Anyone own any Tom Verlaine solo albums?

I think its all a matter of how much you get off on Verlaine's voice. There's a few tracks on the debut I dig and nothing grabbed from later albums I heard. I need to explore further but Television itself has never been my personal motherlode.

But I'd take solo Verlaine over the reunited Television.

Postcard from Waterloo? Is that what you mean? That's on Words from the Front. Great song.

"Did it work?" "Uh, NO."

Hey, anyone like Bowie's cover of "Kingdom Come"? It's both the best sung and worst sung tune of his career.

The only one I currently own is Cover, and the dated production makes it pretty much unlistenable. Even though I haven't heard it in aboot 10 years, I thought Warm and Cool was alright. It's all instrumentals if I recall, so that might help people get past the hatred of his vocals.

I'll step in here with another endorsement for Verlaine bootlegs. For a while now, Verlaine and Jimmy Ripp have been doing some mostly instrumental sets here and there, sometimes as accompaniment to old avant garde silent films, sometimes not. There are some fine recordings of some of these shows floating around--some really beautiful, ahem, "soundscapes" (kind of hate that word, but it fits here). Some surprisingly playful, melodic playing, as well as some darker, noisier stuff.

There were rumbling about a disc of this kind of stuff coming out officially (on smells like records i think?) a few years back but I guess that all came to naught. Veraline seems like he has little interest in maintaining much of a career these days.

Check the 12" "Funniest Thing" with the "Marquee Moon live" b-side. The first place the proper 'ending' was released.

Dr C totally OTM re side 2 of the s/t album. been playing it on repeat endlessly for the last few days. brilliant stuff.

was also curious about the vocalist 'Deerfrance' from Red Leaves. seems she sang for John Cale who then wrote a song for her. sounds a lot like Stevie Nicks.
http://www.mooncaravan.com/dflisten.html

Cover IS gorgeous.

"A Miller's Tale" is just about everything most people would need from Tom, barring a handful of stray tracks. Very well chosen best-of paired with a killer live set.

No "A Town Called Walker," "Funniest Thing," or "Postcard From Waterloo" though.

I added "A Town Called Walker" to my iPod and there's a live version of "Postcard From Waterloo" included.

six years (!) after i posted on this thread raving about tom verlaine solo bootlegs ... here's a pretty fucking fantastic comp of live performances stretching from 1981-2001. recommended.
http://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/8834986475/pull-down-the-future-covering-two-decades-of-live

I like all the first four solo albums. But most of all, A Miller's Tale is totally worth getting just for the live disc, one of the best sounding live performances I've heard. Can't imagine any bootlegs touching this.

Just like guys from Pere Ubu/Dead Boys reunited for a tour and album as Rocket From The Tombs, I fantasize about Verlaine, Richard Hell, Lloyd, etc. getting together for at least a tour to play early Television material.

"Weirded Out" on his last album was crazy good, exactly what you'd expect from the title.

I love the song 16 Tulips. Not sure what lp it's on since I had it on the b-side of a 12". It is on the Miller's Tale though.

16 Tulips was slated for the first, "lost" version of what became Flash Light. A wise fella would dig around in Tyler's archives and might just find a lil' somethin...

Tyler, thanks 10 million for this 2CD Live comp! When I saw your post I figured it was going to be the same 'Live Various Years' 2CD which I got off a TV superfan about 5 years ago... but it's not!

By the way, 'Persia' is one of the new Television songs which they started playing live in the late 90s. Word is, they have finally laid down 10 tracks in the studio for the new album. Lloyd left in 2008 for good, so this is gonna be Verlaine/Ripp/Smith/Ficca. Using the name 'Television' for it will rankle many... maybe they should call it 'TV' or something... but fuck it, bring the thing on!

I wanna go on record saying Flash Light simply overwhelms any quibbles about its drum sound and 'of-the-time' production by dint of sheer magic. IMO it's the 3rd best record Verlaine was ever involved with (yeah, I place it ahead of the solo debut by a hair, and ahead of the 3rd Tele album by 1.5 hairs) and, strictly in terms of lyric-writing, Flash Light is second only to Marquee Moon.

Also the live version of "Days On The Mountain" on the Miller's Tale obsoletes the studio version for all time. I actually think Words From The Front is a weak record except for the title track which features perhaps my all-time favorite guitar solo.

yeah, i've heard rumblings about a new television record sans lloyd. which is weird, but what the hell. they definitely have an album's worth of material they've been playing live for the last decade or so. and "persia" is awesome, just a really dark, eastern-y groove, with verlaine playing slide (i think).

and jon, if you love that solo on words from the front, you're going to love the live version on that comp. intense! really some amazing playing throughout.

Cover is a weird sound pallette but has some super essential stuff on it. It's kind of like he did a whole album in the vein of the weird live arrangements of Days on the Mountain

Extended 5 Miles of You slays

who reissued it?

Wounded Bird Records. It also fixes the cold ending of "Five Miles Of You" found on the original CD, restoring the proper fade.

ah good, i would expect that at a minimum! The Miller's Tale was well worth it for a lot of reasons, but one was getting the unfucked version of 5MoY.

RIP Tom

"At 4 a.m." off Flash Light is awesome and hilarious. Sounds like Verlaine doing his best Stones imitation and it works for me.

Man I love that song

"A Town Called Walker" and "The Funniest Thing" are the best Flashlight tracks; the latter's gotten stuck in my head since he died.

Richard Hell posted this:

Tom (13 Dec 1949-28 Jan 2023).

This is the song of his I love, as available at a Japanese "2nd hand record store" called Sweet Nuthin'. Use headphones or earbuds rather than streaming through computer or phone speakers though, please.

It's called "The Scientist Writes a Letter" and it's on Flash Light (1987).

I can't write about him yet; too soon.

--Richard

https://www.richardhell.com/

All the trax on Flash Light are “best tracks”

will definitely be interesting to get Richard Hell's thoughts whenever he's ready ...

All the trax on Flash Light are “best tracks”

"Bomb" is not very good. I'm especially fond of the ballads "Song" and "One Time at Sundown".

Also, “Pillow” on “The Wonder” is a jewel.

will definitely be interesting to get Richard Hell's thoughts whenever he's ready ...

Was the man in thrall to INXS or Prince when he made The Wonder? "Shimmer" is pure pastiche.

Been listening to 'Around' and 'Warm and Cool', on youtube, both absolutely great. Wonder if they'll get reissued.

There's an excellent fan-made compilation on Slsk called "The Night Is Brief (1991-2011)" that has 11 tracks culled from various sources. A nice final statement, ILXmail me for a copy if you can't find it:

The 62
Fever
The Hawk
Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho
Cold Irons Bound
Leaves
Plant Jam
Spiritual (with the Kronos Quartet)
Mistakes (with Television)
Only
Meadow

Never knew Tom Verlaine had a solo career. Listening now. Cover is really quite good. Sounds dancy, New Wavy, Cure-ish, all in a good way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF45FirgZFo

Wow, thanks Tyler!

what is the TV record with ... the least amount of reverb on the drums?

The original mix of his eponymous album - it was accidentally released on the very first pressing of the Collector's Choice Music CD reissue. This was corrected on a re-press, and IIRC the rare first pressing was only shipped (accidentally) for pre-orders that were made directly with Collector's Choice.

I should say I *think* it has the least amount of reverb of any Verlaine album. I haven't compared it to the others, but the mix Bob Clearmountain made for the same album after Elektra rejected Verlaine's original mix definitely had more reverb.

How can you tell which CD is which mix? Discogs entry is vague.

The artwork wasn't changed, so you actually need to look at the pressing or mould code displayed near the hub of the disc itself, which kind of makes it a pain.

I don't hear Verlaine as beholden to a lot of reverb on the drums, but he obviously liked a snare sound that snapped.

Hey Tyler, a while back you posted a previously uncirculated soundboard recording from 1981, and track 8 was listed as "unknown." I believe that's "Shemp," which was played at other shows - here's an example from 1982 where it was introduced as a new song:

https://soundcloud.com/tom-verlaine-1982-nyc/03-shemp

"Like many NYC booksellers, we knew Tom from the dollar carts at the Strand — always courteous, friendly, and fastidious in his ritual book hunting. His taste and scope were all his own, and he would gladly hand over titles he thought others could use, just as he would graciously accept finds that other eyes scouted for him. In hopefully the same collegial spirit, it is our distinct pleasure to announce the first of many waves of his massive (50,000) book collection being redispersed to the readers and dealers of his city at our monthly garage sale this weekend — and to accommodate the sheer volume, we have doubled our hours, staffing, and space for the occasion — teaming up on the whole affair with @capitolhillbooks and renting our neighboring garage at 541 Greene as an additional sale space for this weekend only. Prices will be LOW and discounts HEAVY for those looking to wheel away books by the box. There will be much more of this collection to follow, and hopefully Tom’s books will populate many of our fellow bookstore’s shelves as well as ours soon — stay tuned for more announcements and events as we whittle away at this mountainous collection."

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/tom-verlaines-television-massive-book-collection-being-sold-at-nyc-garage-sales/?fbclid=IwAR3olOunPq64L-5qB7HUD0OQZ24PlWfpqhCVZhF0Qul4nmfla_oAzq7JDGI

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/arts/music/tom-verlaine-television-archives.html

Nice!

Wonder what they are doing with the 72 amps?

Thx loved that

very cool, hopefully some of the unreleased stuff will be put out properly... a television rarities set seems like a no brainer.

I understand artists desire not to release unfinished work but I still shuddered when they said they destroyed most of the tapes.

Granted, the tapes themselves you own them. But the magic on those tapes?

so TV's final album is withheld from the archive but not destroyed? what is its status exactly?

The in-progress fourth Television album? I think Verlaine never recorded vocals.

i'd heard that too. i'd still love to hear it.

Some notable items found by Koether and Derivaz are not being transferred to the library, like recordings from Television’s unfinished fourth album from around 2007 — Verlaine was not satisfied, and eventually lost interest in the project.

main thing I'm hoping to hear are the 1976 demos Television recorded for Arista (produced by Allen Lanier of BÖC!). Never been bootlegged afaik.

While I understand that this is consistent with how Verlaine was, it was still sad to read this -

Koether said she first noticed signs of frailty around 2019. Although she and Verlaine lived in separate apartments in the same building in Chelsea, Koether was working in Germany early in the Covid-19 pandemic, when he complained of an unspecified illness. When she saw him again in summer 2021, he was “like a skeleton,” Koether said, and he grew too weak to play. He avoided doctors.

“He was in terrible pain and total denial,” Koether recalled.

So, Verlaine had family money, yes? Publishing or whatever couldn't have sustained him all those years.

Discussed somewhere (possibly in this thread) but he may have received large advances in the 80s which funded an apartment purchase. These were the days when labels were hurling money around like confetti so it's an entirely possible scenario.

Did he release any albums of instrumentals other than Warm & Cool? I liked that one.

If so, how are they?

Around is instrumental and in the same vein as Warm and Cool. I like it!

https://www.discogs.com/master/173079-Tom-Verlaine-Around?srsltid=AfmBOoqXIntkvHzb_0GiNcA-kWBZZ8aLLLT0_h_x9snRw0WW6-g4D_VQ

Verlaine probably netted some decent paydays off Bowie's cover of "Kingdom Come" on Scary Monsters.

Yes, that would have earned quite a bit.

Pretty sure he owned that place in Chelsea outright, a smart move taking care of that when he was younger. Those apartments are worth close to a million bucks now.

richard hell also bought his apartment back then. those tv guys were on the ball.

One of the guys involved in this is Kevin Parks, curator of the Music and Recorded Sound Division at the Library for the Performing Arts. I talked to him very briefly over the summer at Lincoln Centrer on Library Day about the recent acquisition of the Wayne Shorter collection. Later on I looked him up and saw that he was a composer in his own right and had previously been a music professor.

Does anyone have a gift link for the nyt piece?

just add the link to archive.ph