One of the greatest 'what ifs' of all. Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine came to New York looking to be something, set up the Neon Boys and then Television to try to realise it, then went their separate ways as their friendship frayed and Verlaine followed a more sophisticated vision than Hell could be a part of. Before this, they discovered CBGB's and became the first band of the scene that hatched from it to play there, early in 1974. Mark I and II of Television were quite radically different bands.
I liked Television with Richard. With Hell I thought they were fantastic. It's a shame they never recorded and so few people saw them and there were never any films or anything. They were really exciting. Even Richard's own performance was different from what he was known for in later years. He really used to do this Townshend thing, a whole series of leaps and bounds around the stage. It was more dynamic. Verlaine was on the end and Lloyd was in the middle. Then all of a sudden Verlaine was in the middle and it changed things. The band was more evenly dispersed with Lloyd in the middle. Lloyd was the lesser of the three of them so he evened it out, made Tom and Hell equal on the ends. It was a subtle thing.'
Chris Stein From the Velvets to the Voidoids
'I thought Television was fabulous! The arms of Richard Hell and the neck of Tom Verlaine were so entrancing that I needed no more art, music, life, love or poetry to make me happy after that. They were the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen. The skin between the two of them...they had the most perfect skin in the world. Tom Verlaine's skin and Richard Hell's skin were in a class of like 'God made that and then threw away the skin formula.' And then there was Richard Lloyd....he was another one with gorgeous skin. He was another gorgeous beauty. It was the band of beauties.'
Danny Fields Please Kill Me
'I was living with Richard Hell when he left Television. Tom Verlaine was just cutting all of Richard's songs out, one by one. Richard used to sing maybe half of the songs in Television; then he was only singing one song which was Blank Generation.
Then I believe that Tom suggested 'Let's cut Blank Generation.'
Richard was just like, 'What's the point?'
Roberta Bayley Please Kill Me
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