Television frontman Tom Verlaine’s personal 4,000-strong record collection has gone on sale.
The iconic guitarist passed away in January 2023 at the age of 73, and now his extensive archive of vinyl records is being made available to the public, offering fans a glimpse into the music taste of the trailblazing New York band.
The first batch of records became available through Discogs on Friday (June 26), with further titles set to be sold in person at Academy Records’ Banker Street location in Brooklyn on July 10 and 11.
Any remaining records will then return to Discogs on July 31. Purchases made through Discogs will include a certificate of authenticity confirming that the record came from Verlaine’s personal collection. Check out the collection here.
The collection spans jazz, avant-garde, garage rock, psychedelia and experimental, and includes Verlaine’s personal copies of Television’s debut single ‘Little Johnny Jewel’ and their landmark 1977 debut album ‘Marquee Moon’, alongside records by The 13th Floor Elevators, Nico, Albert Ayler, The Sonics, Love and Slint.
“What’s interesting to me about Verlaine’s collection is how much more of an X-ray it is than a mirror image,” Academy Records co-owner Cory Feierman said in a statement.
He added that the archive “maps a constant and active engagement with music”, saying Verlaine seemed to buy records “in more of a spirit of adventure and discovery than to knock down his own holy grails”.
Russ Ryan of Discogs said the records had come to Academy because Verlaine “trusted the shop”, adding that Verlaine had known Academy’s Mike Davis and Feierman for around 20 years.
“A lifetime of his digging is in these 4,000 records, and our job is to keep them in circulation rather than let them vanish into a vault,” he said.
Tributes were paid by a range of legendary artists in the aftermath of Verlaine’s death in 2023, including Michael Stipe, Flea, Kim Gordon and Steve Albini.
Patti Smith also paid tribute to him in an essay, writing: “There was no one like Tom. The love in his eyes and his turtle laugh.”
Television were one of the defining bands of the 1970s New York punk scene, emerging from CBGB alongside the likes of Smith, Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads. Their debut album ‘Marquee Moon’ is widely regarded as one of the most influential guitar records of the era.
The band released just one more album during their original run, 1978’s ‘Adventure’, before splitting that year. They later reformed in 1992 for a self-titled third album and continued to tour intermittently in the decades that followed.
Earlier this year, tributes were also paid to Television bassist and original Blondie member Fred Smith, who died in February at the age of 77.