Hear No Evil
From clamour to swoon, and dissolution to revelation, Tom Verlaine’s adventures on record.
THE RENOWN of Television’s Marquee Moon (left, Elektra, 1977) not only put its successor Adventure (Elektra, 1978) in the shade, but loomed over much of Tom Verlaine’s solo career. The trial-by-comparison began with 1979’s solo debut Tom Verlaine (Elektra). It might have been Television’s third, containing as it does a clutch of live regulars, among them the stately Kingdom Come (covered by Bowie on Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)), and the mesmeric Breakin’ In My Heart, on which The B-52’s’ Ricky Wilson’s two-chord Velvets chug impels some of Verlaine’s most lyrical Jazzmaster peregrinations.