OPO: Tom Verlaine Solo

Doesn't he resemble Patti Smith now?

Tom Verlaine and Patti Smith....yesterday:

http://www.bookmice.net/darkchilde/dark/skeksis2.jpg

Close second - Without A Word from Dreamtime.

Oh no.people on Twitter are saying he's dead

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/tom-verlaines-television-massive-book-collection-being-sold-at-nyc-garage-sales/

Huge sale of Verlaine’s book collection

biked by and the line was a block long, no thanks. will try again tomorrow.

I also will be trying again tomorrow.

is there a database of the 50000 books anywhere?

I don’t see one. 2 smallish book stores are doing this , don’t Se posted lists on their websites

Would love to see one. Might turn me onto even more stuff I NEED to read.
Would be interested in hearing a breakdown of his reading tastes too.

Okay so these books were not his personal home library - they were two storage units of overflow books.
There was a lot of: new age, religion & spirituality, chinese studies, books about music & film, weird art books. I did not see tons of fiction or poetry, but it was scattered around.

Rob Sheffield bought his guitar magazines which still had his address labels. (He also used his real name for the subscription.)

Picture Tom Verlaine earnestly sitting down with his latest issue to learn the tablature to "You Give Love a Bad Name".

So if this is overflow did he have even more at home. Was he going through these at all ever for further reading or is this his past reading.

I listened to a podcast last year talking about Stalin having a habit of reading 500 pages a day. Sounds difficult to maintain but not sure how fast people read. Does sound propagandistic though.

he was a collector. i'm guessing most of these were in storage, browsed through but unread.

he was effectively curating a collection for his fans, though he never would have thought about it like that.

Someone on the Tom Verlaine Facebook group said one of the books was Investigating, Diagnosing and Treating Your Damp Basement

One for the hardcore fans

it'll turn up as a bandname soon.

This was another

https://i.imgur.com/SRRNiDh.jpg

going to be some really abstract band names happening

hey, there's yeti #12, right under classical indian dance in literature and the arts.

This is sweet

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/march/at-the-tom-verlaine-book-sale

Yes indeed, thanks!

this is coming out on record store day — first four solo albums. will probably be expen$ive.

https://img.broadtime.com/Photo/418467268061:360

bullmoose lists it at $99.97. not absurd for four lps.

From that great article "At the Tom Verlaine Book sale"-

You can still buy Verlaine’s books from Better Read than Dead and Capitol Hill’s websites. His record collection will go on sale, one of these days, at the Academy Record annexes in Greenpoint and the East Village.

What about his tube amps though

Lol

Thanks for linking that article. Very good. I don’t have much of a way of knowing about pieces like this without ye good ilxors

Likewise! thanks for that.

Real Gone Music has started reissuing solo albs, starting w Warm and Cool---hadn't heard of this latest; is it good?:

First up is the next in our series of reissues from the Tom Verlaine estate! 2006’s Around picked up the lofty mantle of the Warm and Cool album that was released 14 years prior with another set of utterly mesmerizing instrumentals, ranging from solo, almost raga-esque explorations (“Flame”) to post-rock vamps (“Balcony”) to abstract sketches (“A Burned Letter”) to the kind of indescribable, utterly gorgeous beauty that only this man and his guitar could pull off (“Eighty-Eights”). That’s old Television band-mate Billy Ficca on drums; bassist and original engineer Patrick Derivaz’s new mastering for vinyl will make this record sing and breathe along with you (and vice versa). Tom’s long-time partner, artist Jutta Koether, again pens inspired, heartfelt notes in the enclosed insert. Sunglasses brown pressing for this album’s vinyl debut…pair it with a test pressing (limited to 30 copies) for an ultra-collectible bundle!

gawd I wish these fuckin dinosaur labels would use Bandcamp for legacy artists

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0jyOuhsCGY

I never listened to the 2006 Around before. Nice enough but not sure I want to spend $70 some dollars for that new vinyl reissue Dow linked to

$70!? Didn't check the price, sorry.

it's 70 bucks for the test pressing.

or the bundle or whatever. 23 for the pink vinyl

Oh...

Call me a cheapskate, but not sure I want to even spend $23 for this

man i forgot about those thrill jockey albums. they were decent! heard them a lot in the store when i worked at tower, so never picked up copies of my own. i preferred the jammy instrumentals. didn't realize they had gone oop, surprised at that considering it's thrill jockey.

(to discogs!)

aha - thrill jockey only issued cds! second hand copies easily found, tho prices range pretty far.

They're not my favorite Verlaine albums (and I haven't revisited them in a very long time) but I did enjoy those three final studio albums. His first five are really the ones I listen to outside of Television.

The last of the final three via Real Gone---as with Around, I haven't heard this---what does it sound like? (I still dig my Ryko Warm and Cool.)

...You probably have your own list, but to us, standing toe-to-toe (or pick-to-pick) with those legends is Television guitarist and solo artist Tom Verlaine. His self-taught, jazz-influenced style, largely devoid of effects, and vibrato tone (oh, that tone!) makes any Verlaine solo unmistakably a Verlaine solo. That he was quite an accomplished, idiosyncratic songwriter is just a bonus. Real Gone Music is very, very proud to announce that we have arranged with the Verlaine estate to release Tom’s last three solo albums on LP; Songs and Other Things was the last record he released, in the same year as the all-instrumental Around. As the title indicates, this was indeed a return to lyrics and vocals, the first record with “songs” since 1990’s The Wonder (although the first song, “A Parade in Littleton”—one of the “Other Things”—is a low-key, funky instrumental that would have been home on a late Talking Heads album). The time off clearly allowed Verlaine to build up a strong cache of compositions, with “Nice Actress” and “The Earth Is in the Sky” among the highlights. The record also marks a welcome return of Verlaine’s enigmatic lyrics, which as always prompt head scratching while somehow making intuitive sense. But in the end, it’s the amazing guitar work—ably supported by Fred Smith of Television fame and Jay Dee Daugherty of The Patti Smith Group among others—that elevates Songs and Other Things to essential status, worthy of its exalted position as the final release of Tom Verlaine’s career. Bassist and original engineer Patrick Derivaz has mastered the album for its vinyl debut; Verlaine’s long-time partner Jutta Koether contributes notes. Teal vinyl pressing!

SIDE ONE
1. A Parade in Littleton
2. Heavenly Charm
3. Orbit
4. Blue Light
5. From Her Finger
6. Nice Actress
7. A Stroll
8. The Earth Is the Sky

SIDE TWO
1. Lovebird Asylum Seeker
2. Documentary
3. Shingaling
4. All Weirded Out
5. The Day on You
6. Peace Piece

more info:
https://realgonemusic.com/products/tom-verlaine-songs-and-other-things-lp?rs_oid_rd=346754184706773

SaOT is really great, it’s a little too long (I’d cut three or four tracks) but in terms of great song count it’s his third best record imo (1/flashlight 2/Tom Verlaine). His lyrics were in peak form, that lovestruck neo-noir poetry thing. Also these songs were amazing live.

1. Flashlight
2. S/t
3. Songs and other things
4. Dreamtime
5. The Millers Tale

Five ugly bugs crawl across your table
(oh those rascals)

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/tom-verlaines-vinyl-collection-to-be-sold-through-discogs-nycs-academy-records/

You may remember that late Television frontman Tom Verlaine‘s book collection was sold off a few years ago and now the same is happening with his record collection. Starting Friday, June 26 you’ll be able to buy items from this 4000-LP collection via Discogs and NYC’s Academy Records.

imagine being able to physically browse through that, what a treat

Of course, every album will go for a fair bundle due to the inclusion of a "This album comes from Tom Verlaine's personal record collection" slip

Yesterday I was going through the John Peel wiki site and saw a log of Television/Verlaine plays. He'd played "Yonki Time" off his first solo record then said "OK that wasn't the track I was going to play, sorry about that, that was terrible!"

Coincidentally I see there’s an auction ending today for other old school punk stuff including items from NY Photographer Roberta Bayley who ended up with a Johnny Thunders shirt that he wore when he and the Heartbreakers wore matching shirts that included fake gunshot wounds done with chocolate syrup she said for the b & w photo she took.

https://www.joopiter.com/auctions/punk50-still-making-noise?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio

I want his banged-up copy of Taylor Dayne's Can't Fight Fate!

<3

Tom shows up recently, also a Hell, as this taper archive page keeps adding stuff: https://archive.org/details/LazArchives

Tom shows posted recently, not Tom himself showing up (alas)

TOM VERLAINE: Live in NYC 1996-2006
(Limited 2-LP Sea Blue Vinyl Edition) for record store day
No guitarist sounds like the late, great Tom Verlaine. His career-long pursuit of the perfect, effect-free guitar tone set him apart from his peers right off the bat; combine that with his vaunted vibrato technique, self-taught, free jazz-influenced sensibility, and the slow burn and build architecture of his solos, and there really is no mistaking his fretwork for anybody else’s. Verlaine’s singular instrumental and songwriting prowess certainly came through on his studio recordings, both with Television and solo. But it was in live settings that his improvisational genius really shined. Fortunately for us, it turns out, as one might expect from an artist whose interests ranged widely from literature and modern art to music, that Tom was something of a collector. Therefore, we at Real Gone Music are truly thrilled to present the first of what we hope will be a series of release from his extensive archives: a double-LP collection of COMPLETELY UNRELEASED live performances drawn from four different New York shows spanning the years of 1996 to 2006. Along the way you’ll hear songs taken from his solo albums ranging from his first self-titled release to The Wonder, Flash Light, Words from the Front, Around, and Songs and Other Things, plus three songs new to his discography. Compiled and mastered by Verlaine’s long-time engineer and band-mate Patrick Derivaz, with artwork contributions by his partner, the artist Jutta Koether, and liner notes by Derivaz, Koether, David Fricke, Jimmy Rip, David Licht, and Tony Shanahan, Live NYC 96-06 is a key contribution to the Tom Verlaine catalog and an absolute must for his fans and guitar heads alike. Limited to 3000 copies on double blue vinyl!

Side 1
1. Stalingrad
2. Kaleidoscopin’
3. All Weirded Out

Side 2
1. Soul Freedom 2000
2. Over You
3. Birdy

Side 3
1. Words from the Front
2. One Time at Sundown
3. Heavenly Charm
4. Meteor Beach

Side 4
1. Souvenir from a Dream
2. Clear It Away
3. Orbit
4. Earth Is the Sky

I just bought his Ratt CD

"Always". It's a fucking gem.

Yes, "Always", but if not "Always", then "August" from The Wonder. I must have listened to both of these songs 100 times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rx03SpAh_U

Winner of the What-The-Hell-Are-These-Chord-Changes award by shifting from Dmin in the verse to G#min in the chorus.

the person who ysi's me that live double LP will have their name permanently engraved on my couch as a benefactor

looks cool — I'm assuming the 1996 stuff is from the Tramps show that has made the rounds. very unique show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ennJqGe7ybs

xpost Hear Hear!

Fuckin' RSD. Can we just have it be all about the collectors who want 6 different copies of a Taylor Swift 7" or old dudes who want the 15th color variation of Appetite for Destruction for it's EXTRA SPECIAL 39th ANNIVERSARY ROCKIN' EDITION?

Seeing lots of very cool unreleased, archival stuff being released only for RSD and it's annoying. This and a 1969 Miles Davis set...

The 2006 show at Bowery was stupendously good, I assume some of this is from that (well there were two shows, i was only at one)

RSD is definitely annoying, but I've found that most of the stuff is easy enough to find on ebay after the fact (and usually not for outrageous prices)

there's also the problem of me not having a turntable. I know i know...

Actually I feel a little better since I saw on the official RSD list that this Verlaine one is noted as "RSD First", so it should get a wider release later.

Wishing the Miles one was "First", but it's an exclusive.

oh nice catch, that's heartening

The Black Friday just annoys me more because I'm almost always travelling and in a place where there isn't a record store around for hours, even if I did feel motivated enough to stand in line.

I would expect you'll be able to roll in the day after and find this in stock

Tom does two songs live on the The Tube in '87. Starts about an hour in. This archive of uncut The Tube episodes is amazing.
https://archive.org/details/the.-tube.-1987.-s-05-e-14.uncut

Ah, I remember that one well.

Love and Money backing him, yeah?

.. link doesn't work.

I was at the tramps show in '96, the first time I ever saw him… it was with Ripp, Smith and Daugherty. They clammed the fuck out of Marquee Moon… Tom actually said "ahhhh shit" in frustration with how bad it was.

I have a copy of the Miller's Tale, which that show kinda was promoting.