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With the A&M Records local promotion team running at full throttle and plenty of rumours about nudity, bondage and drugs the very staid Toronto community was on guard. When the San Francisco/Phoenix band first rolled in to Massey Hall in the fall of 1975 no one knew what to expect but we knew it was going to be memorable. At least we had whole sides to listen to as opposed to the single songs we listen to today.

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Looking back it is interesting that so many of my favourite records had favourite sides as I was either too lazy to flip it over or may have only had time to listen to one side in a sitting, Portable music was a transistor radio and your sure didn’t hear bands like Television on radio. Side two is better than most of the stuff that came out during that era with “Elevation” and “Prove It” being two of the best songs in the bands library but it is the first four songs on the A-side that make this album a classic.

According to legend the song was produced in one take, There is a huge jam in the middle of the song but it is so sparse it breathes as it builds to the finish. Two guitars duel over a punchy bass and rolling drums while Verlaine does his best Patti Smith style vocals. “Friction” is probably the closest thing to punk on the album “I get your point you’re so sharp” and picks up the pace before the ten minute masterpiece that is the title track. That song contains the classic lyric “I fell right in to the arms of Venus de Milo”. On the next song “Venus” the vocals are even more distracted as he seems to be carrying on a conversation that we are not a part of. On top of that Tom Verlaine’s vocals were just so “I could care less” New York affected. Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine weaved guitar licks around each other like cigarette smoke crossing a spotlight while Fred Smith spat out a bass line that seemed to work both independently and totally in synch with Billy Ficca’s drumming. This was not punk, not glam, not like anything else out there. I decided to give the band a second chance and as soon the needle dropped on my glorious green copy of the album and “See No Evil” came pulsing out of the Lloyds stereo it was pretty evident that the group had elevated their game. Now down to a four piece, and signed to Elektra, Television released “Marquee Moon” in 1977.

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It is also the title of great 1976 hour long movie of the scene at CBGB’s directed by Ivan Krall. Its sound and sense of fashion launched a thousand safety pins across the pond. In 1977 he formed a new band and released the seminal “Blank Generation” under the banner of Richard Hell And The Voidoids. Richard Hell split from the band in 1975 and formed The Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan from the New York Dolls and that was a bit more up my alley. When I finally heard a cassette of the song I really couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, very minimal and no balls as far as my 16 year old years could tell. It came out on the tiny Ork Label and was impossible to find in Toronto. When they released their first single “Little Johnny Jewel” in 1975 they were still a five piece band with Tom Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, Fred Smith, Billy Ficca and Richard Hell. Rock Scene was half fanzine and half magazine and the likes of writer Lisa Robinson and photographer Bob Gruen covered the New York underground and gave ink to bands like The New York Dolls, Television, The Ramones and Talking Heads before they ventured past north of Houston Street. I started reading about the band in the mid-seventies in Rock Scene Magazine. There are very few albums that come out of New York in the seventies that can hold a candle to Television’s “Marquee Moon” and I could argue that they A-side of the original record is the strongest side on vinyl to ever come out of the seventies scene. And now back to our regularly scheduled column.