TITLE: "Always"
ARTIST: Tom Verlaine
ALBUM: Dreamtime
RELEASE DATE: 1981
Been a little while since I've added to the `Playlist (for background on same, click right here), so figured now's as good a time as any.
I was never an especially huge fan of the band, Television. Yes, I'm aware they pre-dated the Ramones in the stakes to put CBGB's on the map as New York City Punk Rock's proverbial Ground Zero, but I never really thought of them in the same light, especially after Richard Hell left the fold to go form the compartively much punkier Voidoids and Heartbreakers (go sit on it, Tom Petty!). I enjoyed Television's music, but they always sort've struck me more as a frustrated "Art Rock" quartet who happened to dress like destitute junkies as opposed to Punks (even before the genre was saddled with the cartoony leather-clad, spikey-haired stereotype). By the same token, I never heard what so great about Patti Smith either, but at least Television made cool, interesting music (unlike dear ol' Patti, whose self-indulgent caterwauling can still give me a migraine). I dutifully picked up a copy of Television's much-feted debut album, Marquee Moon, sometime in my later years of high school, but never gave it a great deal of consideration. (* see footnote below)
During my freshman year of college, I ended up befriending a senior in my dorm by the name of Warwick (pronounced Warrick), who hosted a late night shift on the college's radio station, WDUB, 91.1 FM. In very short order, Warwick ended up coming by my room hours before his show to borrow various records to unsolicitedly play at a listening audience more interested in the yawnsome likes of Little Feat, the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers rather than the less user-friendly likes of the Damned, Naked Raygun and Black Flag. In turn, Warwick had a penchant for playing completely left field stuff that I'd never heard of before like "Power in the Darkness" by the Tom Robinson Band, "Backwater" by Brian Eno, "Searching for Heaven" by Pauline Murray & the Invisible Girls and, most importantly, "Roadrunner" by the Modern Lovers (Warwick owned a rare copy of the band's original debut album from the mid-70's). We quickly made a habit of raiding each other's record collections.
One oddball record Warwick played one night on-air was "Always" by ex-Television singer/guitarist, Tom Verlaine. He spun it in the middle of his shift without having the courtesy to inform his largely disinterested listening audience who it was. I was instantly intrigued. It sounded like Television, but it sounded more fleshed-out and with a bit more bite. Hung around a succesion of staccato guitar fragments and an insistent bass pulse that don't quite fit together, "Always" is a jerkily propulsive love song that finds our Tom whining (semi-inaudibly) to some jaded, coolster New York City girl, evidently impervious to his gormless advances. You can feel Tom's seething impatience in the verses, punctuated by the sharp jabs at his guitar, but when he lapses into the chorus (augmented by some well-placed, ascending piano keys), he can't keep it bottled up any more. "Darlin...", he pleads, "the mysteries come and go, but love remains the best kept secret in town! Think it over!" Verlaine then seals the deal with a signature solo that only a man well-versed in the travails of unrequited love could play. It's genius.
It was also a bitch to find. While I'd taped it off of Warwick's copy of Tom's solo debut album, Dreamtime, the record itself was apparently long out of print. A few years later, upon the era of the compact disc, I managed to track down a pricey Japanese import of Dreamtime. As fate would have it, Henry Rollins' well-intentioned but sadly unsuccessful label, Infinite Zero, re-released Dreamtime in the mid-90's, appended with an alternate version of "Always," which -- of couse -- means I had to re-buy it.
Verlaine went onto make a few more solo records (he's just released a new one, actually, along with an all-instrumental record) and even reformed Television ("Call Mr. Lee" off their `93 eponymous reunion album is the stuff of genius), but nothing ever touched the greatness of "Always."
TRIVIAL FOOTNOTE: When I moved downtown in 1996, I was somewhat shocked to see Tom Verlaine hanging out at my local coffee shop (The News Bar) and perusing the outdoor racks at the Strand Bookstore on a regular basis. After seeing him eight or nine times, I decided to approach him to tell him what a fan I was of his music. He was almost gracious, but obvioulsy would've preferred that I fuck right off. Once a Punk, always a Punk, I guess.
ADDENDUM: I was just re-reading this morning, and it looks like I'm knocking Marquee Moon. I'd like to point that while I initially bought it somewhat out of obligation in high school (after reading of its seismic significance to the gestation of Punk Rock), it didn't really mow my lawn. It wasn't until I started listening to it on the strength of its own merits (as opposed to trying to de-code it) that I finally gleaned why it's so rightly praised. It also remains my favorite album to walk around rain-slicked East Village streets by. Go fetch it at once!
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