Hilarious as that is, there is an underlying truth here. With two guitar solos,” said frontman Tom Verlaine. And then I’d realize, Christ, is ten minutes long. “You know, I always thought Marquee Moon was a bunch of cool singles.

They had an affinity for pop just as much as their peers, but unlike The Ramones (who cut chart toppers to half time at double speed) or Talking Heads (who refashioned normality as a sense of rebellion), Television snatched at punk, tearing the soul right out of it and turning it into a spindly, ungainly thing that nodded to Mingus as much as The Clash. They came up in CBGBs alongside Blondie and Richard Hell. There’s some debate on who was “first,” but there’s no question that Television were in the initial, unnerving wave of Post-Punk. And Television were gluttonous omnivores. The guitar is an absurdly versatile instrument, and a master will blend together dozens, if not hundreds of styles and sounds to forge their own sonic skill. Vincent or dexterous folk of Nathan Salsburg are just as worthy (if not more so) of fawning. Though, between the “Free Bird”s, “Cliffs of Dover”s and any number of Joe Satriani fiddlings, there’s an eventual realization that a majority of these flashy outbursts are both A) not that hard B) showing off technical work for the sake of technical work. There is an unmatched awe for a budding rocker witnessing Van Halen’s “Eruption” for the first time. The evolution of a guitar nerd starts with any number of heroes, both in the flesh and on dinky plastic. The Spanish and Moors had coined the word “guitarra” by the 1200s, possibly envisioning a world of an electric oud, shuddering, and deciding music deserved better.īut if you want to be more poetic, the guitar was invented for Marquee Moon. Why was the guitar invented? The boring, technical answer is because the lute sucks.

Marquee moon