Thursday, August 11, 2016

40 Year Itch : Hide the Snake


Television : Friction ( alternate version) 



On August 11, 1976 Elektra Records signed  New York City art rockers Television, a band that certainly should have been on the label's radar for several years.  After all, in December of 1974 Television recorded four demos with Brian Eno and the following year recorded another set of demos produced by Blue Oyster Cult's Allen Lanier.

It was leader Tom Verlaine who kept turning down record deals. While he was looking for something acceptable, bassist Richard Hell left to be replaced by Fred Smith. Elektra promised Verlaine he could produce the debut album as long as he had a well known recording engineer. That would be Andy Johns , brother of Glyn, who worked on the Rolling Stones album Goats Head Soup.

To prepare for the recording sessions at A and R Recording in September, Verlaine and the band practiced for four to six hours a day, six to seven days a week. "So we were both really roughshod musicians on the one hand," says Richard Lloyd, " and desperadoes on the other,  with the will to be good." 

The result would be one of the greatest debut album of the 70s. But we'll get to that at another time. 





2 comments:

  1. Folks knew how special this band/music was while even in it's infancy stage. And yes it would become one of the greatest albums, 70s and beyond! Ha!
    Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Definitely one of my all time favorites!

    ReplyDelete