IT’S hard to get a straight answer from Tom Verlaine, co-founder of the punk pioneers Television.

Ask him what he’s been up to since he put out his last album in 1992, and he says he’s been mending fence posts, claiming he’s crammed 53 into his apartment.

Ask him how he feels when people refer to him as a guitar legend.

“I feel like I have to get some almond ice cream,” he says.

He claims to not hear Television influences in bands of today – nearly 30 years after the famous album “Marquee Moon” was released – even though it’s clear post-punk bands from the Strokes to Franz Ferdinand rock firmly in the Television’s notesteps, particularly his and Richard Lloyd’s guitars.

The East Village rocker, performing tonight and tomorrow at the Bowery Ballroom, just released two new albums: one instrumental disc, “Around,” a deliciously moody album whose songs could be easily be the soundtrack to very different films, and “Songs and Other Things,” a more traditional noir-rock album.

Fence posts aside, in the last 14 years Verlaine’s continued to be an active musician – by going on tour with Patti Smith, writing indie-film soundtracks, squeezing in a few Television reunion shows (he prefers them in faraway places like Greece or Portugal), or just simply playing guitar in his apartment. He hints that we haven’t seen the last of Television.

“When I was writing these songs, I thought some would be good for Television,” he says.