There is more sad news coming out of the music industry with the sad reports that Tom Verlaine, the guitarist, singer, and songwriter best known for the band Television, has died.
The New York Times reports that Verlaine, a punk rock icon and talented guitarist, passed away at the age of 73 on Saturday in Manhattan, New York City after a brief illness. He was 73.
The Times notes that there was just “minor commercial success” with the band and that they only put out two albums before they broke up, but there was a lasting influence that Verlaine had on other guitarists, which makes him known as a legendary guitarist.
“Tom was capable of anything. He could move from chaotic soundscapes of free jazz to delicate filigree. It wasn’t covered up with distortion. He had a real sense of the instrument and its expressive powers,” Lenny Kaye, a guitarist known for his work with the Patti Smith Group, said.
His band, television, was started in 1972 as the Neon Boys before renaming themselves as Television in 1973. Legendary musician David Bowie once called the group the “most original band I’ve seen in New York.”
They signed to Elektra Records and released their first album, “Marquee Moon, in 1977. Their second album, “Adventure,” was released in 1978 before the band broke up.
They reunited for reunion tours at times in the following decades.
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