This American punk pioneer, who had chosen his stage name in tribute to Paul Verlaine, died at the age of 73 following a “short illness”, as his daughter announced.
Without him, the punk-rock that emerged from the New York underground in the late 1970s would never have had its anthem. Marquee Moonmonster song and flagship album of the Television group, will have been as influential as its ex-leader Tom Verlaine, who died at 73, as his family announced on Saturday.
It was his daughter Jesse Paris Smith, born of his relationship with Patti Smith, another major figure on the music scene at the time, who made the announcement at the New York Timeswithout specifying the cause of death, except that it resulted from a “short illness”.
Born Thomas Miller, he decided to make himself known under the name of Tom Verlaine, in homage to Paul, the French poet whose lyricism he will try to breathe into his texts, while playing the guitar in a way of his own. , both ethereal and aggressive. With at the end a first major album: Marquee Moonreleased in 1977.
Witness of an era
Ten minutes long, the eponymous single alone illustrates the richness of a movement that has created many musical territories, from the Ramones to the Talking Heads, via Blondie. All went to the same church to preach their word: CBGB’s, a feverish club on New York’s Lower East Side where the finest hours of punk-rock were lived.
Television nonetheless enjoyed relative commercial success, although Marquee Moon figure in very high place in the various classifications, constantly updated, of major works, at RollingStonethe NME Where pitchfork. After two albums, the group dissolved and Verlaine released ten solos, while collaborating with many artists, such as David Bowie and Patti Smith.
His disappearance adds to the deadly character of the month of January for the music world, after those of Jeff Beck and David Crosby recently.
And tributes pour in on social networks, from Thurston Moore, ex-leader of Sonic Youth, to Stuart Braithwaite that of Mogwai, two groups who owe him a lot. So did The Edge, who says he was inspired by his guitar playing to shape the sound of U2.
