A music business lawyer friend of mine said about the recent NARM (National Association of Record Manufacturers) Convention held in Miami: "It's a good thing I met Brian Epstein before I met these...underwear salesmen. If I hadn't, I'd be divorcing people today..."

Given the attitudes of much of the recording industry, no wonder it's taken so long for Television (the group) to get a recording contract. (And, as of this writing, I don't know which of the three major bidders won.) I suppose it's just a fact of life that the business is several steps behind the music. But in the past five years I've watched a lot of music being sold. Music being made with a passion, sense of originality rather than a "this will sell" attitude, is rare. That doesn't mean that when your average Southern boogie band gets together to do their next record they don't care about their music. I guess I just don't care all that much about their music. Obviously, there's a market for it. But concern with the market often prevents music that is new, different, and occasionally confusing to some, from being heard.

While the industry looks around for a new Kiss (and I remember how much trouble Neil Bogart and Bill Aucoin had in convincing people about the old Kiss), a new Bowie, a new Dylan (still), a new Springsteen (already), talks of re-uniting the Beatles and busily re-packages former "supergroups," there is a band in New York making incredible music.

Forget about New York, forget CBGB, and anything you may have heard about a New York band "scene." It's irrelevant. Television (the group) would be great if heard in St. Paul or Bloomington, Indiana. Their 'music isn't weird, as you may have heard, or even like the early Velvets as some suggest. Perhaps those phrases make it easier to categorize TV's music, but Peter Laughner was right when he wrote in this very magazine that their music defies definition. They just don't sound like anybody else. It's not even avant-garde, it's just superb rock music. (Richard Robinson has suggested that Tom Verlaine, as a songwriter, is the Smokey Robinson of the '70's. Now there's a comparison...)

To me, TV's music' operates on different levels. The ..(dare I say it) commercial songs like "Oh Mi Amore," "Fire Engine," "Prove It," "Friction," "Venus Di Milo," "I Don't Care," and "Elevation" are melodic, catchy, strikingly original. I wish I could turn on the radio and hear this stuff.

The longer, more improvisational numbers with instrumental solos like "Little Johnny Jewel" (the privately pressed single of that song sounds like a demo for the way they've been doing it live lately), "Psychotic Reaction" and others are inspired. And Television does the best version — and I mean the best version — of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door".

It's hard to write about music here, especially when I'm talking about rock and roll. There's no need to intellectually "justify" what Television does. But it is one of those bands with a capacity to change your life. For me, a great night "out" now is sitting in front of Rhoda with a pizza, and yet I always feel like I'm missing something special if I skip one of the TV's sets at CBGB's. (Even New Year's Eve — amateur night — when I'm terrified to go out, found me ushering in 1976 haggling with taxis in the rain to get to CBGB's in time to. see this, one of my favorite bands.)

Much of the appeal of this group unquestionably has to do with lead singer, songwriter, guitarist and guiding force Tom Verlaine. Tom Verlaine, even walking down a Delaware street, must have been a knockout. People would notice this boy even if he had never picked up a guitar, changed his name, or met Patti Smith. When I saw Ivan Krai and Amos Poe's film Black Generation, a New York band "documentary" combining the best of Don't Look Back and A Hard Day's Night, it became immediately obvious that his visual presence could transcend the rpck 'n' roll stage to conquer celluloid. How many other people can do that?

Those eyes were translucent — it was like Village of the Damned.

But to say that he is the sole focus of this band is incorrect. The band is great — and they all ldok right. Billy Ficca is considered a "jazz oriented" drummer; a jazz oriented drummer hasn't hurt the Rolling Stones. Fred Smith has "replaced" Richard Hell admirably. As much as I liked the onstage visual clash between Verlaine and Hell when the latter was with the band (a bag time ago, Tom always reminds me) it is a better band now. That ego clash was too much. Richard Lloyd has developed into a guitar force to reckon with, and Verlaine is, quite simply, one of the magical greats.

Their look is — of course — stark/ spare/uncomplicated. Fortunately we have reached a time when you look like what you are, rather than you are what you look like. The Sixties popstar trip (and it was not without its charm) was fantasy packaging.. .hair, shiny clothes, freakout. Kiss aside, the costume now is you — and it has to be in the cheekbones. The style can't be "duplicated," because the person is the style. Maybe that's why Jagger has finally promised to stop wearing makeup onstage.

Television visually add to their music. The intense calm of dark colors and the space provided by unadorned outfits offers a compelling antidote to superficial flash. But I've said this before.

An updated word on the energy im-. pact of CBGB and Television in particular (of course I also get excited when the Talking Heads or the Ramones are there) compared to the "scene" at Max's in its heyday:

TURN TO PAGE 82.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 59.

Max's Kansas City wa$ a glorified pickup bar even though with the exception of those who preyed upon the help I know of very few who got lucky there. Donald Lyons used to say, "When I'm happy, I don't go there." There were the Warhols, Artists, scenemakers (my favorite word) and much glorified cruising. When bands were booked upstairs, it was an afterthought, an attempt to cash in on the already established popularity of the place. CBGB can obviously make no such claim.

CBGB is funky, a railroadflat-like room. A bar, some tables, a pool table in the "backstage area," and a small stage complete the decor — such as it is. From the outset, people came there because of the bands. A love of rock and roll, and a longing to escape the uptown Music Business of the Beacon Theater or press parties. With the as-" sistance of John Rockwell's New York Times coverage, and perhaps James Wolcott's Village Voice articles as well, suburbanites and groupie scenemakers have attached themselves to the place with alarming frequency of late. But the bands make more money, so one can't complain, even if one couple stood in the middle of the place soul-kissing for an entire half hour one weekend, and several others appear to be on the verge of disco-dancing...

For those fans who flock to CBGB when TV is there, it is not unlike a semi-religious experience. James Wolcott standing with his eyes fixed intently on the stage, Trixie A. Balm perched high on a wooden ledge above the crowd, Lenny Kaye cheering and whistling after each number,. Danny Fields with eyes closed and smiling as if it was a 1970 Grateful Dead concert.

When I asked Television to pose backstage at CBGB for photog Bob Gruen (see pic), his reaction to a whirlwind session was telling. "They're pretty cool," said Gruen, who has photographed everyone. "It's like Dylan in the early days...the way they pose. They've got it down, but none of them are trying to be pretty, or extravagent in any way." In Gruen's photo, all four are directly staring into the camera, unafraid, yet retaining an aura of mystery. To paraphrase something Lenny Kaye once told me about Patti Smith: "They looked fearlessly into the eye of fame, and pronounced themselves ready."