Richard Lloyd, founding member of the band Television, shares the story of his life in music with Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz. Lloyd’s new memoir is “Everything is Combustible.” Starting in Pittsburgh and moving through New York City and beyond, with a cast full of music legends, Lloyd uses his distinct voice to chronicle Television’s humble beginnings, their rise to fame, his drug addiction and recovery, and his touring adventures with artists such as Matthew Sweet, John Doe, and Robert Quine. Lloyd also details his solo years, including the backstory of his iconic and critically-acclaimed records such as “Alchemy” and “Field of Fire.”Lloyd recalls the heyday of the New York rock music scene, filling the void in the written records of music history, and giving the first complete account of Television from one of the founding members. Richard Lloyd was born in in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1951. He is a world renowned electric guitarist, songwriter, recording artist and a founding member of Television. As an author, Lloyd was a regular columnist with Guitar World Magazine: the “Alchemical Guitarist.” As an autodidact, he has developed extensive expertise in many scientific and religious areas, and believes in the alchemical rule: “One book opens another.” Chris Frantz is a founding member of TalkingHeads and Tom Tom Club. He is a drummer, songwriter, radio show host and is soon to be an author. He recently started a new electronic music duo with Tina Weymouth called Chris Und Tina. He resides in Fairfield, Connecticut. Recorded January 25th, 2018.
Nothing beats meeting your heroes especially when they’re happy to share their secrets. In the late 1960s, then-teenaged Richard Lloyd, Television co-guitarist and new wave pioneer, managed to get backstage and into the dressing rooms and inner circles of people like Jimi Hendrix and John Lee Hooker. He asked questions, took mental notes, and absorbed lifelong lessons about the guitar. He put those lessons to good use, too, and developed an alternative, holistic approach to the instrument. That approach was enhanced by his left-brain orientation, plus his never-ending spiritual quest.
Lloyd also studied the teachings of mid-20th-century mystical teacher George Gurdjieff, and those studies—in addition to the impact they’ve had on his spiritual life—transformed his understanding of music. The result, which you can check out in a series of instructional videos and columns that appeared in Guitar World about a decade ago (now on DVD as The Alchemical Guitarist), is a complex, pattern-focused, vertical approach to the instrument based on an idiosyncratic understanding of the major scale.
Lloyd came to prominence in the mid 1970s withNew York band Television, a group he founded with Tom Verlaine, Billy Ficca, and Richard Hell in 1973. (Fred Smith replaced Hell on bass in 1975.) Television, along with the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, and others, were integral to New York City’s burgeoning punk scene. That scene—which, except for a few bands like the Ramones, wasn’t really punk—was based out of CBGB, a club on the Bowery. The black-walled rectangular-box-shaped venue supported a smorgasbord of styles, like new wave, post punk, and art rock, that dominated the Top 40 in the ’80s, albeit in a more plastic, synth-drenched incarnation.
But those sounds in their pure, distilled form were Television’s home. Television was a guitar band—no wailing synths or bad hair for them—and their debut, 1977’s “Marquee Moon”, is an iconic testament to the early, pre-sellout days of new wave. Lloyd and Verlaine shared guitar duties and crafted tight, interwoven parts, and the band was a huge influence on later acts like the Pixies, Sonic Youth, R.E.M, and many others. Lloyd’s tone with Television, while often overdriven and warm, sounds sharp and somewhat stark when appreciated in context—and given his roots and early association with Hendrix, it was a clean break with the past.
Lloyd left Television for the first time in 1978, after the band released its second album, Adventure. They reunited in 1992, and Lloyd stayed in Television until 2007. Along the way, he’s worked with other artists, including Matthew Sweet and X’s John Doe, released solo albums, and established himself as a sought-after teacher and alternative-rock elder statesman. His new solo album, The Countdown, is a collection of fuzzy, mid-tempo rockers that, along with the paperback edition of his 2017 memoir, Everything Is Combustible, was released in November.
“Before, everything was sacred about music. Personally, I think it still is something sacred, because you’re dealing with vibrations, and the universe is made of vibrations.”
John Lee Hooker once gave him advice about guitar playing—specifically about learning how to play one string at a time. Lloyd walked into the dressing room and sat down. Eventually, he took notice of me and he said—he pointed his finger at me, and he said, “And you, young man, what do you do?” I said, “I play guitar.” He said, “Are you good?” I said, “I don’t know.” He said, “No, no, no. You’re great. I can tell. Come over here and I’ll tell you the secret of playing the electric guitar.”
Then he cupped his hands and he whispered in my ear, “Take off all the strings but one and learn the one string up and down and down and up and bend it and shake it until the women go ‘oooo.’ Then put two strings on and learn two strings up and down and down and up.” I went home, but I didn’t take the strings off. I couldn’t afford to take them off—I didn’t have a replacement set. But I did practice what I call vertical knowledge, which is up and down pitch on a single string, a great deal. Jimi Hendrix had also suggested that to us—that we learn the neck that way.
To learn the single string. In fact, some of Jimi’s solos … like on “May This Be Love,” are all on the B string. The entire solo. There’s another one that’s all on the G string: “I Don’t Live Today.” Except for the last note, it’s all on the G string. It’s a very cool way to play. My solo on “Elevation” [from Marquee Moon] does the same thing on the G string. It goes up in A minor from the second fret to the 17th fret.
A lot of the guitarists in the New York City bands that you came up with were so different: Television, Talking Heads, Blondie, the Ramones.The scene was that everybody played original music and no covers. That was the basis of it, and there were an amazing number of bands who did not sound the same: the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Mink DeVille, the Shirts, the Dead Boys … there were tons and they all sounded different, which was fantastic. Pretty much everyone got signed, that’s right. It took three years for Television to get signed. A lot of the bands had been signed, but we kept turning record companies down. We didn’t want to have a producer come in and we didn’t want to have to make a record on a $2 budget. We waited and went with Elektra because they had Love, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and the Doors.
The last thing you’d expect to rise from the world of ’70s punk would be a band centered on snaking, psychedelic guitar solos. But that’s just what the very first of the CBGB bands, Television, put forth. Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd jammed at lengths you’d sooner expect from the Grateful Dead than the Dead Boys. In the process, they offered a terse rebuke to anyone who conflates every early “punk” band. Their 1977 debut MarqueeMoon remains one of the smartest, and catchiest, salutes to the six-string guitar ever released. All of its songs anchor on interlocking riffs as catchy and tight. Songs like “See No Evil” or “Prove It” coil their double guitar riffs intricately. The greatest solo showcase appeared in the album’s luminescent title track. At over 10 minutes, “Marquee Moon” centered on two serrated riffs which flickered over a funky rhythm section. Lloyd took the first run, which rises after the second chorus; Verlaine peeled out after the third verse in a stretch that eats up half of the song. Lloyd’s showcase may be brief, but it’s bracing, while Verlaine’s more generous stretch touches the hem of the heavens. For those who want even more interplay, there’s a near fifteen minute version of the song on the live album “Blow Up” recorded in 1978. The sound quality here may be harsh but the versions of songs off the ‘MarqueeMoon’ album and its ravishing follow-up, “Adventure” , allows each guitarist to showcase his style in its most explorative guise.
Marquee Moon performed live onstage by Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, Billy Ficca and Fred Smith, 1976-77. Most of the album’s eight songs became standard inclusions in Television’s sets, with the exception of “TornCurtain” (which they rarely played after the album was released) and “Guiding Light” (which was only played a handful of times). I think this live companion runs a bit shorter than the album track Don’t worry, though, dudes, it’s still totally epic.
Marquee Moon – LIVE!
1. See No Evil (1977-04-05 Whiskey A Go Go, LA)
2. Venus de Milo (1977-08-31, 1st Set, Hartsdale, NY)
3. Friction (1977-03-13 Masonic Auditorium, Detroit)
4. Marquee Moon (1976-12-29 CBGB, NYC)
5. Elevation (1976-12-29 CBGB, NYC)
6. Guiding Light (1976-03-11 CBGB, NYC)
7. Prove It (1977-03-13 Masonic Auditorium, Detroit)
8. Torn Curtain (1976-07-31 CBGB, NYC)
Television were generally regarded as the precise and arty guys of the original New York punk scene but while the clean lines and gleaming surfaces of the albums “Marquee Moon” and “Adventure” the band’s live show told a different story. While they lacked the bash-it-out ferocity of The Ramones or the Dead Boys , on-stage Television played a lot harder and looser than they did in the studio; the guitar interplay between Tom Verlaine and RichardLloyd gained so much grit and muscle (and Lloyd was given significantly more space to show what he could do), and drummer Billy Ficca and Bass man Fred Smith weren’t afraid to turn up the heat and add greater color and body to the songs. While the splendid “authorized bootleg”The Blow Up” is likely to remain the definitive document of Television’s awe-inspiring live prowess, “Live At The Old Waldorf” is a professional recording of a 1978 San Francisco date on the band’s last tour before their 1992 reunion . This runs a very close second, and the superior sound quality allows one to better appreciate the subtle textures lurking beneath Verlaine and Lloyd’s Stratocaster firepower. The band seems determined to show just what it can do, and these versions of “The Dream’s Dream,”“Little Johnny Jewel,” and “Marquee Moon” are pure joy for guitar aficionados. Rhino Handmade are to be congratulated for finally giving this oft-bootlegged recording the authorized release it deserves, and providing still more evidence of Television’s enduring brilliance and innovation 30 years after this set was played, “Live at TheOld Waldorf” still sounds fresher and more exciting than most anything you’re likely to see at a rock club on a given evening.
Lovely live album, really fine audio quality, and scorching renditions of classic songs (plus a nice Stones cover!). My advice: If you’re a Television fan, you should track down a digital copy to listen to. You can buy the mp3 album, it’s readily available for a very reasonable price at various online retailers. If you want it on vinyl, be warned: you’re now forced to deal with scalpers, essentially. The vinyl was produced in limited quantities and sold on Record Store Day (April 16th, 2011). The show was from a radio show broadcast that was a popular bootleg until its official release by Rhino Handmade in 2003. indiviually numbered limited edition of 5000 copies.
Release of a live 1978 show in San Francisco, California. Tom Verlaine’s lyrics are printed on the custom gatefold cardboard sleeve. Liner notes are printed on a twelve page booklet.
The Band Television were,
Bass, Vocals – Fred Smith
Drums – Billy Ficca
Guitar, Vocals – Richard Lloyd
Lead Vocals, Guitar – Tom Verlaine
Live At The Old Waldorf San Francisco
The Dream’s Dream
Venus
Foxhole
Careful
Ain’t That Nothin’
Little Johnny Jewel
Friction
Marquee Moon
(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction
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The Fat Angel Sings 