Tom Verlaine - The Ritz, New York City, December 21 / December 22, 1984

Tom Verlaine - The Ritz, New York City, December 21 / December 22, 1984Uhh, who’s that creepy dude in the parking lot? Nosferatu? Slender Man?!! Oh wait, it’s just Tom Verlaine being Tom Verlaine. Yeah, we’re going to hang out with Tom a little while longer this week after listening to him at CBGB in 1976 yesterday. Hey, I’m in charge here. Today’s tapes are from eight years later across town at the Ritz! Verlaine didn’t play live a ton in 1984 (and he wouldn’t play live again until 1987), but you wouldn’t know it from the performances here, stretched across two wintry nights. He and his usual 1980s band (Fred Smith, Jay Dee Daugherty and Jimmy Ripp) are blazing throughout, giving the crowd some rare airings of the then-new Cover material, which would rarely be heard in the years to come — worthy stuff like “Let’s Go to the Mansion,” “Five Miles of You” and “Lindi-Liu.” The strange spoken word bits before each evening’s rendition of “Swim” are interesting, too. And of course,…