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When Television’s Tom Verlaine died in 2023, he left behind a gargantuan legacy and, it turns out, a mammoth record collection. Discogs and the New York store Academy Records today announced that roughly 4,000 records from the Verlaine vinyl trove will soon be for sale. A batch will be made available online beginning June 26, followed by in-person sales at Academy’s Brooklyn location on July 10 and 11. The remainder of the collection will then be put up on Discogs come July 31.
According to a press release, the selections will include “[rare] pressings, deep cuts, jazz, avant garde, psych, rock, and international records.” Among those are Verlaine’s personal copies of Television’s Marquee Moon and their debut single “Little Johnny Jewel,” Nico’s Chelsea Girl, the 13th Floor Elevators’ I Have Always Been Here Before, Albert Ayler’s Bells, and Slint’s Spiderland.
“What’s interesting to me about Verlaine’s collection is how much more of an X-Ray it is than a mirror image,” Academy Records’ Cory Feierman said in a statement, “how much it maps a constant and active engagement with music rather than being filled with easily comparable or alike things to his own output. Tom seemed to approach his buying in more of a spirit of adventure and discovery than to knock down his own holy grails.”
Following his passing, Real Gone Music reissued Verlaine’s final three solo albums—1992’s Warm and Cool, 2006’s Around, and Songs and Other Things, also released in 2006. Earlier this year, his written and recorded archives, including unreleased music and unpublished poetry, were acquired by the New York Public Library
Revisit Jayson Greene’s Afterword column, Television’s Tom Verlaine Changed the Guitar for the Rock Underground.