What makes up Television?

L to R: Billy Ficca, Richard Lloyd, Tom Verlaine, Fred Smith.

What is in Television? It’s not necessarily a plethora of layers, no shoegazing electric wall of sound. It’s not minimalism either, not Steve Reichian or Philip Glassesque or Terry Rileyical. In comparison to some other bands obviously directly influenced by the repeating and alternating single note patterns of minimalism, it’s not quite that approach. At the most, there is occasionally overdubbing for three guitars throughout Television’s two albums, but never more and usually only two and a bass, and the third guitar is either playing a double lead or straight chords every first beat of a measure. More to the point, the structure is often like a pop song, save for a long solo in there; there is none of the pulsing of Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, no slow, subtle expanding on a theme like Philip Glass does. What Television creates, for lack of a better word, is a tapestry – a rarely achieved ability to create an ocean of sound with few instruments. Well, “ocean” makes it sound elegant and lush, which often times it is, yet it’s also very garagey – Tom Verlaine sights the Ventures, an instrumental surf guitar band of the early 60s, as one of the primary influences on his guitar style. And, indeed, one of the things that mark Verlaine particularly, and what set him apart from his peers at the time, is that he is almost completely free of the blues, hardly ever touches the minor pentatonic scale. It’s like what rock’n’roll jams would sound like if B.B. King or Robert Johnson had never been born. And even when Television is “lush,” it’s an almost metallic kind of lush, a guitar lush, straight out of an American garage.

Marquee Moon (and it’s very underrated sibling, Adventure) are incomparable – and I’m not just saying that because it’s my favorite album, like, ever ever ever, and probably always will be. I’m saying it’s incomparable because there’s nothing like it. There are bands that use intricate riffs, non-blues solos, subtle layering, etc., etc., etc. But nothing at all sounds like Television, which can not be said for even some of the greatest bands of all time. Perhaps what’s more impressive is that nothing after it has sounded close to it, either. Even Verlaine’s solo work lost a lot of its Television edge. Nothing sounded like the Velvet Underground or the Ramones or My Bloody Valentine when they started their respective revolutions - but now, 20, 30, 40 after the fact, imitation bands are a dime a dozen. But nobody seems to be even really trying to replicate Television, let alone trying to and failing. Is it that hard to emulate, or is their influence not actually as large as their acclaim? Probably both. And I couldn’t care less, because I have the real thing, and I could listen to that every day until I die.