Tom Verlaine
''Kim [Thayil, Soundgarden’s guitarist] was influenced by Television a lot. And bands like Television are the reason I started playing guitar in Soundgarden'' - Chris Cornell
Not only was grunge music influenced by hardcore punk but by New York punk. Chris Cornell explains that he was influenced by Television. To Patti Smith, Tom Verlaine`s signature guitar style sounds like “a thousand bluebirds screaming”. Whilst, The Guardian noted that Tom Verlaine is ‘‘a guitar antihero whose sensibility was more classical than Clapton’’. Soundgarden`s guitarist - Kim Thayil also was influenced by Verlaine and Television. Cornell explains that:
‘‘Kim was influenced by Television a lot. And bands like Television are the reason I started playing guitar in Soundgarden. I started writing songs that had more than one guitar part, where it wasn’t just playing the same thing. There would be one colour part that would come in and out, or some rhythmic thing that would happen when the other guitar was doing its thing. That was directly influenced by bands like Television’’ (Sarig, 1998,p.180).
Chris Cornell also helped on Jeff Buckley`s album Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk (1998) which was co-produced by Tom Verlaine. Chris Cornell played a big part in this album. After Buckley`s death in 1997, Buckley’s mother, Mary Guibert, explains that Cornell helped her to navigate the music industry and get the album released:
“Jeff hated name-dropping,” Guibert says, “Which is why Chris’ involvement in the project has surprised some people. Few people knew they were friends.”
She explained: “So everyone – the band, Chris – helped me to navigate the music business somewhat, and that was really important. They had impartial ears about what should and shouldn’t be released because, needless to say, my impartiality was shot”(Starkey, 2021).
Buckley respected Verlaine and after working together Buckley knew that he should produce his next album:
‘‘Verlaine was 17 years older than Buckley, who respected him almost as much as he did Patti Smith. When they met, Verlaine hadn’t released a solo record since 1992’s all-instrumental Warm And Cool, although he had recently composed the score for a film entitled Love And A .45. Verlaine’s reputation as a maverick must have impressed Buckley, because as soon as they connected during those sessions for Gone Again, Buckley decided that Verlaine should produce his next album’’(Apter, 2009, p.281).
Verlaine and Buckley with his group did a recording session in the summer of 1996 and in February 1997. However, Buckley was not satisfied and decided that when the time was right Grace (1994) producer Andy Wallace should produce it. Nevertheless, the album was co-produced by Verlaine. Who is Tom Verlaine? Who is the musical genius who inspired not only Cornell, Thayil, Buckley but many more?
Daniel Kane in his book Do You Have a Band?: Poetry and Punk Rock in New York City (2017) explains that during the mid-1960s and mid-1970s, the poetry-infused punk scene on the East Coast stood out as unique compared to other art communities in the US. For example with bands and artists like Patti Smith, Television, Neon Boys, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Blondie, The Ramones, New York Dolls etc. It wasn't until the late 1970s and early 1980s that bands like Black Flag started incorporating spoken-word poetry, although they still maintained a bold and aggressive image.
Rock could be art (as opposed to "craft") without the moral responsibility and the more contradictions the better. Kane explains that there was definitely self-awareness and some knowledge of conceptual art. ‘‘These weren't culturati babes-in-the-woods, despite Johnny's and Joey's and Dee Dee's and Tommy's [The Ramones] matching leather jackets. Tom Verlaine once said that each grouping was like a separate idea, inhabiting their own world and reference points’’ (Kane, 2017, p.10). This is especially the case with Tom Verlaine who stands out from all of the punk bands.
Tom Verlaine actually known as Thomas Joseph Miller, took his stage name from the French poet Paul Verlaine. Whilst, Richard Lester Meyers was inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's A Season in Hell (1873), and transformed himself into Richard Hell. Both would form Neon Boys in 1972 with Billy Ficca on drums. In march 1973, the band regrouped recruiting Richard Lloyd as a second guitarist, changing the name to Television. However, in early 1975, Richard Hell left Television after a dispute over creative control. Thus, Verlaine took full creative control of the band.
However, both would set the characteristics associated with the New York punk scene of the 1970s. Hell, quickly became a fashion icon of punk, having his hair spiked up and popularising the use of safety pins to hold his clothes together, inspiring the punk scene in England, as Malcolm Mclaren would take the aesthetic and fashion ideas from Hell and implement them in Sex Pistols’ styling. About Verlaine, Hell explains that:
‘‘Tom was a wild card at Sanford. First, he was a day student, not a boarder, so he was less well-known. He was quiet and tense, but he made a lot of ghostly jokes. Most of the world seemed incomprehensibly weird to him, and he was susceptible to all kinds of irrational explanations for that, from things like flying saucers, to extreme conspiracy theories, to obscure religious mysticism. He knew that these beliefs, or suspicions, would seem crazy to a lot of people, and that was part of why he was so private’’ (Hell, 2013,p.39).
‘‘He liked obsessive outsiders—artists whose works were made along patterns you could feel were viscerally, materially connected to the true wacky or hidden reality, because the works were made of the mind substance of people who couldn’t help themselves, because they were driven to create, even if unskilled by orthodox standards. And he liked the other side of that coin, namely highly gifted, hardworking, fully self-aware and sophisticated, worldly artists who nevertheless didn’t give a fuck about pleasing anyone or taking anything too seriously, and who were naturally subversive, and, in their own kind of purity, were incapable of doing bad work—like, in music, say, the original Sun Records musicians, or Link Wray, or pop artists just that wild, like the Rolling Stones in some of their earlier self-written singles, or Bob Dylan. And always there was the funniness of everything, or of everything that was interesting’’(Hell, 2013,p.40).
Unlike the punk scene in England, poetry was always important in the New York scene. Before starting their musical career, between 1971 and 1975 both settled into bookstore jobs and lived around the East Village, New York. Verlaine and Hell under the under the pseudonym "Theresa Stern’’ would release a poetry book Wanna Go Out? (1973). Hell recalls that:
‘‘It was at this time, when we were both twenty-one, that Tom and I invented her. After we wrote that first “Ode to Mr. Sackin” poem, we kept writing poems together, usually late at night. It’s what we did instead of watch TV (we didn’t own one) when we were talked out and not wrapped up in reading. For me, it was stimulating. I liked doing it and it gave me thoughts and ideas. I liked the poems too’’ (Hell, 2013,p.100)
Richard Hell has released eleven books (including I Dreamt I was a Very Clean Tramp(2013), Go Now! (1996) and more). Whilst, Verlaine and Patti Smith together wrote The Night (1976).
Television would leave a big influence on artists like Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), William Duvall (Alice in Chains) who mentioned Verlaine as one of his ‘‘primary influences’’, U2, REM, Echo & the Bunnymen, Brian Eno and The Strokes. Here are some amazing songs from Tom Verlaine which show not only that he is a musical genius but a talented writer and lyricist.
Souvenir From a Dream (1979)
You were living five lives in one
Taking everyone's coat,
Why can't you show them
What you've got in your cloak?
Cold hand on my shoulder,
A star begins to beam,
That's when you show me
Your souvenir from a dreamEmpty handed, I awake,
Just when I thought I had
So much at stake,
Seems you've got something to say,
Why don't you say it?
Little Johnny Jewel (1975)
Tom had a twin brother, John Peter Miller (1949–1984), who died at age 34. John was addicted to heroin and eventually died from the disease. Verlaine’s twin brother perhaps is the inspiration for the Television song “Little Johnny Jewel”.
He's half-asleep at night
His head, sensation of flight
Dreaming
He wakes up dreaming
He run down onto the airport
The rush
The rush and the roar
He crouched down behind a fence
A chest full of lightsLittle Johnny Jewel
He's real cool
If you see him looking lost
Ain't gotta come on so boss
Know that he's paid
Paid the price
If you see that little guy
The song was covered by Siouxsie and the Banshees on Through the Looking Glass (1987).
There`s a Reason (1981)
Walking slowly into romance
Lions roaring by the entrance
Saw you standing in my heartbeat
Cinderella with a new treatYou're my thrill, my dear
But I can't keep still I fearClose to zero, that is no cure
That ain't a reason I could go for
But you're the wonder that I follow
And Heaven's preview starts tomorrow
Words From The Front (1982)
January 23rd
There's no road
It's been raining now for three days
We're in mud up to our kneesIf luck prevails and I'm given leave
I should be home by the 17th
One word I hear all the time
This word I hear blind
BlindJohn died last night, he had no chance
Beneath the surgeon's drunken hands
It's hard to see who is about
The fires we light soon smolder outUpon the ridge they're dug in deep
We move in waves as if asleep
And there they lay, 4000 men
The general orders, "Attack again"
Marquee Moon (1977)
I spoke to a man down at the tracks
And I ask him how he don't go mad
He said, "Look here, junior, don't you be so happy
And for Heaven's sake, don't you be so sad’’Life in the hive puckered up my night
A kiss of death, the embrace of life
There I stand 'neath the Marquee Moon
Hesitating
1880 or So (1992)
O rose of my heart, can't you see
I don't belong to misery
Though she speaks fine with subtle art
Such misery clothes the rose of my heart
Now what I see in the long twilight
A star falls down on a hill so white
On a hill so white
A face that glows in a golden hue
No-one in this world knows what they do
I take my oath and I make my vow
For the tender things are upon me now
In the fragrance sweet of the evening air
I could leave this world quite without a care
Just like music, reading daily exercises the brain, improves sleep and reduces stress, so why not read some more?! Check this out:
Protest Music: Grunge Pt. II
The 'milieu' (moral temperature) is responsible for the atrophy or development of individuals, especially crucial for artists and their art, as if ‘‘Oliver Cromwell had not lived in the milieu of Great Rebellion, he would have remained what he had been- a stern Puritan concerned more with his farm and family than with public affairs’’ (Blaukopf and Mari…
Wow. I'm a huge Television fan and I never knew a lot of this stuff....and now I have to find this book that Verlaine and Patti Smith co-wrote because I had no idea it existed. Great blog.
Interesting piece. I wouldn’t previously have thought to associate Television (or much NY punk) with grunge. Also a great excuse to listen to more Tom Verlaine.