Tom Verlaine

Punk guitarist Tom Verlaine has died at the age of 73, the daughter of his ex Patti Smith has announced.

My heart is too intensely full to share everything now, and finding the words is too deep of a struggle' (Tom pictured in 1980) My heart is too intensely full to share everything now, and finding the words is too deep of a struggle. The love is immense and forever.

The singer, songwriter, and guitarist with 1970s New York band Television has died at 73.

Photograph: Roberta Bayley/RedfernsSat 28 Jan 2023 23.52 GMT Last modified on Sat 28 Jan 2023 23.57 GMTTom Verlaine, Breekend Festival, Bree, Belgium, 1985.Photograph: Gie Knaeps/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Tom Verlaine and Patti Smith attend Stevie Wonder’s party at Delmonico’s in New York City on 12 September 1974.Photograph: WWD/Penske Media/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Television (L to R: Billy Ficca, Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine and Fred Smith) in 1978.Photograph: Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Tom Verlaine at Elektra Records in New York City on 27 February 1978.Photograph: Ebet Roberts/Redferns Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Playing a Fender Jaguar guitar with Television at CBGB.Photograph: Richard E Aaron/Redferns Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Tom Verlaine, the album.Photograph: Records/Alamy Share on Facebook Share on Twitter At Manchester Free Trade Hall on 26 May 1977.Photograph: Howard Barlow/Redferns Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Patti Smith backstage with Tom Verlaine before performing at the Arista Records Salutes New York with a Festival of Great Music event at City Center on 21 September 1975.Photograph: Charles Steiner/Getty Images Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Performing live at Fun, Fun, Fun, Fest in Austin, Texas on 9 November 2013.Photograph: Jeff Newman/Globe/Zuma Press/Alamy Share on Facebook Share on Twitter L-R: Billy Ficca, Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine and Fred Smith.Photograph: Roberta Bayley/Redferns Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Performing with a Fender Jazzmaster guitar at the Hammersmith Odeon, London on 16 April 1978.Photograph: Gus Stewart/Redferns Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Tom Verlaine on Channel 4 show The Tube.Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock Share on Facebook Share on Twitter At the Festival of Music and Arts in Stockholm, Sweden on 1 August 2014.Photograph: LBL/Rex/ShutterstocK Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Tom Verlaine.Photograph: Ebet Roberts/Redferns Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Tom Verlaine.Photograph: Kerstin Rodgers/Redferns Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Television performs at Live Club in Trezzo sull’Adda, Italy on 31 March 2016.Photograph: Mairo Cinquetti/Alamy Share on Facebook Share on Twitter TopicsMusicPhotographyPunk

Verlaine's jaggedly inventive playing as part of the band's two-guitar assault influenced many musicians.

It has been a clear influence on such artists as Pavement, Sonic Youth, the Strokes and Jeff Buckley,” Billboard magazine wrote in 2003. That takes a special greatness,” Mike Scott of The Waterboys tweeted. “Tom Verlaine has passed over to the beyond that his guitar playing always hinted at.

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.

Verlaine fronted the ambitious and oblique New York band Television, with whom he made two of rock's most acclaimed albums.

That year, when a reporter asked him to describe his career, Verlaine said slyly, “Struggling not to have a professional career.” But the records didn’t sell and the band broke up, reuniting for a third album, called “Television,” in 1992 before disappearing again. The first two Television albums — “Marquee Moon,” released in 1977, and “Adventure,” a year later — were enough to cement the band’s enduring legend. But Verlaine himself seemed loathe to pursue the explosive, careening music that brought him renown. Although Television first attracted attention at the New York punk rock club CBGB, Verlaine wasn’t a fan of punk, which he described as “just amped-up bubblegum with angrier lyrics.” Among other things, punk bands eschewed solos, which Verlaine and fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd did not. “The personal loss, for me, is absolutely devastating.

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.

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

[Marquee Moon](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/marquee-moon-2-251950/), the centerpiece of which was the album’s twisty, mesmerizing title track. “And I liked that; I thought that was valuable.” In 1979, Verlaine released his self-titled solo album, which included the song “Kingdom Come,” recorded a year later by David Bowie for that icon’s 1980 LP Scary Monsters & Super Freaks. “As exhilarating in its lyrical ambitions as the Ramones’ debut was in its brutal simplicity, Marquee Moon still amazes,” Rolling Stone wrote. Television’s classic lineup would only release one more album during the Seventies, 1978’s Adventure, before Verlaine embarked on his solo career. Arriving in Manhattan’s Lower East Side at the dawn of punk, Verlaine and Hell first teamed up for the short-lived act Neon Boys before co-founding Television in 1973 alongside guitarist Richard Lloyd.

Tom Verlaine – the singer, guitarist and songwriter best known for leading seminal New York rock band Television – has died at the age of 73.

Marquee Moon is not only one of the best albums ever, it also served as the soundtrack to my time living in New York. A sad sad day. his old schoolmate richard hell was the aesthetic and attitude of punk, but tom was the brains and the storyteller. He effected the way John and I play immeasurably. One of the founding fathers of punk rock. Rest in peace Tom x [January 28, 2023] Television made a new kind of music and inspired new kinds of music. Bless you Tom Verlaine and thank you for the songs, the lyrics, the voice! None of that material has ever surfaced. 1992 saw Verlaine release two albums – a self-titled effort with Television (which wound up being their final studio album), and the solo LP ‘Warm And Cool’. Born in New Jersey as Thomas Miller, Verlaine was spurred to pursue the guitar after hearing The Rolling Stones’ ‘19th Nervous Breakdown’ as an adolescent.

His band rose to fame in the 1970s New York punk scene, scoring UK hits including Marquee Moon.

Will Sergeant, guitarist of Echo & The Bunnymen, said: "Tom Verlaine's playing meant the world to me. He set me on my path as a guitarist, thank you Tom." That takes a special greatness."

Tributes have been pouring in following the iconic guitarist's death on Saturday.

It has been a clear influence on such artists as Pavement, Sonic Youth, the Strokes and Jeff Buckley,” “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. “We wanted to be stark and hard and torn up, the way the world was.” Patti Smith shared a tribute on Instagram, posting a photograph of herself and Tom together saying: “Farewell Tom, aloft the Omega.” “We wanted to strip everything down further, away from the showbiz theatricality of the glitter bands, and away from blues-iness and boogie,” Television co-founder Richard Hell wrote in his autobiography, I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp. [Tom Verlaine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Verlaine), guitarist and co-founder of the seminal proto-punk band [Television](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_(band)), has died at the age of 73.

“We did around 14 things,” reveals guitarist Jimmy Rip. “They don't have vocals on them and there are no guitar solos, but they're songs. And some of them are ...

“Getting to play dual guitars with Tom for a week was thrilling in itself,” he adds. “He was very charismatic in the studio, very calm,” Brody recalls. “And maybe that filters down to why there’s such a lack of output. “Tom and Richard stood on opposite sides of the stage and Richard Lloyd was in the middle,” Kaye recalls. “He was pretty laconic on the whole, but we would have a laugh,” says Grant, whose Verlaine connection began with the aforementioned Friends Again. In 1984 he produced “Swallows In The Rain” for obscure Glasgow quintet, Friends Again. “Tom had a twin brother who was into drugs and perished in the ‘80s. “And each of them had a very specific vision they wanted to pursue.” “But then he began to say no to gigs, on top of everything else,” he says. I saw that he had the thing – the it – that I was hoping for in another person. “The first thing I remember was how put out he was by having to carry his own guitar and amp through the door,” Lloyd recalls. Raised in Delaware, the young Thomas Miller studied piano and played saxophone, to the detriment of formal studies.

Guitarist and the main songwriter of rock band Television has died after a 'brief illness'

His old schoolmate Richard Hell was the aesthetic and attitude of punk, but Tom was the brains and the storyteller. 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. He affected the way John and I play immeasurably.

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.

Tom Verlaine was the frontman for the 1970s New York rock band Television, which also featured Richard Lloyd on guitar, Billy Ficca on drums and Fred Smith.

He effected the way John and I play immeasurably. He made incredible music that greatly influenced the US & UK punk rock scene in the ‘70’s RIP”. Both Tom and Richard Hell have told me that I auditioned for the Neon Boys but I don’t remember”.

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.

He made his bones in the 1970s with Television, the garage band who created a new kind of psychedelic sublime in the CBGB punk scene. Television made two of the ...

His most underrated solo album is Cover from 1984, a synth-pop experiment with glossy grooves like “Dissolve/Reveal,” “Rotation,” and “Swim.” Fittingly, he played on Patti Smith’s 1996 comeback Gone Again as well as the soundtrack of Todd Haynes’ Dylan fantasia I’m Not There, with a spooky version of “Cold Irons Bound” from Time Out of Mind. But even as Verlaine opted out of the rock hustle, his guitar sound became a permanent part of the rock soundscape. “The time between the songs is longer than the songs.” [“Breakin’ In My Heart,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5aA1xPCZRo) with killer rhythm guitar from the B-52s’ Ricky Wilson. Adventure was nearly as great, with frantically funny raves like “Glory” and “Careful” (“Your wine is just sour grapes/Pour me a glass any time I’m not there”), along with fragile ballads like “Carried Away” and the R.E.M.-inventing “Days.” They kept getting fiercer on the road in 1978, as documented on bootlegs. Television released a local single in 1975, on the indie Ork label, “Little Johnny Jewel.” (Just a shadow of the live monster it would become.) Hell and Verlaine had a bitter falling out by the time Television made their classic debut. The best “Marquee Moon” ever is the 17-minute version from the Portland show of July 1978; the best “Little Johnny Jewel” is the 11-minute version from San Francisco a few days earlier. As Verlaine told Rolling Stone in 1977, “There are any number of ways to get from one place to another on the neck of the guitar that I don’t know about.” Every time he played, he was looking to go somewhere new. & Rakim were to NYC hip-hop — always looking to take off into the mystic, dropping abstract poetry on an audience that came to dance, and Marquee Moon always sounds like a twin to Paid In Full. Naturally, they started a band, the Neon Boys, with fantastic glam-trash nuggets like “High Heeled Wheels” and “That’s All I Know Right Now.” The Neon Boys got tougher when they turned into Television, obsessed with the Velvet Underground and John Coltrane. Verlaine was the ultimate New York guitar god and Television were the ultimate New York band, mystic guitar boys dressing up like punks and singing like poets. [Tom Verlaine](https://www.rollingstone.com/t/tom-verlaine/), for some of us the greatest American rock guitarist not named “Hendrix.” Verlaine, [who died Saturday at 73](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tom-verlaine-television-dead-obit-1234670298/), could hit cosmic heights that no other guitar virtuoso could reach.

From Television through his solo career, the songwriter created enigmatic tidings and cat's-cradle guitar structures. He died on Saturday at 73.

“Call Mr. Verlaine’s and Lloyd’s guitars set up “1880 or So” with a calm fingerpicked drone immediately answered by a nervous, leaping line, immediately re-establishing their two-guitar equipoise as Verlaine sings about love and mortality. On his self-titled 1979 solo debut album, Verlaine welcomed keyboards into his arrangements. The reaction, at a gig in 1978, was a smattering of applause. “Little Johnny Jewel” extended across both sides of Television’s first single, in 1975, and onstage it would expand even further, into a jazzy, sprawling, exploratory jam that was never the same twice. Spirituality meets flirtation in “Glory.” The music harks back to the metronomic beat, talky verses and major chords of the Velvet Underground, but it has its own twists, as Verlaine’s guitar lines push toward Eastern modes. It starts with the two guitars of Lloyd and Verlaine, separated in stereo, syncopated against each other; then, before anyone can get settled, Fred Smith’s bass and Billy Ficca’s drums forcibly move the downbeat. But through the next decades, he created music that rewards attention to every detail. Verlaine’s voice would never be ingratiating enough for a broad audience; it was reedy, yelpy, quavery, a bit strangulated. His playing drew on country, jazz, blues, surf-rock and raga; his compositions almost always set up a contrapuntal dialogue of guitars with distinct tones, colluding or contending. His music looked back to the not-so-distant days of psychedelia and the Velvet Underground, but it was leaner, tauter, steelier. Tom Verlaine was present at the creation of New York City punk.