When Richard Lloyd was just a little boy, he made a wish, as recounted in his memoir Everything Is Combustible: Television, CBGB's, And Five Decades Of Rock 'N' Roll:
"I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up - a renowned electric guitar player who made an irrevocable impact on rock 'n' roll history. This got a lot of laughs, but my wish was formed and it never changed."
Lloyd goes on at great length about the power of wishes in his book, and with good reason. As a member of Television - and a vital player on one of rock's greatest albums, Marquee Moon - his came true. On Friday, January 26, Lloyd will read from his autobiography and take questions about his remarkable life at Hoboken's Little City Books. Even better, Lloyd will team up with one-time bandmate Jim Mastro for a few songs as part of the event.
As its sub-title suggests, Lloyd's book looks back at his days in Television, his role in kick-starting the NYC punk rock scene at CBGB, and his subsequent solo career. And as part of that period of his life, Lloyd writes with brutal frankness about his decades-long addictions to alcohol and heroin. But this is far from the typical rock 'n' roll memoir. For one thing, it starts - literally - with his birth, which Lloyd claims he can remember.
"I always ask people what their earliest conscious memories are when I meet them," said Lloyd, speaking from his home in Chattanoogah. "And then I ask them what they wished for when you were a kid. What do you remember wishing for when you blew the candles out on your birthday cake? Did you make a wish, and did you think it would come true?"
Blessed with an eidetic memory, Lloyd wrote the book by telling stories into a computer and letting voice transcription software translate it into text, making it read almost like an oral history. It's rich with detail, going back to his earliest memories. "I remember things as looking out from the inside, instead of looking down at myself," he said. "I remember the tactile and the odors and sights and sound. I can still see my crib in my mind's eye and climbing up it. I can remember events from when I was a little baby. That happens to some people. A lot of people think they remember things because they've seen pictures of themselves, memories can be falsified very easily."
"People call it a photographic memory but I can remember conversations verbatim that I had many, many years ago, so it's an auditory memory as well as visual" Lloyd continued. "I can remember when I was four or five closing my eyes and seeing how close I could bring my hand to a wall without actually touching it. See if there was any vibration I could feel without actually touching it. Did you ever look down at your nose and try to figure out which eye you're looking at it through? And then switch it? I used to do that as a little kid."
If you're looking for details like what effects pedal Lloyd played on "Venus" or what his bandmate Tom Verlaine was wearing when the two of them encountered Hilly Krystal installing the canopy over CBGB, you won't find it in this book. Lloyd spends more time talking about his own unique philosophy of life, which includes looking at every experience as an adventure, whether it was playing to a packed club with his band or flatlining in the hospital after a drug overdose. No good, no bad... just adventures.
"I'm a weird guy. I've always been weird. Not meant for baby games, like 'I am wealthy. I am gorgeous. And I'm loved by everybody.' These are games that people play," Lloyd said. "'I am powerful.' Wow. I'm not interested in those kinds of games. Games that are the debasement of ourselves. Our baser instincts. The id. The guy who'd take an ice cream cone from somebody else's hand and start eating it? Mine, mine, mine. A lot of people think ego is the problem, I think the id is the problem. I never identified very much with this world even though I'm in it."
A fun part of the book comes when the teenage Lloyd winds up wandering backstage at the shows of some of his idols, hobnobbing with the likes of Jimi Hendryx and Buddy Guy, experiences that most rock fans would kill for. "They never had to walk in, I supposed, and keep their mouth shut," Lloyd said. "Make yourself invisible, that's the secret. I didn't get noticed, I'd blend in with the walls. So I got backstage a lot."
He also got high a lot, and by the time he was in Television, Lloyd was shooting heroin on a regular basis, an addiction that plagued him for decades. But while Lloyd never flinches at discussing the dark side of drugs - at one point, he was so down-and-out that he turned tricks as a male prostitute - there's always the sense in his stories that drugs and the bliss they could bring could be pretty cool.
"They were cool," Lloyd said. "Using drugs, we became criminals and explorers and mystics and psychedelic warriors and doctors and chemists. You take a drug and you're all those things. It was very exciting. At the time, you were either a jock or a nerd or a head. And I decided I was going to be a head. They'd show us those movies like Reefer Madness in school and it just got us wound up to get high, they never stopped anybody from using drugs, I don't think. Drugs were a sociological event of enormous proportions, you can't really claim that now. We had love-ins and be-ins and stoned-ins. To be our age at that time, it was the way to go."
Lloyd hit bottom and became clean and sober in the Eighties, and looks at those days with mixed emotions. "You do something for 30 years and you feel like you should get a pat on the back or a retirement package, not cirrhosis, pancreatitis and eczema," he joked. "It's in your bones, but it's time to retire eventually."
A few years ago, Lloyd lost both his apartment and his longtime studio to increased rents and decided he'd had enough. These days he lives in Chattanooga, where he has a band with some local musicians. "What do I miss about the city? I miss the pace," he said. "I don't miss it very much though. What's to miss? You get knocked down walking down the street because it's so crowded. Or you're playing rents that are obscene. But I'm back there all the time anyway. I'll be back here doing some Northeast dates in April. "I'll be at the Bowery Ballroom on April 6."
IF YOU GO:
Richard Lloyd will be signing and reading from his autobiography "Everything Is Combustible," on Friday, January 26 at 7 p.m. at Little City Books (100 Bloomfield Street, Hoboken.) After a reading, Lloyd will perform a short set with Jim Mastro and Vinny DeNunzio. For ticket availability, visit www.littlecitybooks.com.