When news broke over the weekend that Richard Lloyd had died, the loss reverberated straight through to the modern bands still working in the shadow of his clean, interlocking fretwork. Lloyd, whose work alongside Tom Verlaine in Television helped redefine the vocabulary of late seventies rock, passed away on Saturday at his residence in Tennessee at the age of 75. A few states north, Brooklyn quintet Geese were already on stage in Pennsylvania, processing the news in real time.
Geese were playing Saturday night at The Fillmore in Philadelphia, the opening date of a two-night stand on their 2026 North American tour. Mid-set, singer Cameron Winter stopped the room to make a brief dedication to Lloyd. Moving directly out of their original track, 2122, the group launched into an impromptu take on Television's 1978 track, Ain't That Nothin'.
Drawn from Television's second full-length record, Adventure, the song has always stood apart for its springy, upbeat drive, offering a warmer counterbalance to the tense architecture of the band's debut. Geese kept that rhythm section locked down, matching the energetic bounce and clean momentum of the original recording. What shifted was the vocal perspective. Where Verlaine originally delivered the track with a nervous, dry agility, Winter leaned into a lower, heavier register. The brooding cadence gave the performance a mournful gravity, reshaping a lively piece of post-punk into a quiet memorial.
The choice to pull from Television's catalog was neither random nor opportunistic. Geese have frequently grappled with their debt to the Bowery pioneers. During their Geesefest residency in 2024, the band performed Television's sprawling 1977 masterwork, Marquee Moon, in its entirety. Speaking to interviewers the following year, the musicians addressed the constant comparisons critics made between the two acts. While they welcomed the flattery, they also explained the conscious restraint required to keep their own work distinct. They spoke about monitoring their rehearsals specifically to ensure their interlocking guitars never tilted into outright theft of signature passages, like those found on Guiding Light.
Lloyd's death follows a period of serious illness. Public reports from August disclosed that the guitarist had been diagnosed with bile duct cancer, leading Television to turn to listeners to help fund his medical treatments. His passing comes after a brutal sequence of bereavements for the group and its followers. Verlaine died in January 2023 at 73, while bassist Fred Smith died in February of this year at 77. With Lloyd gone, nearly the entire instrumental foundation of those classic records has vanished within three years.
Online, peers and admirers were quick to mark the guitarist's importance. Johnny Marr, whose shimmering rhythm parts in The Smiths drew heavily from Television's dual-guitar dynamics, shared his memories of Lloyd over the weekend. Songwriter Lloyd Cole also posted words of respect, pointing to the understated authority that Lloyd brought to his instrument over a career spanning nearly fifty years.
Geese finished their second night at The Fillmore on Sunday before packing up for a pair of concerts in Boston, Massachusetts. Their brief pivot into Ain't That Nothin' served as a reminder that Lloyd's legacy is not just preserved on vinyl, but actively sustained by the younger bands still trying to unravel what he played.
