Skip to main content

Posts

Featured

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

Gospel, With Bluenotes: The Mellow Fruits Of Hiss Golden Messenger's Quest For Faith

Lynne Ramsay's 'We Need To Talk About Kevin': The Omen Inverted - A Pop Art Jigsaw Of Alienation And Fear Of The Alien Within

RIP Marshall Grant, The Man Who Put The Boom in Boom Chicka Boom

"I'm never gonna be a histrionic crazy man!" The sad confession of The Jayhawks' Gary Louris

Lifeguard, Save Me From Life: Bona Drag and the Professional Misery Of Steven Patrick Morrissey

Goodbye Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel RIP. Your band, Big Star, was like The Beatles, if the Beatles Had Come From Tennessee

If Captain Beefheart Had Come From Glenrothes He Would Have Sounded Like Good And Gone (But I Like To Think He Wouldn't Have Tried To Drown Me In The Municipal Swimming Baths)

A remembrance of my friend, Alan Ruddock, who died yesterday

Carl Barât:: The Libertine Who Fell To Earth

Banksy, Art Fags, And The Jealous Wrath Of Old Skool Graffiti Writers