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Television - 26-Oct-09 03:56 PM
Television was formed in 1973 by Tom Verlaine (vocals, guitar), Richard Hell (bass, vocals), Billy Ficca (drums) and Richard Lloyd (guitar, vocals), and the successor to a series of groups led by Verlaine and Hell, who had met while at school together during the `60s. Verlaine, born New Jersey (real name Miller), and Hell from Kentucky, (real name Myers), were flung together due to their similar artistisc tendencies, and their school friendship in Delaware culminated in them running away together. They were discovered by police in Alabama after a fire they had started -to keep warm one night- got out of control. Having found that formal education was not very much to his taste, Verlaine decided to move to New York in August `68.
Verlaines`s musical aspirations prior to his move had centred on piano and saxophone, the latter played in a free-form jazz style but he began to play guitar in New York while working in a book store during the day. In 1971 he decided to try to make his mark in rock & roll, forming a group called the Neon Boys, a three-piece featuring himself, Richard Hell and Billy Fica, an old friend from Delaware who had been a jazz drummer for several years. Apparently this was the period when Dee Dee Ramone auditioned for a place in the band, but according to Verlaine, he "didn't know a G chord from A. We had two songs back then with just three straightforward chords apiece, and he couldn`t figure out where the hell they were!"
Even without Dee Dee, the Neon Boys didn`t last very long, nor did the same trio`s next stab at fame, Goo Goo. When that folded, Ficca went off to join a blues band, while Verlaine played solo gigs around New York. At one of these, Richard Lloyd,a New Jersey resident with a passion for the blues, saw Verlaine, and the two got together to form a band with Richard Hell and Billy Ficca, who was recalled.
There are several reasons quoted as to why the group decided to call themselves Television. The most obvious is that Tom Verlaine`s initials are TV, but New Musical`s Express`s Nick Kent feels that the name was Richard Hell`s idea. "He envisioned a whole spectacle: a torn`n`frayed four-piece fronting a bank of old television sets." Yet a third reason was contributed by Richard Lloyd: "It just seemed to fit `cos it`s something that`s in every home in America. It`s so obtrusive, it`s unobtrusive."
The band`s first performance was at the Townhouse Theatre in New York in march 1974, and the band subsequently picked up a following, culminating in Verlaine convincing the owner of CBGB`s club that he should present live music, and thus finding a home for a large number of New York New Wave bands who needed somewhere to try out their music in front of a fairly receptive audience. Also around this time Richard Williams, then an A & R man for Island Records, produced some tapes of the band in collaboration with Eno, but the band were not satisfied with the results, and neither were Island, so the opportunity was lost.
Verlaine and Hell seemed to have great things going for them visually, but not, according to Verlaine, musically. He said of Hell, "We let him play with us and we hoped he`d improve musically as we developed. Eventually we decided that we needed someone better." In mid-`75, Hell left the band, subsequently joining Johnny Thunders in the Heartbreakers, and later forming his own band, the Void-Oids. At the same time, Verlaine was living with Patti Smith, and Tom played guitar on one of her earliest recordings, Hey Joe, and contributed both in composition and playing to Break It Up on Smith`s Horses LP, as well as writing a slim book of poetry with her called The Night. In turn, Patti bought the first real guitar that Tom had ever possessed from her advance royalties.
Hell´s replacement was Fred Smith, who had previously been in The Stilettoes and Blondie, and late in 1975, the now-settled four-piece Television recorded a single titled Little Johnny Jewel on the Ork label, named after their ex-manager, William Terry Ork, to whom the band eventually dedicated their first album. The single sold astonishingly well considering that it was released on a virtually unknown label and came to the attention of Elektra Records, who were very quick to sign the group, and rush them into a studio with noted engineer Andy John co-producing with Verlaine. The album, Marquee Moon, released in 1977 was received ecstatically by the critics, one of whom called it "a 24-carat inspired and totally individualist creation."
The album crashed into the British charts within weeks of release, a particularly strange occurance as they had never played in the country at the time. Later in in `77, the group played a highly successful tour of Britain. Following this a single taken from the album, Prove It, also went straight into the Top 30.
Televison created a perfect blend of the best of American rock music of the `60s, including the Velvet Underground, Love, The Doors etc., but with an added ingredient that belongs only to Tom Verlaine, whose songs were destined to quickly achieve classic status.

New York Dolls - 26-Oct-09 01:38 PM
Without any doubt, the New York Dolls were the seminal group of the New Wave movement in New York. The first group, formed in late `71, consisted of Johnny Thunders (then known as Johnny Volume), Kane, drummer Billy Murcia and guitarist Rick Rivets. The original name of the group was to be Actress, but when JoHansen (David Johansen) joined in early `72, they became the New York Dolls, soon afterwards substituting Sylvain Sylvain for Rivets. On a visit to Britain in November '72, Murcia died, allegedly of a drug overdose, and his place was taken by Jerry Nolan.
The most alarming thing about the Dolls was their appearance- "stack-heeled platform boots and bird´s nest coiffures" amounting to a grossed-out dyke look, complete with lots of leather and make-up. This bizarre image reflected a reportedly wild lifestyle and startled many observers.
The Dolls eventually signed with Merury Records after practically every other label had checked them out, but been deterred by their appearance. With Mercury, the Dolls made two albums, the first, simply titled New York Dolls, being produced by Todd Rundgren, and released in `73, and Too Much Too Soon, produced by Shangri-Las` producer Shadow Morton, coming out in `74.
Critical reaction to the group was decidedly negative, with the result that Nolan and Thunders eventually left while touring in Florida. However, before that the group had acquired a new manager in Malcolm McLaren, later to be the man behind the Sex Pistols. He met the group in 1974 when they came into his King`s Road, London, shop Let It Rock. A friendship developed and McLaren began to manage the group in early `75 in New York. He had inherited many problems, not least two of the group having to be hospitalized for drug abuse. In addition, the image so carefully nurtured during the group´s early days was by then out of date, having been largely overtaken by the "undernourished" look adopted by such as Tom Verlaine and Patti Smith. The group thus took on a `Communist chic`, playing in front of a `hammer and sickle` flag, dressed in red patent leather. Unfortunately, this image didn`t appeal to the audiences very much, and when Thunders and Nolan left, McLaren returned to Britian, and soon afterwards discovered the Pistols.
Thunders and Nolan got together with Richard Hell (bass), who had nearly joined the Dolls during the McLaren era, and Walter Lure (guitar), who had previously been in agroup called Demon, to become the Heartbreakers. JoHansen and Sylvain recruited Chris Robinson (keyboards), Peter Jordan (bass) and Tony Machine (drums) for a Japanese tour, but after it the fragmented Dolls broke up in May `75.
Thunders and Nolan remained in the Heartbreakers; Sylvain formed a group called Criminals in New York in April `77, Kane, after starting a band called Killer Kane in Los Angeles, became a member of LOK, back in New York. By mid-`77 David JoHansen started working on his first solo album for Blue Sky Records (the company owned by Johnny and Edgar Winter and their manager Steve Paul).
The New York Dolls were the originators of a hard, rough, raunchy rock sound which has been copied by numerous groups subsequently. There is no reference point, except perhaps the Stones at their most outrageous. The group`s attitude to what they were trying to do has been a great source of inspiration to many of those who have successfully followed their lead.

Saints, The (2) - The Most Primitive Band In The World (Live From The Twilight Zone, Brisbane 1974) - 25-Oct-09 02:58 PM
These tracks were recorded early-to-mid `74, almost a year after the band had formed and almost 2 1/2 years before the release of the first Saints` single in 1976. The recording was made in Ed Kuepper`s parents` garage, except for "Misunderstood" which was recorded at Queensland University, direct onto a mono cassette-deck and features the second line-up of the band. Before this the Saints were a 3-piece, with Ivor Hay on piano and no drummer.
In a different universe this would have been the first Saints LP.
It captures the band near the beginning of its first phase, as opposed to the EMI release which was at the end, and without geting into a debate about aesthetics, this one`s probably better.
Possibly due to the 3 million line-up changes and years of rejection that folowed, a bit of spontaneity may have been knocked out of the Saints. Whatever, compared to these recordings, the EMI album sounds, ironically, almost a bit formularized. Certainly, Chris Bailey`s singing doesn`t get much better than the rather spiffing performance contained herein and Ivor Hay`s playing has a panache that maybe wasn`t matched by later bass-players. Laurie`s Deonardo Coleman-style drumming also had a lot going for it.
Anyway, if you like the early Saints, have a listen to to this!

Vanilla Fudge - 21-Oct-09 01:16 PM
Known as 'the first of the heavy bands' and 'doyens of punk mysterioso' this Long Island group first came to public attention in 1967 with a revival of an old Supremes hit `You Keep Me Hangin´ On`. Vanilla Fudge had slowed down this song to half its original tempo, inserted plenty of neo-classical organ and Indian guitar licks and swelled it up to an almost Spectoresque extravaganza.
A full seven-and-a-half-minute version of this single was included on the 1967 debut album "Vanilla Fudge", plus Fudged-up arrangements of such songs as `Eleanor Rigby`, `Ticket To Ride` (both written by the Beatles), `Bang Bang` (by Sonny & Cher) and `People Get Ready` (by The Impressions). Their almost fussy neo-gospel harmonies and cinerama arrangements were irritating a lot of people, but created a certainly exhilarating sound.
The second Vanilla Fudge album "The Beat Goes On" was one of the most gallant disasters in the annals of rock, a musical record of the previous 25 years including the entire history of music in less than twelve minutes. The third album "Renaissance" was released some months later and featured mostly original songs as well as a nine-minute version of Donovan's `Season Of The Witch`.
By 1970 Vanilla Fudge issued their final album "Rock And Roll" and disbanded. Carmine Appice and Tim Bogert formed Cactus and eventually ended up playing with Jeff Beck in Beck, Bogart & Appice. Mark Stein formed Boomerang.
Vanilla Fudge had made the whole notion of interpretaion interesting again. But their own songs and in live performance they were almost too hard to take. That mixture of overpowering Rascals organ and psychedelic Hendrix guitar, all those slow build-ups and crescendos, those lulls and storms, every bit of it copied by a hundred other Long Island hard-rock groups-it finally got too much for everyone except the fans of what the Fudge termed "psychedelic symphonic rock."

Mamas & The Papas, The - 20-Oct-09 12:34 PM
The Mamas and the Papas were the royal family of American rock-not because their music kept growing and progressing to plateau after plateau of greatness (it didn't), but because they were the first, with the Spoonful, of the big American groups, the first, that is, since the Beatles. Besides, they looked regal. John Phillips, tall and stately, looked like Everyking, Cass Elliot, majestic earth mother, like Everyqueen, and Michelle and Denny the essence of princehood and princeshood. they came to us, that dreary winter of 1965-66, singing that all the leaves were brown and the sky was grey and that it was a good time to dream of California. Until then, everything new and interesting and commercially successful (all those things can go hand in hand) was English and had been since 1964 and the Beatles. Then, with the Mamas and the Papas, the spotlight that had been fixed so firmly on Liverpool and London suddenly swiveled over to America (and caught the Spoonful's Daydream as well). America had had dylan, of course, but not a group scene with any sort of style, and nothing like those first three singles the Mamas and the Papas brought out in less than a year.
The story of the group was new then, though by 1968 there must have been a thousand groups that told variants of it. They came out of the Village folk scene that had developed around Dylan and those who followed him. Cass had been with groups before (the Mugwumps and the Big Three), but these were not particularly successful. As the Mamas and the Papas told it, the four had met in the Virgin Islands, where there was not too much more to do than sing, but still the blend was not quite perfect till a piece of piping fell on Cass and changed her voice. Back in California the sound impressed people in the business who, having made one adjustment already to English moptops, found it difficult to readjust their vision to this motley quartet. The word "hippie" was not then in common use, but the concept existed. Groups in beards and boots and funny hats and strange drag were still new at the end of 1966 and not the cliché they became in 1968. The way this group looked, once the music business got over the shock of it all, was a novelty and very promotable. And the Mamas and the Papas were a sensation musically, visually and commercially. And what was really exciting was that they managed to establish the fact there was an American scene. This was America's answer to the British invasion. Because of all this, it's quite incidental that the Mamas and the Papas never did live up to the glorious promise of their first year and that although every album they did sold, by the time they got their fourth, in 1967, they just couldn't do it, couldn't put out another bland, predictable, salable, repetitive product. So in the middle of it all, in the middle of the taping, they just cut out, splitting to England and Europe to clear their heads and rethink their music and their lives, and give themselves a rest. It was a case of too much too soon-too much work, too much touring, too much freshness expected of them and too much too think about. No one really minded. Everyone understood. By 1968 Cass decided she wanted to sing solo. They had never intended to stay together any longer anyway, they all said. John Phillips, particularly, wanted to be so much a performer as a writer, producer and discoverer of talent. Always there was much more to say about the Mamas and the Papas than the sweet-sad harmonies and the number one hits. They really were the first hippies to make it big and strike it rich, living in luxury in Bel Air and setting a bad example for the neighbors. Later, when other hippie groups made it, it no longer seemed unusual. But it was the Mamas and the Papas who established the precedent.

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