The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham news and links for Thursday, February 17

Good morning and happy Thursday, hoddlers.

For those of you who don’t click on the comments icon when clicking on these hoddles, you probably have noticed a daily music link embedded at the end of my rambling.

Yes, that is fitzie’s track of the day. What the heck is this all about?

I have been obsessed with music for a very long time and grew up listening to classic rock play on the radio in my dad’s car (I might have known the lyrics to Free Bird before the Star Spangled Banner).

But as I got older I developed my own musical tastes. Sure, classic rock is still a big part of me, but I will listen to almost every genre under the sun. So much of that is because of my dad’s JC Penny turntable that he handed down to me. The device is over sixty years old, but it’s still kickin’.

And I figured to myself, “Hey, what could be better than listening to new music for the first time on vinyl?” That pretty much canceled out any classic rock tracks. That’s partly how I discovered Television.

It’s also a Television song that I’d like to share with you all today: Marquee Moon.

There are some songs that stick with you long after first hearing them, songs that break the mold on how music can be structured. Heck, The Ramones turned music completely upside down. So did the New York Dolls.

Television were part of the same New York punk/new wave scene as those bands - and as Talking Heads, Blondie, Patti Smith and others. That centralization of musical shapeshifting from that time transformed how we define music today.

But Television were different, especially Marquee Moon. Take a look at The Ramones, for example. Most of their songs were three minutes or less. Television’s Marquee Moon clocks in at 10:40. That’s crazy for a punk song! Does that make them post-modern-punk? Art punk? It isn’t something easily definable.

Then there are the interlocking guitars, a hallmark of Television’s musical style. It pretty much obliterates the whole lead/rhythm guitar kind of thing, and it brilliantly is on display in Marquee Moon.

This group wasn’t that hardcore either. The Dolls and The Ramones would romp, Talking Heads would spasm, Blondie would strut. Television would linger.

Marquee Moon is a slow burn as Tom Verlaine slow-walks through a Lower East Side evening. You have to wait until after the third chorus, roughly five minutes in, when Tom Verlaine plays his five-minute guitar solo that eventually reaches its celestial crescendo.

It’s a brilliant song, and Television were a brilliant band.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Marquee Moon by Television

And now for your links:

Everton fan banned for 3 years after racially abusing Burnley winger Dwight McNeil

FA charges Manchester United after players surrounded referee during match versus Brighton

Jack Pitt-Brooke ($$): Is Mauricio Pochettino finally taming the PSG circus?

Repeated heading and accidental head impacts ‘change blood patterns in brain’, according to study

USWNT’s Ashley Hatch vies for regular spot in national team during SheBelieves Cup

Reading FC ended its losing streak with a drab 0-0 draw against relegation rivals Peterborough