January 30, 2023

"He awoke to the sound of water dripping into a rusted sink. The streets below were bathed in medieval moonlight, reverberating silence."

"He lay there grappling with the terror of beauty, as the night unfolded like a Chinese screen. He lay shuddering, riveted by flickering movements of aliens and angels as the words and melodies of 'Marquee Moon' were formed, drop by drop, note by note, from a state of calm yet sinister excitement. He was Tom Verlaine, and that was his process: exquisite torment. Born Thomas Joseph Miller, raised in Wilmington, Delaware, he left his parental home and shed his name, a discarded skin curled in the corner of a modest garage among stacks of used air-conditioners that required his father’s constant professional attention...."
 
Writes Patti Smith in "He Was Tom Verlaine/Patti Smith remembers her friend, who possessed the child’s gift of transforming a drop of water into a poem that somehow begat music" (The New Yorker).

"He lived twenty-eight minutes from where I was raised. We could easily have sauntered into the same Wawa on the Wilmington-South Jersey border in search of Yoo-hoo or Tastykakes. We might have met, two black sheep, on some rural stretch, each carrying books of the poetry of French Symbolists—but we didn’t. Not until 1973, on East Tenth Street, across from St. Mark’s Church, where he stopped me and said, 'You’re Smith.'... Examining each other’s bookcases, we were amazed to find that our books were nearly identical, even those by authors difficult to find. Cossery, Hedayat, Tutuola, Mrabet...."

Goodbye to Tom Verlaine, my fellow Wilmingtonian. I too lived among the Butterscotch Krimpets, long ago. Never have heard of Cossery, Hedayat, Tutuola, and Mrabet though. Imagine being into Cossery, Hedayat, Tutuola, Mrabet, then meeting somebody who had books by all 4.

30 comments:

Paul Kramer said...

obit by poet. impressive

Interested Bystander said...

Terror of beauty, medieval moonlight. All bit much, maybe self-indulgent.

tommyesq said...

I thought that was a Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest winner.

(Since 1982 the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest has challenged participants to write an atrocious opening sentence to the worst novel never written.)

cassandra lite said...

Purple prose is my least favorite color of prose.

Dustbunny said...

She can write.

re Pete said...


"Take what you have gathered from coincidence

The empty-handed painter from your streets

Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets"

Paddy O said...

A little too intentionally flowery for my tastes, but I appreciate the tone and purpose.

I'll admit being a little bit of a insular caveman, aloof from more informed evocation, but I'm not sure what medieval moonlight is intending to convey. Pre-electrical? Filled with dancing elves? That particular silence that occurs just after a knight is knocked off his horse in a jousting match and they are hidden by the horse's moon shadow, hiding them while the rest of the arena is illuminated with expectation?

Robert Cook said...

In the fall of 1975 I was newly arrived at the University of Florida in Gainesville after completing my A.A. degree at Junior College in Jacksonville. I was an avid reader of the rock press, and I was aware of the underground music scene coalescing around CBGB (and Max's Kansas City, to a slightly lesser extent) in New York. That fall, in one of the rock magazines (Creem? Rock Scene?) I saw an ad for a 45" record by Television, one of the bands I'd been reading about, by all accounts THE band of bands at CBGB.

I sent in my payment and received the record, a long single tune (LITTLE JOHNNY JEWEL) split over two sides, and: I HATED IT. It seemed amateurish, the recording lacking in sonic dynamics, and the song and performance sounding meanderins and washed out. And Verlaine was no great shakes as a vocalist, (which didn't ever really change over time).

But...I kept going back to it and I did become more attentive to its elusive charm. A few months later, Richard Hell and the Void Oids, (Richard Hell having been a friend and co-founder of Television with Tom Verlaine, and a style model for Johnny Rotten, though Rotten will deny that to his death), put out their own E.P. on the same independent label, ORK Records. I bought that and...THAT WAS MORE LIKE IT! Driving, jagged, aggressive, acerbic, and new.

When Television released their debut LP on Elektra a year later, I bought it hoping for improvement, and they delivered in spades! All the potential that was hidden on their indie 45" was manifested in their album.

(Later, I heard a live version of LITTLE JOHNNY JEWEL on a bootleg record of Television in performance, and it was mind-blowing, a guitar tour-de-force by Verlaine. Later still, I saw them live several times when they reunited in the early 90s, after having disbanded in 1978.)

By all accounts, Verlaine was a control freak, but he did have a clear idea of what he wanted to do and he was committed to accomplishing that. R.I.P.

Temujin said...

Damn, I love reading Patti Smith's writing.

Narr said...

Robert Cook writes of "meanderins." Wandering Sages?

I know nothing about the artists in question; even Patti Smith is a bit vague of outline to me . . .

BarrySanders20 said...

I wondered if AA would post on this. Never heard of Verlaine, but the time period and locale made for prime bloggin'.

Thanks Cook, that was a cool addition.

Iman said...

Just my opinion, but East Coast bands - New York, in particular - with a few exceptions, have always been overrated. They can have their New York Dolls, Television, Ramones, Patti Smith, etc.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Writes Patti Smith...

Damn it, I was sure that was ChatGPT when asked to write an overwrought introduction of a character...

Mutaman said...

Verlaine decided to take up the guitar the first time he heard "19th Nervous Breakdown" on the radio.

Laslo Spatula said...

Verlaine got the attention he desired, but is there a better rock foto than this one of his fellow Television guitarist Richard Lloyd?

got a light?

I am Laslo.

Ex-PFC Wintergreen said...

Verlaine was a helluva guitarist, able to conjure an exquisite vocalesque tone out of his Fender guitars while playing beautifully melodic solos, sometimes with just the right touch of dissonance. Of the guitarists who emerged from the mid-late ‘80s NY New Wave scene, he and Robert Quine were probably the best (Quine’s early ‘80s work with Lou Reed was revelatory). I tend more towards blues-based rock, but even a non-adept such as I am saddened at Verlaine’s passing; he was a true artist - as is Patti Smith.

Interested Bystander said...

Iman, yes. East coast with all the media centered in NYC tends to accentuate bands and sports teams that are more local. In my experience growing up in California, Bruce Springsteen was okay but not the god the NYC press made him out to be.

Never heard of Verlaine or Television by the way. By the late 70’s I was out of college, married and trying to build a career. Current music trends wasn’t on my mind.

lonejustice said...

A friend and co-worker in college, who also played guitar in a band called The Dang Trippers, introduced me to Tom Verlaine and Television. Been a fan ever since.

Heartless Aztec said...

Television was an - like souch of the mid 70's punk - an acquired taste best experienced live rather on vinyl. I was unimpressed but that says more about me than them. I was ten years younger than the kids in that first great onrush of punk music and it took me a few years to absorb it. But once I did... Big Love Tractor fan. Hey Robert Cook remember the underground - literally - Milk Bar in downtown Jax?

donald said...

Robert Quine. White Light White Heat on that (Lou Reed) live Album has been stuck in my head for about 35 years. BLAM BLAM BLAM!

Robert Cook said...

"They can have their New York Dolls, Television, Ramones, Patti Smith, etc."

All great!

baghdadbob said...

donald...

How about Robert Quine on Matthew Sweet's song "Girlfriend?"

Lexington Green said...

Patti gotta Patti.

She is nothing if not sincere. Me, I love her. I can see how others may not.

Finding someone who loves the same books that you do is one of the best things that can happen in life. Great story.

RIP Tom Verlaine.

Robert Cook said...

"Hey Robert Cook remember the underground - literally - Milk Bar in downtown Jax?"

Heartless Aztec: I remember hearing of Milk Bar, but I never went there, as I had moved to NYC by 1981, before Milk Bar opened. I was also familiar with the punk club in Jax Beach, Einstein a Go Go, but I never went there. I grew up at the beach and stayed with my folks there when I was in town for visits and I would drive by the place. Einstein a Go Go took up space where a music store had once operated, the store where, in 1974, I bought an electric guitar and took a couple of lessons from the store's proprietor. (I never became particularly adept or creative on guitar, and I eventually gave it up.)

Are you still in Jax?

Jeff Gee said...

Verlaine & Richard Hell were book clerks at Cinemabilia (almost entirely movie books) on 13th Street. (The early seventies was the Golden Age of snotty, overqualified book clerks). One afternoon I was there with another NYU film student, flipping through the used books, and Herb said, hey, weren’t those guys in that shitty band we saw Friday? They were! They were badgering the manager to loan them his car. He was on a stool behind the counter, coughing and sweating and bundled up like it was the depths of winter, although I think it was late spring. “I have NO EVIDENCE either of you know how to DRIVE!” he said. One of them said, “How hard can it be?” and the other one laughed uproariously. We did, too. The manager threw his keys at them and said, “Take it! Take it and be damned!” They asked if they could have some of his codeine. Herb and I decided we had misjudged them and it was a GREAT band.

Robert Cook said...

"Robert Quine. White Light White Heat on that (Lou Reed) live Album has been stuck in my head for about 35 years. BLAM BLAM BLAM!"

I used to see Quine browsing at various record stores in the East Village. Knowing his reputation, (prickly and difficult, like Lou Reed, one reason Quine left/was fired from Reed's band), I never tried to speak to him or tell him of my appreciation of his playing with Richard Hell.

Iman said...

Both Roberts - Christgau and Cook - have their musical tastebuds in their respective derrières.

donald said...

Baghdad. Big Matthew Sweet guy here. That was great.

I went to the Milk Bar to see The Cramps with Dash Riprock about 1994. Alcohol was not allowed so I brought 2 pints of Vodka and so all I remember is it was loud and wild.

donald said...

Might wanna look in a mirror Iman. What with the heads up the asses on music and all.

Mutaman said...

Iman said...

"Both Roberts - Christgau and Cook - have their musical tastebuds in their respective derrières."

When one of the geniuses leaves a comment like this, i always wonder- what kind of music do they like.
Even money says Iman has really bad taste.