Live Review: Television, Ed Kuepper

If anything, Lou Reed's death a couple of days earlier put Television's place in the scheme of New York music even more in context. Although Tom Verlaine did himself no favours if intending to take over Reed's 'most curmudgeonly chap in rock' title with one of his few quiet asides opening with “Hey, nice town you got…”.
For, as Television's music stretched and spiralled, you could hear their 1977 take on The Velvet Underground's opiated spaces, cut with a nervous amphetamine jitter that's since well served the likes of The Strokes, while characters like Little Johnny Jewel are certainly only a couple of blocks down from where Lou was “standing on a corner, suitcase in his hand”.

Working from his own context, the solo Ed Kuepper went from “a song from my first solo record” (Electrical Storm) to “one from my last album with my very first band” (a churning Swing For The Crime from The Saints back catalogue), then via Laughing Clowns' Collapse Board and the epically intimate The Way I Made You Feel.
But from their maybe overlong opening tuning and noodling noise, Television make music that's both of a time and timeless. And it's not just the celebrated intertwining guitars – bassist Fred Smith builds the maypole for Verlaine and much discussed Richard Lloyd replacement, spindly Tom Waits lookalike Jimmy Rip – oh, you kids and your 'punk rock' names… – to arc and dive around each other. Rip is obviously a good study; he's got Lloyd's lines and pure tone just right, along with the psychic sense to know where Verlaine is going in a song. Then you also watch drummer Billy Ficca – one moment martial syncopation, then clattering his sticks around the outside of the kit as the melodies get thrown down the stairs.

You're engrossed with the art and grime they conjure, then get transfixed by that so identifiable intro to Marquee Moon – which turns over on itself, then breathes, then rages, then seeps away. It's a near magical thing, and proves Television – unlike many of their contemporaries and descendants – don't much harm their legacy or reputation.