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Tom Verlaine is justly celebrated and regarded as one of rock's best and most innovative guitarists who has a gift for improvised guitar solos and interplay with other like-minded guitarists, best demonstrated by his work in the seminal NYC band Television with Richard Lloyd. His solo albums and songs are much less consistent, but also show his talents in spots. At the same time, Verlaine's songs are often idiosyncratic, whimsical, inscrutable, and almost determinedly anti-commercial, much like his interviews and persona, severely limiting his audience and sales of his recordings and concert tickets and have restricted Verlaine to fringe/cult artist status. "Flash Light", first released in 1987, represented a significant change in his songcraft and album production. Almost all of its songs were melodic and energetic with some actual hooks and beats and relatively effervescent; the abstract quotient was also markedly reduced, although not eliminated, and over half of the tracks would not have been out of place on pop-rock radio. Some songs, notably "The Scientist Writes A Letter", "A Town Called Walker", "Song", and "At 4 A.M.", have lyrics that communicate directly to the listener with intelligence and emotional resonance. Verlaine's renowned electric guitar playing fortunately did not suffer, and all of the songs on "Flash Light" featured innovative, intelligent, energetic guitar work that compares favorably to his playing on Television's seminal albums and his solo recordings. The guitar playing is not superficial flash or shredding, though, like the playing of many better-known guitar virtuosos, but services the songs well. The emphasis on good songcraft combined with Verlaine's uniquely excellent guitar work resulted in an album of music that's both aurally attractive and intelligently rewarding to listen to. Its listenability does not detract from its intelligence and innovation, and the album is both immediately enticing like top-40 pop songs and intelligently innovative, and rewards repeated listens. However, for reasons unclear to me and despite being issued by I.R.S. Records, a relatively artist-friendly label that was also effective at record and artist promotion, "Flash Light" continued the Verlaine pattern of minimal sales and notice, and soon went out of print, with I.R.S. dropping Verlaine.
[Media profiles of Verlaine and interviews with bandmates, ex-managers, record company executives, and others who have worked with Verlaine indicate he has varying degrees of being difficult to work with and a lackadaisical, even self-destructive attitude towards his recording and concert career, which may have contributed to the commercial failure of "Flash Light" and perhaps I.R.S. electing to drop Verlaine after only 1 album instead of trying to develop him over 2-3 albums.]
I stumbled on a used I.R.S. cassette of "Flash Light" in late 1993 and, despite its low-fidelity and worn tape, it immediately engaged me and I played it incessantly in my car. I searched hard but fruitlessly for a used or new CD copy; I even began to doubt the CD actually existed despite media evidence to the contrary. I was happy to find a near-mint vinyl copy of "Flash Light" in 1994 (along with a pristine copy of the Records' debut album [featuring "Starry Eyes"] that featured the 4-track 45-rpm EP of covers) in a San Antonio record store and promptly made a high-quality cassette recording of it that I played repeatedly in both my car and at home. In 1998, I found a Fontana CD import of "Flash Light" that I purchased despite its $20 price. Although not directly useful to me, I am elated that Collectors' Choice Music (CCM) reissued "Flash Light" on CD in 2006, along with Verlaine's eponymously-titled solo debut, which is almost as good as "Flash Light"; I only wish they had reissued it before I bought the import CD, as the list price is very reasonable at $12-13. I bought it anyway as a magazine suggested Verlaine wrote liner notes for the CCM reissue, and was mildly disappointed that the CCM reissue featured no liner notes or additional recording information. For such a momentous reissue, I believe CCM should have featured thoughtful liner notes from Verlaine or a Television bandmate (Richard Lloyd would have been ideal) and bonus tracks from the "Flash Light" recording sessions (the "Cry Mercy Judge" single featured non-album b-sides and I suspect other "Flash Light" tracks exist, including alternate versions of its songs). However, even this bare-bones reissue should be purchased by anyone who likes intelligent, innovative, guitar-driven pop-rock.
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