I second that. Cracking album. They played The Village a while back (one of these odd reunions that take place from time to time) and it was brilliant. Tom Verlaine is a virtuoso but the other guy (don't know his name) was out of this world. Couldn't possibly identify him from the album cover as time has not been kind to him.

You know, Im embarrassed to say I've never heard it. Just one of those bands that always slip through the radar for me, not sure why. Maybe its because they didn't really fit in with the rest of the NY punk movement, which I like (mostly).

You've shamed me into adding MM to my weekend album hunt.

(re: the cover, they all look a bit like heroin addicts. Was that their drug of choice?)

This is probably my favourite rock album, I see it pretty much as a tour-de-force of everything that's great about guitar music.. Protein Biscuit, the other guitar player is Richard Lloyd, on the left hand side of the cover. He actually announced a couple of weeks ago that he's leaving the band this summer permanently after 35 years of sporadic on-and-off activity to concentrate on his solo work, so it looks like they're going to split up for good at last. I remember that Village gig, pretty good stuff (though I do recall Verlaine constantly complaining to the sound guy) but their first Irish gig in Vicar St in 2001 was even better.

Top notch. "Adventure" is worth a check out too.

Richard Lloyd is second from the right on the album cover. Fred Smith the bass player is on the left.Yer right, time hasn't been kind to him, he was a goodlooking bastard back in the day.

Yeah, i remember being surprised at that Vicar St gig how dominant Lloyd's riffs were, even though the songs were all written by Verlaine...Verlaine played the more freeform bits (I use the word "freeform", er, loosely.) Such interplay, you just don't get that anymore. Maybe Slint (the Nineties Television). Great gig, once in a lifetime sorta deal. I went to their next Vicar St gig about 8 months later on my own...shouldn't have, there was no magic.

Ah.... all you CLUAS readers have such good taste.

After reading this I went and dug out some of my Noo Yawk punk/rock'n'roll stuff and found some gems I hadn't listened to in a while that are not a million miles away from Television - namely Richard Hell and the Voidoids - Blank Generation and Jonny Thunders and the Heartbreakers - Like a Mother F***er. Now where did I leave that Les Paul Junior?

Yeah, Blank Generation is a great album. I love 'Down At The Rock And Roll Club'