Television: Marquee Moon

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * * *)

Pity the rock reviewers' nearest and dearest. For not only do they get to hear the verbal first drafts of the critiques, or suffer through the really bad albums which take one or two plays to confirm are really bad, they get to hear the reviewer banging on about those Great Albums Nobody Much Ever Bought.

And when they arrive as a reissue, with remastered sound, extended versions, extra tracks, then comes the true test of tolerance for the family and friends of the professional rock bore.

Marquee Moon, the debut album by Television - a New York band who inspire rock-crit descriptions like "seminal" - was first released in 1977 and was certainly a great rock album that nobody etc ... and it remains so.

That's despite its potential to cause domestic arguments which can sound like excised bits of High Fidelity.

"He sounds like Mick Jagger."

"No he doesn't, that's Tom Verlaine. He's a guitar genius."

"He still sounds like Mick Jagger."

Or there's the other one.

"This one goes on a bit doesn't it?"

"No, that's the title track, Marquee Moon. It's one of the greatest guitar songs ever and on this album it's unedited and it's 10 glorious minutes long. On the vinyl it only lasted for about eight because they cut it at the end of side one.'

"Need anything at the shop then? I'll be back in time to catch the end."

Actually, Marquee Moon the track is still one of the singular pieces of rock music which contain more ideas than some bands' entire careers.

It's also a great advertisement for the biting, wiry unadulterated sound of Fender guitars, especially as the song reaches its cosmic crescendo around the eight minute mark.

And it's here you can best hear the slightly contrasting styles of the band's two guitarists, the traditional rock'n'roll slant of Richard Lloyd and the free-thinking Verlaine.

That's what made Television a great band, on their debut album at least.

The second one, Adventure, is one of rock's great sophomore slumps. A self-titled 90s reunion effort was worthwhile, but the real post-Television treasures exist sporadically on Verlaine's solo albums.

But why should anyone care, in 2004?

Well, when Blondie came through town last year they were smart enough to throw a cover of Marquee Moon's opening track See No Evil into their set. It sounded pretty awful.

But it reminded that of the bands that emerged from the New York New Wave years, Television were the one whose sound suggested they were more than one-trick ponies (Hello, Ramones) or whose ideas and musicianship had to be refined by the producers of their early albums (Blondie, Talking Heads).

They were the sound of rock's 60s hangover figuring out a new way through the late 70s. They weren't punk, but they sounded strange and anxious. And they didn't sing love songs with Verlaine - who was born plain old Tom Miller before getting the French symbolist pseudonym - a man with a gift for lyrical irony with occasional urges towards things noir (as on closing track Torn Curtain).

And of course, you can't read anything much by New York young guns the Strokes without a Television reference. Good band, the Strokes, and the reference might mean something if they keep up the practice.

Television barely made it into the 80s as a band before falling apart, which in its own way helped cement the legend of Marquee Moon as one of the great debut albums of rock history.

Here, it comes with the addition of the band's first single, Little Johnny Jewell ( Parts 1 &2) which was originally released across two sides of a single 45. And there's alternative versions - most have more rock bluster - of side one tracks See No Evil, Friction and Marquee Moon, as well as an untitled instrumental.

With its Robert Mapplethorpe cover photo and its dry non-production, it is something of an artefact from rock's newly fashionable retro-era.

But it's always been a brilliant album and it sounds great all over again. Even if Tom Verlaine does sound like Mick Jagger.

Label: Elektra/Rhino