Tom Verlaine 1949-2023

The cult hero who guitar music reconfigured and inspired generations of alternative rock acts

- Jonathan Horsley

Tom Verlaine, who died on January 28, 2023, had an approach to playing guitar that was never easy to describe. Post-punk, art rock, art punk, whatever; it was one of Verlaine’s great creative achievements that over three studio albums with Television, and a prolific solo career, he was able to unshackle his style from labels. Hard to define, sure, but you know it when you hear it.

The sound he pioneered in Television, along with second guitarist Richard Lloyd, had a propulsive yet cerebral power, grandiose yet melancholy, intense yet epic. Based in New York City, where they regularly performed at legendary club CBGBs, Television had an energy and attitude which suggested punk. What came out the speakers, however, would challenge that conclusion. There was nothing quite like it.

Maybe this is what happens when you approach the guitar from a different perspective. The instrument was not Verlaine’s first love. When he was a kid growing up in Delaware, he started out on piano before picking up the saxophone as a young teenager. He liked symphonies. He liked jazz. Speaking to Guitar Player in 1993, Verlaine confessed that he hated guitar music for years.

“I played piano because when I was a kid I’d be really transported by symphonies,” he said. “My mother would get these supermarket records of overtures. That was music for me. The only thing I liked on radio were flying saucer songs. In the early 60s I hated pop. An older friend of mine had some Coltrane and Ornette Coleman records, and that’s the music I liked. I had a brother who bought Motown, and I thought it was totally twee. The first rock record I liked was Yardbirds stuff, because it was really wild.”