Picture it: mid-70’s, and a scuzzy club in New York City called CBGB is packed wall-to-wall with people mesmerized by a skinny, scraggly haired twenty-something year old kid playing a pinstriped Stratocaster guitar in a style they’ve never heard anything quite like before; a sound that mixes the newly-minted punk rock with jazz. That kid is Richard Lloyd, and his band is Television; who would release their debut album Marquee Moon in 1977 - which is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential rock albums of all time - and their follow-up album Adventure in 1978 before splitting up. Although the band later reunited in 1992, released a self-titled third album, and toured sporadically until frontman Tom Verlaine’s death in early 2023.
Lloyd, who vicariously learned to play guitar from Jimi Hendrix via Hendrix protégé Velvert Turner, began his solo career with the release of his 1979 critically-acclaimed debut album Alchemy, and has since released eight more solo albums, a memoir titled Everything Is Combustible: Television, CBGB’s and Five Decades of Rock and Roll, and has worked as a producer and studio musician with such notable names as Rocket From The Tombs, Matthew Sweet, John Doe (of the band X), Stephan Eicher, and Jim Neversink, among many others.
And on October 16th, a scant 9 days before his 73rd birthday, you have the chance to catch the living legend in person in a small club setting when Richard Lloyd brings his solo band to Zanzabar for a set that will mix several of his amazing solo tunes with a few Television classics as well.
Opening the show is Letters of Acceptance - the Louisville-Lexington hybrid band that has been called “One of the best indie power pop bands out there - KY or otherwise,” and who’s “knack for writing catchy, hook-filled song after song is uncanny” has been praised in these very pages of LEO Weekly, (by this very writer, nonetheless). Their track “Statues of You” from Shadow Problems 1 was one of my top picks for best local songs in 2023, and their track “Weight in Pretending” from Shadow Problems 3 is already in line to be one of my top picks for 2024. So needless to say, this is a band you really need to catch!
The Richard Lloyd Group and Letters of Acceptance play Zanzabar on Wednesday, October 16 at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $22 in advance/$25 day of show and can be purchased through Zanzabar’s website: zanzabarlouisville.com. For more on Richard Lloyd, visit richardlloyd.com. For more on Letters of Acceptance, visit lettersofacceptance.org
