Tom Verlaine's record collection is going on sale

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Fans of the late Tom Verlaine — and record collectors with deep crates and perhaps deeper pockets — will soon have a chance to own a piece of the influential musician's personal vinyl collection. 

Starting tomorrow (Friday), a selection of records from Verlaine's archive will be available for purchase via Discogs, with additional in-person sales planned next month at Academy Records in Brooklyn. (There's also an Academy Records outpost on 12th Street.) 

The collection reportedly includes roughly 4,000 LPs and singles spanning jazz, garage rock, psychedelia, experimental music, avant-garde recordings and other genres. The first batch goes on sale online on June 26. Additional titles will be available at Academy Records' Brooklyn location on July 10-11, before more records are added to Discogs later in the month. Records purchased through Discogs will come with certificates of authenticity.

Verlaine, a longtime East Villager who died in 2023 at age 73, emerged in the early 1970s as a central figure in the downtown music scene centered around CBGB. His band Television released Marquee Moon in 1977, an album that remains one of the most influential records of the punk and post-punk era. 

Interest in Verlaine's work remains strong. In January, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts announced that it had acquired his archive, a collection spanning roughly six decades that includes lyric drafts, correspondence, photographs, recordings and other materials documenting his career. 

Now, fans have another chance to connect with Verlaine's artistic life — this time through the records that helped shape his musical vision.

ICYMI: Tom Verlaine’s Downtown legacy enters the New York Public Library

Image via NYPL 

On Jan. 9, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts announced that it has acquired the archive of Tom Verlaine, the musician, poet and longtime New York presence best known as the frontman of Television. 

The collection spans roughly six decades of Verlaine's working life and fills about 40 linear feet. It includes lyric drafts, short stories, abandoned songs, correspondence, photographs, ephemera, and hundreds of hours of released and unreleased recordings — demos, rehearsals, and live material from the Neon Boys, Television, and Verlaine's solo years. 

Among the highlights: early 1970s handwritten lyric drafts for Marquee Moon and 145 personal notebooks and journals. 

Verlaine, a longtime East Villager who died in 2023 at age 73, emerged in the early 1970s as a central figure in the downtown scene orbiting CBGB. Television's 1977 debut, Marquee Moon, is widely regarded as one of the most influential rock albums ever released. Though commercial success largely eluded him, Verlaine's angular guitar style and literary sensibility left a deep mark on generations of artists. 

In a letter to the library, Patti Smith reflected on Verlaine's lifelong love of books and their shared hours in used bookstores, calling the New York Public Library "a more fitting place" for his papers. Library officials say the archive will help spark long-overdue scholarship on Verlaine's work and legacy. 

The collection now joins holdings connected to figures such as Lou Reed, John Cage and Arthur Russell at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which is located at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza ... within the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex.

Wednesday's parting shot

Photo by Daniel Efram 

The late Tom Verlaine's solo debut album from 1979 as seen in the window of Academy Records on 12th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue...

A tribute to Tom Verlaine on the Bowery

Someone left a thank-you note for Tom Verlaine outside the former CBGB space at 315 Bowery (now John Varvatos) ... quoting from "Marquee Moon." 

Not sure how long the note has been here. 

Verlaine, guitarist, frontman and co-founder of Television, one of the most influential acts of the CBGB scene in the late 1970s, died on Jan. 28 at age 73.

Life in the hive puckered up my night 

A kiss of death, the embrace of life 

Ooh, there I stand neath the Marquee Moon 

But I ain't waiting...