Tributes have been pouring in for Tom Verlaine, founding member of the group Television and one of the most influential guitarists of the modern era. Verlaine (birth name Tom Miller) died on Saturday January 28 in Manhattan after a short illness. He was 73.
Verlaine’s death was announced by Jesse Paris Smith, daughter of Patti Smith and Fred Smith (who played with Television). “He died peacefully in New York City, surrounded by close friends,” wrote Smith. “His vision and his imagination will be missed. I met Tom when I was a child, not long after my dad passed away. In him, I felt the energy of a father, a man to hug, to laugh with, to share in mischievous jokes and wild imagination.”
Patti Smith wrote: “This is a time when all seemed possible. Farewell Tom, aloft the Omega.”
Television achieved minor commercial success but major cult status after breaking up after recording only two albums with Verlaine as the band’s singer, songwriter and co-producer.
Born Thomas Joseph Miller on December 13, 1949, in Denville, N.J., Verlaine attended a boarding school in Delaware, studied classical music and eventually moved to New York City where he formed a band, the Neon Boys, with classmate, Richard Meyers (later to be known as Richard Hell). Tom Miller soon renamed himself Tom Verlaine, in tribute to the 19th-century French poet Paul Verlaine. After their friend Billy Ficca joined on drums, they added guitarist Richard Lloyd and renamed the band as Television. (Hell was replaced by Fred Smith in 1975 and he went on to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids, enjoying success with the song and album Blank Generation). Television’s manager Terry Ork persuaded CBGB’s manager Hilly Kristal to give the band a residency where they allegedly built the club’s stage. They developed a strong following and counted David Bowie amongst their fans.
Ork released Television’s debut single and cult classic ‘Little Johnny Jewel (Parts 1 &2)’ on his own label but the band signed with Elektra Records and in 1977 released its first album, Marquee Moon, on February 8, 1977. The band’s second album, Adventure, was released in April 1978. The band broke up in July 1978 due to personality clashes over musical its direction. There was a reunion in 1992 for the self-titled album Television, and there were several tours. Richard Lloyd left the band in 2007 but a version of the line-up with Jimmy Ripp included on guitar toured Australia in 2013.
Tom Verlaine released his eponymous debut solo album in 1979 and went on to release another 8 albums up until 2006. There was also an anthology, The Miller’s Tale, released in 1996.
On the news of his death tributes have been plentiful for the revered guitarist. Former bandmate Richard Lloyd posted: “Thank you everybody, for your kind words and sentiments regarding the death of my partner in music, Tom Verlaine (Miller) of Television. We will all miss him terribly. I however, am fine and am in good health. In fact I go on tour in March and April, in ther Northeast and Canada. We look forward to seeing some of you then.”
Nels Cline: “I am running out of words, though not out of love and respect, or tears…..Tom Verlaine. So crucially important to me, to my music and playing – not just his stunning singular guitar work, not just “Marquee Moon”. It seems that I may have successfully made this known over these many years… This goes beyond music to an aesthetic, a vision, a VIBE. I could write so much — too much. Right now I must just deeply bow to the beauty, to the enigma of Tom Verlaine, a twin no less (like me). Space Monkey’s gone to heaven. Our home planet whirls onward. I want my little winghead! XO”
Cowboy Junkies: “R.I.P. Tom Verlaine 🖤. He was one of the reasons I picked up an electric guitar. His playing was so unique and distinctive and, most importantly, exciting. Let’s spend the day listening to Marquee Moon…our world is better for it. Thank you Tom.”
Steve Wynn of The Dream Syndicate wrote: “He was my guitar hero at a time when I needed one most. I spent the entire year of 1981 practicing daily to Marquee Moon. Tom Verlaine’s soloing (and Richard Lloyd’s as well, of course) showed me you could be a virtuoso and dangerous at the same time, more Coltrane or Ornette than the arena rockers of the day. It was a revelation and I was hoping my Jazzmaster could somehow channel his when I played the solo on “Halloween” on the first Dream Syndicate album. Such an immeasurable influence on me and, of course, on so many of fellow guitarist friends. A huge loss–keep poking at those heavens, Tom Verlaine.”
R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe said, “Bless you Tom Verlaine and thank you for the songs, the lyrics, the voice! And later the laughs, the inspiration, the stories, and the rigorous belief that music and art can alter and change matter, lives, experience. You introduced me to a world that flipped my life upside down. I am forever grateful.”
Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo: Tom Verlaine’s music with Television literally rocked my world and changed my life, granting me the inspiration to ditch art school and give a serious try to making music. My first hearing of Marquee Moon, whilst still in school in Binghamton, was life-changing. Seeing them in the early days confirmed it. Sharp, taut songs but also extended guitar forays with Richard Lloyd that rocked in a more complex way than many of their CBGBs peers, calling up both the free jazz of Tyler, Coltrane, et al and the open extended extrapolations of SF groups like the Grateful Dead. And his fractured, abstracted lyrics held so many mysteries. Later we met and became friends with Tom after he dropped by Sorcerer Sound in SoHo to hang out while we were making the Goo LP. A much-treasured memory is putting together the ‘Million Dollar Bashers’ band, with Tom, Steve Shelley, John Medeski and Tony Garnier to recreate 60s electric-era Dylan music for Todd Hayne’s ‘I’m Not There’ film. In particular, a version of Bob’s song ‘Cold Irons Bound’, which to me captures one of the most enigmatic performances of Tom’s career. It was amazing to play opposite him on this track! We did it slow, extended, I think the original was 12 minutes long. It had been storming outside the studio, and we hung mics out the window and added the thunder to the track. Todd liked it so much he used sections as underscore throughout the film. A tip of the hat, a flick of a guitar pick, then, for one of the truly great ones. RIP Tom Verlaine.”
Sleater-Kinney posted: While there are many guitar players whom we admire, there are very few whose work informed our approach to playing and writing. Tom Verlaine was one of those guitarists. It was not only his serpentine style—jagged yet shimmering, capable of story-like melodies—but also how he played in conversation with his bandmate and fellow guitarist, Richard Lloyd. The intertwining of notes, completing each other’s sentences, toying with consonance and dissonance, beautifully colliding then breaking away; telling us so much without a single word. While Marquee Moon was seminal, Adventure burrowed deeper. I can’t think of a song that informed the entirety of our guitar playing on The Hot Rock than “Days.” Thank you, Tom Verlaine, for guiding us. May you rest in peace. “Days, be more than all we have. “
Producer Steve Albini posted:”Beautifully lyrical guitarist, underrated vocalist. Television made a new kind of music and inspired new kinds of music. Marquee Moon is a perfect record. Requiescat…I can’t imagine grinding through a massive, gelatinous discography trying to find something I might like by the Grateful Dead with Marquee Moon just sitting there ready to go.”
The Waterboys’ Mike Scott: Tom Verlaine…proud to say he once played lead guitar on one of my songs, the most brilliant studio guitar playing I ever heard. 1 listen to master the song, invent an all-time killer riff + design its harmonic comet tail. Played 5 takes, each a monster.
Chris Stein of Talking Heads: I met Tom Verlaine when he just arrived in NYC I guess ’72. He had long hair and came to my apartment with an acoustic guitar and played some songs he’d written. Both Tom and Richard Hell have told me that I auditioned for the Neon Boys but I don’t remember.
Vernon Reid: More 2023 fretted heartbreak 💔. One of the GREAT Punk lead stylists. Tom Verlaine was a True Downtown HERO. Saddened & bummed to hear it.
Jason Isbell: Most nights we walk onstage to Marquee Moon- RIP to Tom Verlaine, the realest deal
Drive By Truckers: Most nights we walk onstage to Marquee Moon- RIP to Tom Verlaine, the realest deal.”
There have also been many tributes from Australian musicians and writers.
Writer Mark Mordue posted: “Like a thousand bluebirds screaming” was how Patti Smith described Tom Verlaine’s guitar playing in the early days. His music, lyrics and image with Television changed my life, as they did a whole generation who tuned into the Marquee Moon album and took poetic inspiration from it to reshape themselves. I continued to follow his solo career and was stunned to see a reformed Television at the Enmore Theatre about a decade ago, better than anything I could have imagined, and at times that magic thing, transport into a dream… Tom Verlaine RIP.”
Former Go-Between Robert Forster posted: “I have woken up to the news of the passing of virtuoso guitarist and singer-songwriter Tom Verlaine. Absorbing that as best as I could, I made my muesli and a strong coffee and sit here typing, a little stunned, not knowing what to write, but knowing what Verlaine meant to me. An elder brother, someone in the mid-to-late Seventies who opened up doors for me. An enormously inspirational figure to Grant and I with his New York band Television. The Go-Betweens, one more band in a swarm of bands to form and bloom in the wake of Verlaine and his fabulous group.
And it’s so poignant, that this Friday, with the release of my new album, I name-check him in a song that collects my thoughts so much better, and more succinctly, than what I can write here. The song is called ‘When I Was A Young Man’. The verse goes – ‘Elder brothers, they came along/ There was a new David and there was Tom/ They bewitched me in wardrobe and song/ When I was a young man.’
The ‘new David’ is David Byrne, and Tom’ is of course Verlaine. They were my twin peaks. Showing me how to dress and behave as a nervy twenty-one year old, trying to act and look as intense and interesting and poetic as I could. (Check any photo of me from 1978 to 1987 for evidence)
Musically, I couldn’t really compete with either of them. They were incredably strong influences I had to shake off (a little) to get to anything original I could do. But thinking of Verlaine’s guitar playing this morning – and that’s what really hit me- was the influence of his tone in Seventies Rock. He ended or at least challenged the heavy bluesy thrust of Page/Clapton/Richards. Verlaine’s guitar was loaded but sweet. It sang and soared. It was lyrical. it possesses enormous beauty. It hinted at jazz. It was ethereal and other worldly. And for someone like me, who was not a follower of guitar players and their lengthy solos, here was a guitar player for my age. And you just have to listen to the shape of guitar bands of the Eighties and beyond to hear the legacy of his playing. No disrespect to Clapton. but who sounds like him these days? Verlaine’s soaring melodic tone and flurry of notes are everywhere. I am not meaning Rock is a competition – just that Verlaine is very present and always will be.”
Singer-Songwriter Rob Snarski posted: “Sad. I should’ve listened to John, I didn’t see Television when they passed through Melbourne, I worked. Regret. My brother Mark and I wanted to play guitar like Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd ~ that fine, obtuse guitar interplay, we never quite got there in early Chad’s Tree …or later. My cousin bought me this red vinyl copy of Adventure from the UK decades ago, I fear someone may have nicked my copy of Marquee Moon. Damn. Thanks Tom. I get your point, you’re so sharp …”