When Tom Verlaine died in early 2023, those paying tribute were keen to proclaim his genius, as if it might not be obvious to anyone listening. And no one was more effusive than Red Hot Chilli Peppers‘ bassist Flea.
“I listened to Marquee Moon 1000 times,” claimed the man born Michael Peter Balzary. “And I mean listened, sitting still, lights down low, taking it all in. Awe and wonder every time. Will listen 1000 more.”
Now, thanks to Ty Burr, film critic for The Washington Post, Flea can speed up that process. For Burr has created a six-and-a-half-hour audio file that mashes 50 versions of Marquee Moon together as one, painstakingly editing various live and studio Verlaine solos together to create the epic Marquee Moons 1974 – 2019.
“Who asked for this?” asks Burr. “No one, not a soul, not even me until the idea rose up in my brain sometime in late October like a bubble of swamp gas or a midnight visit from the Golem.
“It’s a profoundly, even exhilaratingly stupid idea, a slap in the face of what the late Verlaine accomplished, which was to conjure the demon spark of inspiration night after night and year after year while playing a song he surely grew sick of yet whose back half was a blank sonic canvas he never tired of filling with newfound colours and detail.
“In my post-election slough of despond, this seemed the numbing agent required – this assemblage of samizdat music, a treasure chest of sounds you weren’t supposed to hear unless you were there, into a security blanket of noise to sustain me until such time as we could figure out the new rules of resistance.”
We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
In a world where the population can be divided into two distinct groups – those who’ve heard Marquee Moon, and those who haven’t – Burr’s project is yet another reminder that the former group have had their lives very much enhanced by the experience, and the latter have not. Now they can put that right, in just three hundred and ninety-five captivating minutes.
Marquee Moons 1974 – 2019 – YouTube 