The condolence tweets hit almost every minute: from Blondie, the Bangles, the Charlatans, from Steve Albini, Steve Wynn, from Robert Forster, who recently made a declaration of love to Tom Verlaine's Band Television in the "Guardian": "I was clear that I would never in my life be able to write such a sophisticated song as 'Venus'.

But that's why I wanted to try it.” And Robert Forster incorporated Tom Verlaine into one of the most uncomfortable Go Betweens songs, “When She Sang About Angels,” mocking the mannerisms and vanity of a Patti Smith who likes to sing about the star Kurt Cobain, but not about his friend and companion Tom Verlaine, who deserved it much more.

Patti Smith's husband Fred Smith has accompanied Tom Verlaine as a musician and producer since the early 1970s, and her daughter made Verlaine's death public at the age of 73: a close family friend has passed away after all.

When Verlaine's band Television debuted, everyone knew they were about to see the next big US rock stars.

None of the New York bands associated with the CBGB club had the same maturity as these lanky boys, who reflected their adopted home of New York with astonished eyes and amazed music.

Songs five times longer than the Ramones

On the one hand there were sharp, crystal-sharp guitar riffs and lyrics;

on the other hand, Verlaine allowed himself technically demanding solos that one would expect more from the superstars of the sixties and songs that were five times longer than the Ramones' longest song.

Robert Forster puts it succinctly: "It was punk's 'Stairway to Heaven'." Perhaps it was Verlaine's thin vocals, who also wanted to make a kind of trademark out of it, it seemed;

perhaps it was this ambiguity that Blondie or Talking Heads avoided early in their careers that made Television and later Tom Verlaine "just" a musician for musicians, an insider tip, a name for the initiated - and finally one almost completely forgotten.

It is precisely most of his solo records that have allowed Tom Verlaine to survive, apart from one or the other sound gimmick: an idiosyncratic songwriting, a natural technical finesse, the courage to be extravagant and the still almost childlike amazement at the world.

If, like me, you haven't thought about Tom Verlaine for a long time, listen to his instrumental album Warm & Cool or Television's debut album, Marquee Moon.

You'll see more than "the most beautiful neck in rock history," as Patti Smith once quipped.

You see a bygone era glowing up, catch a glimpse of an unfulfilled musical life.