Television frontman Tom Verlaine dies at 73

By Stermy 5 Min Read
Tom Verlaine dead

Tom Verlaine, the frontman, songwriter, and legendary guitar player of the New York City band Television, has died.

Tom Verlaine dead: Tom died on Saturday, January 28, 2023, at age 73.

The news of his death was made known to the public by Jesse Paris Smith, the daughter of long-time associate and collaborator Patti Smith.

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According to Patti Smith, Tom Verlaine died “after a brief illness” without giving details as to the exact cause of death.

“He died peacefully in New York City, surrounded by close friends,” she added.

Many musicians, including the Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs, Thurston Moore, Real Estate, Heems, Mike Scott, and Ryley Walker, have paid tribute to Verlaine after learning of his death.

“Tom Verlaine has passed over to the beyond that his guitar playing always hinted at. He was the best rock and roll guitarist of all time, and like Hendrix could dance from the spheres of the cosmos to garage rock. That takes a special greatness,” Mike Scott of The Waterboys tweeted.

About Tom Verlaine

Tom Verlaine was born with his legal name Thomas Miller in New Jersey in 1949 and raised in Wilmington, Delaware, he attended the Sanford School, a private boarding school in Hockessin, Delaware. It was there he befriended Richard Meyers, who would later take the stage name Richard Hell. The two bonded over art and music, fled the school together and eventually settled in New York City in late 1968.

It was in New York that Miller adopted his stage name, an homage to the French symbolist poet Paul Verlaine. His earliest musical influences included free jazz, Five Live Yardbirds, and the Rolling Stones, specifically “19th Nervous Breakdown.”

Verlaine and Hell formed their first band the Neon Boys with drummer Billy Ficca in 1972. It quickly dissolved, but they reformed as Television in 1973 after recruiting guitarist Richard Lloyd. They spent much of 1974–75 building a cult following at downtown clubs like Max’s Kansas City and CBGB; Hell left the band in 1975 and formed the Heartbreakers with Jerry Nolan and Johnny Thunders, who had just quit the New York Dolls.

After putting out a 7-inch single in 1975 on their manager Terry Ork’s label, Television would sign with Elektra and release Marquee Moon in 1977 to critical and commercial success, cracking the Billboard 200 album chart. They quickly followed it up with the more subdued Adventure in 1978, and broke up shortly after. The band would briefly reform in the early ‘90s to record a self-titled studio album.

Shortly after Television broke up, Verlaine decided to continue pursuing music, releasing his solo debut in 1979. He enjoyed a fruitful writing period in the ‘80s with the full-lengths Dreamtime, Words From the Front, Cover, and Flash Light. Verlaine put out three more LPs in the next decade and then took a short break. His last two solo albums, Songs and Other Things and Around, came out in 2006.

Verlaine also went on to work with a number of musicians after Television. He started the supergroup the Million Dollar Bashers with Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and Steve Shelley, Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, Bob Dylan bassist Tony Garnier, guitarist Smokey Hormel, and keyboardist John Medeski.

They went on to help soundtrack the Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There. Verlaine also collaborated with David Bowie, Violent Femmes, and James Iha, among others. He dated Patti Smith in the mid-‘70s, and contributed to her albums Horses and Easter.

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