It's New to Me: Flash Light by Tom Verlaine (1987)

Photograph of Dennis Stock by Andreas Feininger from LIFE magazine, 1951

I wrote about Television's Adventure a while ago, and, if I recall correctly, I was pretty impressed with it and felt stupid for having slept on Television for so long. You could probably guess that my next step would be to go out and buy Marquee Moon. Or - OR - maybe the best next step would be to buy a Tom Verlaine solo album from a full decade after Television broke up because it was part of a big sale on the Collector's Choice website. Because, uh, that's what I did. I'll get Marquee Moon at some point, I'm sure, but I am impressed that this Tom Verlaine solo album is just what I hoped it would be.

Of course, 1987's Flash Light doesn't have the magical guitar interplay that I loved so much on Adventure - Television's other guitarist Richard Lloyd had been doing his own thing for many years at this point - but Verlaine offers plenty on his own, as it turns out. The songwriting on this album is strong, offering a variety of different pop song structures, and many of the numbers feature Television-esque guitar breaks that take the song to a higher elevation. The album starts a little slow, though - the opener "Cry Mercy, Judge" doesn't have much substance to it, and there's no real hook to "A Town Called Walker", but the fourth song, simply called "Song", is where the album really hits its stride. A delicate song woven of spider-webby guitar parts and a simple melody, "Song" totally plays to Verlaine's strengths.

I know I say this all the time, but the second half of this album is SO much better than the first. "Bomb" is turgid and over-dramatic, but it's followed by four near-perfect songs, starting with "At 4 A.M.", which features some of the album's best guitar work. The last three songs are working squarely in the pop idiom, and "Annie's Tellin' Me" is the best of them, with a fun melody and some really cool riffs that fit together perfectly. The album's closer, "One Time at Sundown", is almost as good but has an unfortunate "One Night in Bangkok" reference in the title lyric and chorus melody that may or may not be intentional. Maybe it's time to make an effort to pick up a copy of Marquee Moon - at this point, it's starting to look like I'm just being contrarian for the sake of it.

"Annie's Tellin' Me" by Tom Verlaine