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Tom Verlaine

Tom Verlaine

27 articles

Audio interviews

Tom Verlaine (1987)

Interview by Martin Aston, Rock's Backpages audio, March 1987

The former Television frontman on the making of his most recent album Flash Light; his lyrical concerns; his ignorance of current rock; on being a lead guitarist; revisiting Television's Marquee Moon and Adventure; the pleasures of making and listening to music; playing with other people, and his lack of contact with old pals Patti Smith and Richard Lloyd.

File format: mp3; file size: 73.2mb, interview length: 1h 16' 17" sound quality: ***

List of articles in the library

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Tom Verlaine: Flash Light

Review by Adam Sweeting, Q, 1987

IN ONE SENSE, Tom Verlaine has the most consistent output of any of rock's guiding lights. Since Television's spellbindingly wonderful Marquee Moon a decade ago, ...

Tom Verlaine: Songs and Other Things/Around (Thrill Jockey)

Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, Spring 2006

Dual release of vocal and instrumental albums: the Television leader's long-overdue solo return. ...

Tom Verlaine: The Venue, London

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 19 June 1982

WE YOUNG Rimbauds came for diamond spears and the licks of an icepick and went away with a few mangy cardboard boxes. I hope that ...

Tom Verlaine: Words from the Front

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 28 February 1987

TOM VERLAINE, the blank generation’s very own Neil Young, is sitting on the floor of a Phonogram press suite devouring a croissant. I’d expected someone ...

Tom Verlaine: The Wonder (Phonogram)

Review by Bob Stanley, Melody Maker, 31 March 1990

"COMING UP behind me like a high speed train was the New York City new wave, Verlaine and Hell," — Felt, 'Mobile Shack'. ...

Tom Verlaine: Labours of Love

Interview by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 14 March 1987

TOM VERLAINE SWERVES THIS WAY AND THAT TO AVOID THE LOGICAL, BOTH ON AND OFF RECORD. CHRIS ROBERTS USES HIS NEW ALBUM, FLASH LIGHT, TO ...

Tom Verlaine's Question Time

Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 12 September 1981

NOTWITHSTANDING a certain amount of nervous chuckling, Tom Verlaine seems a nice enough fellow as he sits with his feet up on the desk in ...

Tom Verlaine: Cover (Virgin)

Review by Cynthia Rose, New Musical Express, 1 September 1984

IN 1976 TOM Miller aka Verlaine ended a published poem with the line "I shall contrive an envy so strong that its object will disappear". ...

Tom Verlaine: Warm and Cool

Review by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, April 1992

THIS IS NOT A pretty record. This is an ugly record, and I don't know if we should take that as a good sign or ...

Tom Verlaine: looking for life

Interview by Jim Farber, Rolling Stone, 20 March 1980

Ex-Television star's fall and rise ...

The Dreams of Tom Verlaine

Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, October 1981

TOM VERLAINE was the mysterious force behind Television, the now-legendary outfit who swept to prominence in the New York Invasion of 1977. They captured eyes, ...

Tom Verlaine: Slurs From The Front

Live Review by Lynden Barber, Melody Maker, 19 June 1982

Tom Verlaine: The Venue, London ...

Tom Verlaine: Tom Verlaine (Elektra)

Review by Max Bell, New Musical Express, 1 September 1979

Mr Verlaine Unwraps ...

Tom Foolery: Tom Verlaine

Interview by Max Bell, The Face, July 1984

CAN IT REALLY be ten years now since we first heard about Television and the infamous New York scene of 1974? Those days, laughingly referred ...

Tom Verlaine: Far from the Madding Crowd

Interview by Mick Sinclair, ZigZag, September 1984

TOM VERLAINE is a tall frame clothed unremarkably. He's basically apolitical, carrying the air of a fine artist who's possibly been born into the wrong ...

Tom Verlaine: Electric Ballroom, London

Live Review by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 27 October 1984

WHY-OH-WHY has it consistently appeared to be solely rock critics plus these terribly self-absorbed young chaps who currently populate Britain's new ruling (middle) class of ...

Tom Verlaine: How Pleasant (?) To Know Mr Verlaine

Profile and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 26 March 1977

OPINION: Tom Verlaine is a great songwriter, the next seminal rock charismatic, a genius.OPINION: Tom Verlaine is an egomaniac, a back-stabber, a thankless paranoid. ...

Tom Verlaine: Words From the Front (Virgin)

Review by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 29 May 1982

TOM VERLAINE is one of the last great rock musicians to come out of America; and the neglect he's suffered, after two brilliant records, is ...

The Foolish Heart of Tom Verlaine

Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 1 September 1984

TALKING WITH Tom Verlaine, as legend has it, is one of the less entertaining or productive options available to the interested party. A teeth-pulling exercise. ...

Tom Verlaine: Viper Room, Los Angeles

Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 15 May 1996

LIKE ITS SPIRITUAL forbearer, the Velvet Underground, the New York band Television was vastly more influential than the brevity and low commercial showing of its ...

The Sound of Silents: Tom Verlaine

Live Review by Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, 20 October 1999

IF THE MODEST obligation of a silent-film accompanist is to serve the movie, Tom Verlaine succeeded admirably during his Arts at St. Ann's appearance on ...

Tom Verlaine: Happiness Is A Guitar Called Fender...

Interview by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 13 October 1979

...And how to make original rock & roll with it in the late '70s is your problem. It's also TOM VERLAINE'S ...

Tom Verlaine Without TV: The New Season

Review and Interview by Roy Trakin, New York Rocker, September 1979

THE BREAK-UP of a band, in the wake of our experience with the Beatles and countless others, should no longer be a traumatic event, but ...

Tom Verlaine: Tom Verlaine (Elektra Import) ***

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 8 September 1979

IMAGINATIVE TITLE, eh? Nah, but hand it to him for resilience, you really thought you'd seen the last of teevee after the hostile critics were ...

Tom Verlaine: Facts About Sneakers

Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 19 September 1981

SANDY ROBERTSON cancels his membership of the Tom Tom Club ...

Tom Verlaine

Interview by Toby Goldstein, Trouser Press, January 1982

TOM VERLAINE is looking for clues in an interior landscape, signposts that just might point the way to some inescapable Truth. "You don't respond to ...

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