Ironically, Television, which formed in 1973, were the band to initiate the Lower Manhattan club CBGB, which proved to be the key incubator for punk rock. According to legend, Verlaine and Lloyd were walking past the venue, saw owner Hilly Kristal outside and asked what kind of music the venue showcased. Told “Country, Bluegrass and Blues,” hence the club’s title, the pair replied that their band played something like that (it did not).
Yet the group secured a booking, other groups like the Ramones, Blondie and Talking Heads soon followed suit, and by 1975 CBGB was the hotbed of a scene and sound that would eventually revolutionize rock music.
Lloyd was born Richard John Alt on Oct. 25, 1951, in Pittsburgh, Lloyd moved with his mother to New York City as an infant. He grew up in Greenwich Village, took up the guitar at an early age and attended concerts at the legendary Fillmore East as a teen; his struggles with mental health and substance abuse also began at this time. He attended New York’s prestigious Stuyvesant High School but dropped out before graduation.
After living briefly in Boston and Los Angeles, he returned to New York and gravitated toward the burgeoning scene around punk forerunners the New York Dolls. Verlaine and his longtime friend Richard Hell had formed a band called the Neon Boys with drummer Billy Ficca, and, after being introduced through Terry Ork (who would later release Television’s first single, “Little Johnny Jewel” on his self named independent label), brought Lloyd into the band. Hell left in 1975 and was replaced by Blondie bassist Fred Smith, raising the band’s instrumental prowess significantly.
