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Showing posts from May, 2006

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This Case Is Closed: The Enduring Enigma of Tom Verlaine

One of the great punk records is Marquee Moon by Television. Of course, that's a contradiction. There's nothing punk about Television really, except that they appear at the right time, in the right place, and Richard Hell is briefly in the band, and he has some claim to be the inventor of the punk look, with the spiky hair and the safety pins. But there is only one TV in Television, and Hell is gone long before Marquee Moon appears. Marquee Moon doesn’t need a category. It’s a record of jagged imagery in which the voice is a nagging shadow and the guitars - of Verlaine and Richard Lloyd - do the talking. Patti Smith compares Verlaine’s guitar to a thousand bluebirds. What they are talking about, I still can’t fathom. Marquee Moon is a timeless mystery. I talk to Tom Verlaine on the phone. This is probably better than talking to him in person. On a transatlantic phone line there is an excuse for the delays and the hesitations and the awkward silences. We are talking a full

Grant Morrison, Animal Man, Bible John, And The Post-Modern Limitations Of Comic Book Superheroes

Barry and Stuart: Was Jesus A Huckster With Charisma, Or Were The Miracles Really Miraculous?

Bitter Jester: Richard Belzer on Munch, Seinfeld, And The Stage Manners of Rupert Pupkin

Nostradamus, Hallucinations of Hitler and Bin Laden, And The Future Of The Documentary

Forever Blowing Bubbles: 2006 FA Cup Final, Cardiff.

Nick Cave: Watching Bewitched, dreaming of Jeannie, in awe of Nina Simone

Video of Gram Parsons, courtesy of Phil "Road Mangler Deluxe" Kaufman