Television - Marquee Moon

This album wasn't really submitted to me, but it came about from a conversation I had with my friend Elijah, who drums for Medicine Hat rock band Mount Royal. I was explaining that I had started a blog that tried to bring attention to awesome drummers on unknown albums, or underrated drummers on influential and important albums that no one ever talks about. He cut right in.

"Oh, you mean like Marquee Moon by Television."

That's exactly what I meant. Marquee Moon had been on my Itunes for years and found its way onto my Ipod frequently enough, but I had never really paid attention to the drums, I just like it. It always comes up as one of the early examples of Post Rock. The guitar playing on it is fascinating, and it's finding its way into more and more music libraries as time goes on.

Drumming wise, it's a perfect example of how what you decide to play makes the difference from just another good record with good songs to influential masterpiece. Drums can turn rock songs into jazz songs, metal songs into country songs or basically any other genre by changing nothing but the beats. This record would have been great regardless, but Billy Ficca really contributed to its designation as early post rock.

Ficca plays around with tom beats and disco beats (See No Evil), syncopated snares (Venus) and eventually psych style, cymbal heavy rock beats (Friction). It's all got a very flowing feel to it, and when we get to 10 minute title track, we get a real taste of what Ficca is capable of. He constantly changes feel and includes way more drum rolls than on previous tracks. He holds back sometimes for the guitars to shine, then shows his style during brief rave ups, or the build up towards the end. He throws is ride bells all over the place, and huge snare rolls that really bring the song a lot more power.

The title track serves as the peak of the mountain, the next tracks play around with off time stops and riffs (Elevation), and sixties style pop drumming (Prove It), but they don't really match up to his playing on the title track.

Television were really in a league of their own with this record, and thankfully due to those endless lists that magazines publish every ten years (Top 500 albums of all time, top 100 most influential records, etc..) Marquee Moon will be available for generations to come. And while it's mainly hailed for it's guitar playing, I'm sure some drummer somewhere will pick it up too.

Audio/Visual Evidence: Marquee Moon (part one, part two), See No Evil