Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Television - Arrow



I moved to New York in the spring of 1977, following a weekend jaunt which included a trip to CBGB for a first taste of live Television. Returning to Ohio, I spent a trial night in an apartment at The Plaza in Cleveland recently vacated by an aspiring Contortion. As I surveyed the frozen parking lot next morning to make sure my Studebaker was still there, I decided that if I was going to move someplace scary and bleak, I might as well think big. But by the time I got back to Manhattan, Richard Lloyd was in rehab in preparation for Television's European debut, so almost a year passed before I got the chance for a recharge. When show day finally came I hid my Nakamichi 550 in the bottom of a crumpled bag of thrift store shirts and set out for Long Island, where the expected fireworks ensued. A couple of years later a friend with a mail order record business (another big Television fan) suggested a bootleg of the big night. Most of them went to an exporter he worked with, but I would visit Bleecker Bob in the West Village a couple of times a week to sell to this notorious cheapskate, a pitiful few copies at a time. Although it was a steady seller in his shop, he refused to tie up working capital. He always complained about the cover, too. At some point, Neil Cooper of ROIR made a play for the cassette masters, advising my partner in crime that he intended to reissue with or without our cooperation. We eventually gave in, surprising Verlaine with a modest royalty payment the next time he came around to unload dispensables from his personal collection - like the L'Intrepide Bavon Marie Marie LP I took home. Whenever our little project is mentioned, there's always a disclaimer that the original vinyl boot sounds better than the Blow Up reissue. Well, we tried. Disc mastering was done at an upper crust Hollywood establishment when Lindsey Buckingham had finally run out of coke and gone home for the day, the metal stampers came from Europadisk, the first high-end facility of its kind in the US. I also rejected test pressings from three boroughs before I found a pressing plant in outer Jersey that could handle grooves narrowed by the twenty-five minutes per side running time. It was only as I was preparing this post that I discovered The Blow Up omits Poor Circulation, Arrow's rarest gem. 09/11/18 update - the posted files are now lossless. I've also added Little Johnny Jewel from another taper, free of the crude edit just before the end of Verlaine's solo, when I had to flip the cassette.

Television
Arrow (bootleg)
Double Exposure F-85 (1980)

01 Fire Engine 4.19
02 Poor Circulation 5.31
03 Little Johnny Jewel 14.44
04 Knockin' On Heaven's Door 8.07
05 Prove It 5.20
06 Friction 4.58
07 (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction 7.11
08 Little Johnny Jewel 15.24 [alternate source]

recorded live @ My Father's Place, Roslyn, Long Island, NY 3/20/78

lossless vinyl

39 comments:

kingpossum said...

Thanks for the story, reservatory! I once owned a copy of the original vinyl, purchased at the original Wax Trax records in Chicago. Be good to hear this one again, especially now that I know the story behind it.

Thanks for all your hard work then and now to keep the sounds out there.

Bombshelter Slim said...

Well, this oughta be interesting, seeing as I had the original ROIR cassette when it came out, and "upgraded" to the CD version a couple of years ago. Many thanks!

Anonymous said...

Could never quite get past the sound quality on the ROIR release I had years ago -- maybe because the sound on the studio records is so good? -- but I'm holding my breath for a revelation with this version. Thank you!

TheNWRA said...

Had this on an nth gen tape bought at a record fair in the mid 80s. Never stopped listening to it then, can't wait to listen again.

Thanks for posting sounds and the accompanying story.

Rev. Dr. Moller. MDMA, THC and BAR. said...

Many thanks, I've been looking for this for a while.

reservatory said...

Well, guys, I dunno whether any of you are going to find the sound quality here a revelation, but we chimps did the best we could with an audience recording from a third of the way back in the hall. I just downloaded the CD to compare, and I don't hear a whole lot of difference. I never heard the original Blow Up cassette, though. Disclaimer re: disclaimer...

. said...

I had the cassette and the CD, but this is so very much the real thing that even an mp3 of it will be an improvement. Great post, and a great story. Thanks!

kinabalu said...

I believe I have this one, but haven't played it for ages. Thanks for the reminder, as it were ...

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your hard work. I have this album but not the resources to transfer it to CD. Do you have a lossless flac, wav,shn,or ape version to upload?

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your hard work. I have this album but not the resources to transfer it to CD. Do you have a lossless flac, wav,shn,or ape version to upload?

maready said...

If this story is true, and of course it is, then it is one of the few things about TV I didn't know when I thought I knew almost everything. Tom Verlaine is now my girlfriend's grumpy upstairs neighbor and has (like myself) lost most of his teeth, but I still get a kick out of seeing him stumbling in off the street with a pizza for dinner, mumbling a few random problems that need fixing to the doorman.

I can't wait to hear this! I love the ROIR tape, but never knew there was an LP before --- and with such a beautiful cover! And a song I've never heard!

Thanks for your heroic efforts in the service of "Art", efforts which I have now learned you have carried on for some 30 plus years. And a "bootlegger" who pays royalties? Unbelievable!

viagra online said...
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Anonymous said...

Many many thanks for this, reservatory! As the only way to really say thanks is to "return the gift", here's some info and a link to the results of my years of webtrawling for Television bootlegs - tons of'em, though I didn't have this one - thanks again! Cheers, Dave Sez.

The info:

This is the single-LP original release of 20th March 1978 - the full gig would later be re-released on a double LP with the following track-listing:

(a4) Fire Engine
(a4) Prove It
(a4) Foxhole
(a4) Glory/Poor Circulation?
(a4) I Don't Care/Careful
(a4) Ain't That Nothing
(a4) Little Johnny Jewel
(a4) See No Evil
(a4) Elevation
(a4) Friction
(a4) Knocking On Heaven's Door
(a4) Marquee Moon
(a4) Satisfaction
(a4) Venus

The title of the double LP was "Prove It". It's the same show as the "Arrow" vinyl bootleg, the "Arrowhead" CD bootleg (Aulica Records, Italy No. A.128, released 1992), and "The Blow-Up" release on ROIR (the only difference between this and The Blow-Up is the inclusion of Poor Circulation on this bootleg.) The double LP bootleg is allegedly Japanese, but there is nothing on the
labels to indicate the country of release, nor the year of release.

And now the goodies: you'll find links to my collection in the comments to this great post of I Need A New Adventure by edo (if you want that album, use the link in the comments @320, not the original post @128:

http://knowyourconjurer.blogspot.com/2010/03/television-i-need-new-adventure-1978.html

Dave Sez: go get, you won't regret!

Anonymous said...

As the comment cut off part of the link, here it is again, cut up:

http://knowyourconjurer.
blogspot.com/2010/03/
television-i-need-new-
adventure-1978.html

Cheers, Dave Sez.

Anonymous said...

An update: your post (and many others) have been consolidated here:

http://knowyourconjurer.blogspot.com/2010/10/television-and-richard-hell-mega-post.html

Hope you find somethere there that you didn't yet have, cheers Dave Sez.

Anonymous said...

extraordinary material from an extraordinary band...

Merci,man!

Antoine from France.

Anonymous said...

Another partial version of the same gig has just surfaced here: http://voodoowagon.blogspot.com/2012/06/television-live-my-fathers-place-1978.html.

Cheers, Dave Sez.

schlep said...

One of my most treasured vinyls, it took much abuse in the 70's-80's and still sounds BLOODY GREAT tonight. Love and respect to you for taking the trouble!

roberth said...

any chance of a re-up on this one?
as media fire says no, its in violation.
thanks great site
robert

reservatory said...

Thanks to your heads-up, the file is now Zippyfied.

Anonymous said...
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Roman T. said...

Fantastic, thank you! And you're quite right about "Poor Circulation."

aml said...

Thanks so much for the recording and awesome story! Have you ever released the original recording, or is there just the vinyl bootleg (and vinyl rip) and official CD release?

reservatory said...

Since Neil Cooper ended up with the master cassette, this vinyl is all there is from me. The complete show, which I assume includes Poor Circulation, does appear now and then in FLAC on Dime.

reservatory said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
aml said...

Alright, hopefully the recording pops up on DIME in the near future. Thanks for the speedy response!

Mitali du Monde said...

Being that "mail order" dealer
referred to here, I can verify that the author (who was always an extremely tasteful gentleman,and though we're out of touch,one of the persons in my life I will always have a warm spot for) took exceptional effort to asure a quality release. We were proud when Tom Verlaine wanted to "legitimize" the recording, and it was mainly done for the love of the music. The "master" was sold for a very nominal fee to ROIR, and indeed,several royalty payments were made directly to the artist.(I embarassingly refused a 20% "tip" Tom offered me, and some of my mail order customers got a unique bonus when Verlaine defaced the covers of the Italian "Eno demos" LPs I had by writing legends such as "the info about these recordings is pure bull.." on each and every cover!)
And I still listen to a Bavon Marie Marie LP I also got when purchasing one of Tom's collections!!

reservatory said...

Monsieur du Monde - Thanks for details I'd forgotten. At this point, Arrow is fast becoming one of the least mysterious bootlegs of its time. To be clear, your Bavon Marie Marie LP is the same one I borrowed overnight to dub onto one of the Polyrock cassettes you forced on me. More Polyrock cassettes were sacrificed for dubs of the Japanese Hank Williams box you traded me for a New Colony Six album I found in a 99¢ bin on Long Island. I was desperate for some authentic Hank after buying a hits collection that featured female chorus and strings, nothing like the tunes I'd heard in The Last Picture Show. When I returned the hits package in disgust, the hipster clerk explained that Hank had redone all his early hits later in his career. Which would have been quite a trick since he died in the back seat of a Cadillac in 1952. Those were the days. 23 Skidoo!

Anonymous said...

Thanks again, reservatory, for this gift. I've been re-upping my Television bootlegs, mostly in FLAC, here:

http://floppybootstomp-ii.blogspot.com/search/label/Television

Thanks for keeping this post alive; I've added it to the linklist here (also see the comments):

http://floppybootstomp-ii.blogspot.com/2014/01/television-if-you-werent-paying.html

Cheers, Dave Sez.

DennisD said...

Was the guy with the mail order business Charles A Ackers a/k/a Crackers? I have some of Crackers tapes through a mutual friend. I can't remember Crackers real name, I used to know it but I haven't seen the guy since 1980 or so.
Dennis

reservatory said...

Crackers! Haven't thought of him in years. Although the mail order friend was the proprietor of Disques du Monde, I actually think Crackers may have accompanied me to the show. Maybe with Mark Seidman and/or Mykel Board of Sideboard (?) Enterprises. Dimming memories from half a lifetime ago and all...

Anonymous said...

Re-upped by Dave Sez on 17/06/18: https://www58.zippyshare.com/v/Xee6BW6d/file.html. Thanks, reservatory!

Anonymous said...

Also re-upped by enoch on mega here:

https://floppybootstomp-ii.blogspot.com/2018/06/television-live-in-roslyn-ny-1978.html

Cheers, Dave Sez.

ElRoi said...

Great post. Is there any chance that the link for this could be re-posted?
Thanx

Tito said...

Wow any chance for getting a reup on this link? I dont think this can be found anywhere else

Unknown said...
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ada berita said...
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Anonymous said...

Mnay thanks for reposting this, reservatory, and a lossless rip too!

Your re-up has been noted over at https://floppybootstomp-ii.blogspot.com/2018/06/television-live-in-roslyn-ny-1978.html, the @320 link for the Arrow bootleg (minus the second Little Johnny Jewel) on mega.

Cheers,

Dave Sez.

Anonymous said...

Found this record working in the Hamptons. I’d never heard of it and super happy I picked it up. One of my life’s biggest regrets was never seeing them - wasn’t around when they started and missed one of their last shows at this private party on Houston…. Curious if anyone knows how many LP copies exist in the world? Thank you so much.