learning from richard

Ed Koch died today, and his passing ties in with something I’ve been wanting to write about all week but haven’t had the chance, until now…  I did something very cool for myself two weeks ago. Let me backtrack and say that I dabble a bit in the Facebook. I’m definitely not one of those people who has 10,000 Facebook friends, but I dabble. There are, however, very few people among my Facebook friends who I know personally. This is in large part because I’m a misanthropic shut-in and, by extension, I don't have very many friends in my real life. But one thing that makes the Facebook fun for me, other than stalking ex-girlfriends and feeling giddy upon discovering that they’re fat and divorced, is that one can become friends with cultural icons and famous or semi-famous people. For instance, I’m Facebook friends Dwight Twilley, Earl Slick, Jered Weaver, James Ellroy, Ian Masters…  Some of these folks are on the Facebook seemingly every waking moment of every day, while others have nothing more than shadowy Facebook pages that get updated maybe once every six or eight months. It doesn’t matter. It’s just fun for me to know that I have some (albeit tenuous) relationship with people I admire and who’d otherwise be completely inaccessible…. One Facebook friend of mine who falls into this category is the great Richard Lloyd, best known as one half of what is arguably the greatest guitar duo ever, his counterpart being Tom Verlaine, the band being Television…

So I’m on the Facebook a few weeks back and Richard Lloyd posts a status update informing his friends that he is available to give guitar lessons over Skype. Wow! Those of you who are actual friends of mine know that for the past year and a half, ever since I had my heart chewed up and spit out like just so much Coppenhagen (just a pinch between your teeth and gums, a little dab’ll do ‘ya), I’ve been engaged in an intense study of the guitar.  Other than my cats and my sister, guitar has become the only thing that matters to me. Every day of my life for the past 18 months has been structured around making time to play and practice and learn. I take fingerstyle lessons with some snooty kid who was classically trained at Cal Arts. I take theory lessons at Pasadena City College. I take regular playing lessons with a 60-something shriveled-up rocker who I’ve unfortunately never seen in a shirt that wasn’t a tank top, kind of like Waddy Wachtel, but with more blue veins and unsightly flab out there for all to see.

It’s difficult to assimilate all the information I’m taking in from these teachers, but I don’t care.  I just wanna immerse myself in it. It’s an obsession, but I’m a naturally obsessive person, so why fight it? …And so now here’s a chance to take lessons with Richard Fucking Lloyd!  I send him an email. He writes me back right away. I agree to the terms and we set up a time.  In the days leading up to our first lesson, I’m a nervous wreck.  How am I gonna prevent myself from going to pieces when Richard Lloyd is on my computer screen and talking to me directly?  I’ve seen Television three times in my life, all of them reunion concerts of one sort or another because the band appeared on the scene several years before I would have been old enough to go to CBGB or the Bottom Line, and they were already disbanded by the time I’d come of age.  The first time I saw Television was in the early 90s, very shortly after moving to LA. They played at the Roxy on Sunset. The show was in support of their now-deleted and highly underrated comeback album, which is self-titled.  The show was a bit of a disappointment for me because I could not hear Lloyd’s guitar, and Lloyd is the reason I listen to Television.  I next saw them about ten years later at UCLA, and even though they only played about five or six songs, Lloyd was the star of the show. I managed to work my way up to the stage and stood right underneath him.  Total bliss.  The third time I saw them was a few years later at a place on Hollywood Blvd called the Music Box.  Again, a very good show, though maybe not quite as good as the performance at UCLA… I’ve also been a big admirer of Lloyd’s excellent solo albums and the session work he’s done for guys like Matthew Sweet.

  …The day of the lesson finally comes. My hand is shaking as I type in the appropriate contact info. And then bang! There he is. Richard Lloyd! He’s a little bit older, as am I, but a very cool cat. He’s funny as hell, and staggeringly knowledgeable about both the mystical and mathematical properties of the guitar.  Our lesson was scheduled for 90 minutes, but we were still going strong after more than two hours.  And it flew by.  I didn’t want it to end.

…You may be wondering what this has to do with the late Ed Koch. Well, although Television had already been on the New York club scene for several years prior to the 1977 release of Marquee Moon, I associate them with that year, which I believe also happens to be when Koch began his campaign for mayor of NYC.  I know I sound like an old fart saying this, but New York was so much better back then – dirty, gritty, pulsing with life, an episode of Kojak come to life.  Television’s music tapped into the soulful ethos of that era, and I tend to feel very nostalgic when I hear it now.  All things must pass, but I really do miss the New York of Marquee Moon and Mayor Koch.  But now at least I can recapture some of that long-lost energy with the once-a-week lessons I’ll be taking with Richard Lloyd.  My next lesson is tomorrow.  I can’t wait. He has so much to teach me, and he’s an extremely gifted communicator. He’s gone from being my hero to my teacher, but he’s still my hero more than anything else…