a statement from Lloyd\u2019s family<\/a> to the New York Times. <\/p>\nLloyd\u2019s contributions to Television \u2014 a proto-punk band with intricate hailstorms of guitar \u2014 helped make them one of the city\u2019s most important if briefly tenured bands. In a time when peers such as the New York Dolls and Velvet Underground were upending rock and roll with glamour and arty disaffection, Television fulfilled the genre\u2019s promises of both swaggering virtuosity and restless reinvention. <\/p>\n
Lloyd, born Richard John Alt in Pittsburgh, moved to New York City with his mother and grew up in Greenwich Village. He attended Manhattan\u2019s acclaimed Stuyvesant High School, but dropped out to pursue music. <\/p>\n
Television formed in 1973 after Lloyd met front man Tom Verlaine, then-bassist Richard Hell and drummer Billy Ficca through Terry Ork, an Andy Warhol scenester who managed the legendary film bookstore and memorabilia shop Cinemabilia, where Verlaine and Hell worked. The band was an outlier at the grimy local country and bluegrass dive bar CBGB (the members had to convince owner Hilly Kristal to book them). Yet the group would help transform that club and Max\u2019s Kansas City into hubs for punk bands and the avant-garde such as Blondie, the Ramones and Talking Heads. <\/p>\n
While sharing little in common with dueling-guitar acts such as the Allman Brothers Band or \u201970s contemporaries the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, Television also drew its power from the preternatural rapport between Verlaine and Lloyd\u2019s instruments. With its oblique lyricism and jazz-infused chords, layered over a twitchy rhythm section and 10-minute-long jams, Television was unlikely to be a commercial hit. <\/p>\n
Yet the band impressed peers such as Lou Reed and David Bowie, and signed to the major label Elektra. Its 1977 debut LP \u201cMarquee Moon\u201d is universally considered a rock masterpiece, landing at No. 107 on Rolling Stone\u2019s ranking of the top albums of all time. The dramatic trills of \u201cVenus\u201d and moaning peals of \u201cTorn Curtain\u201d showcased Lloyd\u2019s natural guitar language with Verlaine, adding up to an unmistakable and irreplaceable sound. <\/p>\n
The band released one follow-up, 1978\u2019s \u201cAdventure.\u201d But Lloyd, who had long struggled with mental health issues, was also suffering from drug addiction, and conflicts with Verlaine led to the band\u2019s breakup. <\/p>\n
Lloyd would go on to have a robust solo career, with nine albums under his own name, and performances on records by Matthew Sweet and John Doe of the punk band X. Television briefly reunited to perform at the 1992 Glastonbury Festival, and released a new self-titled album the same year.<\/p>\n
Beyond its own career, Television became a key inspiration for Sonic Youth and Geese, which shared Television\u2019s downtown panache and coils of guitar noise.<\/p>\n
Lloyd\u2019s survivors include his wife, Sheila, his brother, Eric and his son, Dylan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Lloyd, the fiery guitarist of the influential New York rock band Television, has died. He was 75.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[199774,1409,54353,59028,48,52,51,47,50,49,44271,199773,89100,199770,10728,199769,660,4509,315,199772,199771],"class_list":["post-522492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-arty-disaffection","tag-city","tag-guitar","tag-guitarist","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-new-york-times","tag-nyc-rocker-television","tag-peer","tag-proto-punk-band","tag-punk-band","tag-richard-lloyd","tag-rock","tag-television","tag-time","tag-top-album","tag-verlaine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}