Off Again, On Again
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A Devo reunion was prohibitively priced, but to Tortoise’s delight Television agreed to play. “Barry [Hogan], the promoter, went through [Yo La Tengo’s] Ira Kaplan to Tom Verlaine–as far as we know they might’ve planned a reunion anyway,” says Tortoise bassist Doug McCombs. “Ira went to Tom and told him what the festival was about, and then he wanted to do it. They’re doing a lot more shows now. We didn’t really have that much to do with it.” But Richard Lloyd, one of the band’s two guitarists, says nothing was planned before the call came. “I don’t think it would have happened if someone had just said ‘Let’s do Television shows’ and waved a lot of money,” he says. “I think it was more interesting to us because the idea came from artists, and it was a festival.”
Since the band broke up the first time, in 1978, Lloyd has released a few albums of his own and contributed to other people’s records, most notably Matthew Sweet’s–he says the largest crowd he ever played to was with Sweet at Taste of Chicago a few years back, a show that turned up later as an Italian bootleg. Drummer Billy Ficca went on to the Waitresses (the new-wave band responsible for the early MTV hit “I Know What Boys Like”), while bassist Fred Smith continued to play with guitarist and singer Verlaine on his solo work, which early on sounded the most like Television. Verlaine hasn’t released a record since 1992’s Warm and Cool–an atmospheric all-instrumental album whose influence can clearly be heard in Brokeback, the side project of Tortoise’s Doug McCombs. While Lloyd keeps in close contact with his public–running his own Web site, sending transcriptions to fans who ask nicely, and even giving guitar lessons–Verlaine keeps a frustratingly low profile, performing infrequently (most recently on a short tour accompanying silent films by Man Ray, Fernand Leger, Carl Dreyer, and the like) and declining interview requests.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Eva Vermandel-The Wire.
