(New York) Tom Verlaine, guitarist and co-founder of the protopunk band Television who influenced many bands while playing at the CBGB concert hall in Manhattan alongside the Ramones, Patti Smith and the Talking Heads , is dead. He was 73 years old.
He died Saturday in New York, surrounded by close friends after a brief illness, said Cara Hutchison of the Lede Company, a public relations firm.
“Tom Verlaine has passed into the beyond that his guitar playing has always hinted at. He was the greatest rock and roll guitarist of all time, and like Hendrix, he could dance from spheres of the cosmos to garage rock. It takes on a particular grandeur, ”wrote on Twitter Mike Scott of the Waterboys.
Although Television never enjoyed much commercial success, Tom Verlaine’s inventive and jagged playing in this two-guitar band influenced many musicians. Television released their groundbreaking debut album Marquee Moon in 1977 — including the nearly 11-minute eponymous song and Elevation — and the second, Adventureone year later.
” Marquee Moon became something of a holy grail of indie rock in the years that followed. It had a clear influence on artists such as Pavement, Sonic Youth, the Strokes and Jeff Buckley,” the magazine wrote. Billboard in 2003.
Growing tension between Tom Verlaine and fellow guitarist Richard Lloyd led Television to disband after their second album Adventure. The band reunited for a self-titled 1992 album for Capitol Records and sporadic live appearances.
“We wanted to strip everything down more, away from the showbiz theatrics of glitzy bands, and away from blues and boogie,” Television co-founder Richard Hell wrote in his autobiography. “I dreamed that I was a very clean tramp.[…]We wanted to be austere and tough and torn, like the world was. »
Tom Verlaine has released eight solo albums, his biggest commercial success being his second, in 1981, dream timewhich peaked at the 177e spot on the Billboard album chart. He frequently served as an accompanist to his former lover Patti Smith.
Online tributes included those from Susanna Hoffs and Billy Idol, who said Tom Verlaine made music that influenced the American and British punk scene. Patti Smith shared a tribute on Instagram, posting a photo of the two of them together.
He was born Tom Miller — later taking the surname of the 19th century French poete century Paul Verlaine after meeting Richard Hell, born Meyers, in a school in Delaware. They were tall, skinny, sardonic kids who dropped out of college and headed to the East Village, where they worked in bookstores and wrote poetry together.
“He was known for his edgy lyricism and sharp lyrical sides, his sly wit and his ability to shake every string to his truest emotion,” a statement from his agent said. His vision and imagination will be missed. »