So sad to hear of the death of the second of Television’s two guitarists, Richard Lloyd, who succumbed to bile duct cancer on Saturday.
It was Lloyd’s intricate interplay with Tom Verlaine, trading angular patterns and languid melodic lines with Verlaine, that made Marquee Moon one of my favourite albums.
When Television broke up after just one more album in 1978, he embarked on a solo career and collaborator, but slipped from view, partially because his vocals are not the most compelling, but also because of his self-effacing approach to recording.
For such a virtuosic guitarist, his playing was surprisingly restrained on his solo albums, but most songs made room for a solo that was a reminder of his distinctive tone.
Occasionally, such as on the title track of his 1985 album Field Of Fire, recorded with a group of Scandinavian musicians and released on a Swedish label, he gave full rein to his incendiary playing.
In the 1990s he recorded with Matthew Sweet, initially on his breakthrough album Girlfriend – and the anthemic single Evangeline, on which he plays a starring role.
In 2003 he filled in for Peter Laughner when Pere Ubu’s frontman David Thomas reunited his proto-punk band Rocket From The Tombs, playing on their posthumous debut album Rocket Redux.
I’m surprised to learn that he started out as a drummer but fell in love with rock’n’roll and took up the guitar after seeing The Beatles’ landmark appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
His playing evolved under the influence of another guitarist, Velvert Turner, who had been mentored by Jimi Hendrix, and passed on much of what he had learned.
Other influences came from his knack for getting backstage at gigs by some of his heroes – from John Lee Hooker and Jeff Beck to Led Zeppelin and The Who, The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers Band – and comparing notes with their guitarists.
He moved from his hometown of Pittsburgh to New York in 1973 after hearing about The New York Dolls and immersed himself in the city’s underground music and art scene, sharing an apartment with Warhol’s silkscreen maker Terry Ork.
Through him he met Richard Meyers, an aspiring writer and musician who played in a band called The Neon Boys under the stage name Richard Hell with Tom Miller (soon to be Verlaine) and Billy Ficca.
Lloyd became their second guitarist and they began to make a name for themselves at CBGB, changing their name to Television, though Hell would soon leave and no labels opted to sign them even after hearing a demo tape produced by Brian Eno.
Their first single, Little Johnny Jewel, was released in 1975 after Lloyd’s old flatmate Terry Ork founded his own label, Ork Records, specifically for that purpose – leading to a deal with Elektra the following year.
In 2007, Lloyd severed his ties with Television to focus on his own projects, with his old band recruiting Jimmy Rip in his place.
I now learn that he made a 2010 album, Rosedale, playing most of the instruments himself, with additional contributions from Television’s drummer Billy Ficca and Chris Frantz of Talking Heads.
In 2017, Lloyd published his autobiography, Everything Is Combustible, and made another album, recorded during two days of sessions in Nashville, while making ends meet by giving guitar lessons and writing a tutorial column for Guitar World magazine.
With the exception of the title track of Marquee Moon, which can surely never be surpassed, I think that this is the finest example of his playing.
RIP Richard Lloyd (1951-2026)