New York Dolls

I mainly remember liking the transitions from the "solemn" verse narrative to the frenetic chorus---and back again! Also recall that Johansen explained that he started out wanting to sing high---Byrds, Left Banke, Bealtes ballads---but as his voice changed, got settled into that rough baritone---but then he heard the Four Tops: " "Bernadette!" Hey, I can do that---"Bernadette!" So he worked with what he had, and always sounded (though I don't know if he mentioned this) like he was also influenced by Eric Burdon---couldn't really wail like EB on the chorus of "House of the Rising Sun," but that gruff blurt that Burdon was more known for---and he was sometimes taken as a dumbo bar band appropriator, although there were far worse---somebody in Rolling Stone said that the next Canned Heat album should be titled Yassuh Boss, because Bob The Bear Hite (not Al Wilson, who sounded like Skip James, eerie and deft); And Burdon kept finding his way to okay or better songs---incl. on Eric Is Here, arranged by Benny Golson and Horace Ott, jazz pros showing "horn rock" and brainy rock producers how to do it, without overdoing---and here Burdon adapted his sound to early covers of Randy Newman songs, other good stuff: still sounded like himself, but also, like, sensitive (enough).
So maybe Johansen eventually followed this example in his best solo work ("Frenchette," for inst), or even some of the more relaxed-larynx Dolls songs, like "Lonely Planet Boy." But when you've got that kind voice, and a big collection of old rock, r&b etc, it's tricky. Also if you come from that era, but not to let Justin Timberlake and other "tasteful" unoriginals off the hook.

kind *of* voice!

coasters is a great comparison. it reminds me a little of "shoppin' for clothes," which johansen has also covered -- a hapless but intrepid narrator who'll never have that jacket/girl but loves it/her more than anything, willing to jump out of the boiling pot, thumb down a whale, etc. it's a perfect song for the dolls to inhabit, with syl's sound effects, thunders' domination of that jungle riff, nolan's negotiation of the time shifts. for what it's worth it was written by an african american man and woman.

Best Dolls cover is There's Gonna Be a Showdown! That thing is incredible.

you'd best be at that dance down on 14th street, ya hear?

A friend tweeted this

Hearing that Sylvain Sylvain of the New York Dolls has passed. Nothing official yet but he’s been fighting cancer the last year.

Hoping it's not true.

It is. RIP.

:( RIP

I never had a sense of him like Thunders or David J. (or even Arthur Kane, after the documentary), but obviously he was crucial. A friend just told me we saw him once at the El Mocambo in Toronto, but honestly, I don't remember.

gutted

Even if it was *just* for keeping the Dolls in clothes & heels he is hall of fame ... everything I read he was v much their engine

what a loss :(

Love the Dolls - so much of my favorite music can be traced back to them.

RIP :(

From his FB page:

Sylvain Sylvain Mizrahi
Rest In Peace
February 14, 1951 ~ January 13, 2021

As most of you know, Sylvain battled cancer for the past two and 1/2 years. Though he fought it valiantly, yesterday he passed away from this disease. While we grieve his loss, we know that he is finally at peace and out of pain. Please crank up his music, light a candle, say a prayer and let’s send this beautiful doll on his way.

Please read this letter written for Syl by Lenny Kaye

SYL: An Appreciation

Lenny Kaye

Sylvain Sylvain, the heart and soul of the New York Dolls, bearer of the Teenage News, passed into his next astral incarnation on Wednesday, January 13, 2021.

Syl loved rock and roll. His onstage joy, his radiant smile as he chopped at his guitar, revealed the sense of wonder he must have felt at the age of 10, emigrating from his native Cairo with his family in 1961, the ship pulling into New York Harbor and seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time.

It was he who looked across Lexington Ave. and saw the sign for the New York Doll hospital. Syl and a high school friend, Billy Murcia, were in the rag trade then, the aptly named Truth and Soul, handknit sweaters with a side of rockattitude. Hooking up with another classmate, John Genzale, and then, as bands will, Arthur Kane, and David Johansen, and Jerry Nolan, they became a quasar in the rock firmament; embodying trash, glam, garage-to-punk, the ambisexual affirmation of music played louder.

His role in the band was as lynchpin, keeping the revolving satellites of his bandmates in precision. Though he tried valiantly to keep the band going, in the end the Dolls’ moral fable overwhelmed them, not before seeding an influence that would engender many rock generations yet to come.

The New York Dolls heralded the future, made it easy to dance to. From the time I first saw their poster appear on the wall of Village Oldies in 1972, advertising a residency at the Mercer Hotel up the street, throughout their meteoric ascent and shooting star flame-out, the New York Dolls were the heated core of this music we hail, the band that makes you want to form a band.

Syl never stopped.

In his solo lifeline, he was welcomed all over the world, from England to Japan, but most of all the rock dens of New York City, which is where I caught up with him a couple of years ago at the Bowery Electric. Still Syl. His corkscrew curls, tireless bounce, exulting in living his dream, asking the crowd to sing along, and so we will. His twin names, mirrored, becomes us.

Thank you Sylvain x 2, for your heart, belief, and the way you whacked that E chord. Sleep Baby Doll.

Great story:

RIP New York Dolls legend Sylvain Sylvain.

He guest DJed at my club Stay Beautiful in 2004. He told me, 30 secs from the end of a track, he'd run out of songs. From then on, I frantically chucked on NYC punk/glam tunes while he announced them like Murray The K.

Unforgettable. pic.twitter.com/j237IBEkBT

— Simon Price (@simon_price01) January 15, 2021

<3

I'm so old I bought "Too Much Too Soon" as a cutout LP in a drug store when I was buying everything that looked loud. I remember as a dumb preteen thinking it was like a punk Aerosmith and I was kinda right; that was because of Sylvain Sylvain. Thanks to him for the riffs and attitude.

I remember when Too Much Too Soon was impossible to find on CD, not unless you were willing to pay an a$$-load of money for a used copy. (The debut was easy, they even sold it through BMG Music Club.) When I finally got it, I blasted it pretty much non-stop.

Later on Clinton Heylin revealed that he helped Hip-O put together a "complete sessions" box set like the Stooges did with Funhouse through Rhino Handmade, but the project was ultimately cancelled.

Sylvain's memoir is pretty great. Surprised not to see it mentioned already in.the existing thread.

the first club show i ever attended (with fake proof) was the dolls in february 1975 -- one of their last shows before johnny & jerry left. red patent leather days. they blessed me with "teenage news," which i'd never heard. i've never been quite the same. syl was the heart of the band. he lent them their pathos. you got the sense that he was the only member who internalized their greatness and tragedy in real time. a mensch. miss you, syl.

Sylvain only cowrote three songs on their first albums, but I would call "Frankenstein" their best (if atypically grandiose).

They must also be the most famous international band to play in my neighbourhood of Weston - a week in 1976 at a pub called the Queensbury Arms that was demolished decades ago.

I saw a Sylvain Sylvain gig in 98 that reminds the most glorious, joyful, life-affirming show I've ever seen and in a funny bit of pre-internet info dissemination, one of the "opening acts" was a 30 minute VHS highlight reel of all those Dolls clips that are on Youtube now, and I hadn't seen any of it and was it big a deal!

― chr1sb3singer, Friday, 8 November 2019 15:20 (one year ago) link

I think about this show still all the time, it was so fun, he was a burst of color and funny and happy and we all were drunk singing "TRASH! Pick it UP!" at the top of our lungs and he probably hand a bedazzled beret on and it was just incredible

RIP

a week in 1976 at a pub called the Queensbury Arms

God, I haven't heard that name uttered in decades. Never got there myself. In the part of this thread that's hidden, I mentioned a friend who saw the Dolls in the early '70s with Rush opening.

I remember when Too Much Too Soon was impossible to find on CD, not unless you were willing to pay an a$$-load of money for a used copy. (The debut was easy, they even sold it through BMG Music Club.)

Have long wondered what was up with that. One of my luckiest finds was a sealed TMTS at CD Warehouse in 2001. The first CD copy I'd seen, and possibly the only one I'd see for years. I had just thought it was kinda hard to find until Hip-O Select put out theirs, noting on their site it had been OOP for several years.

The Dolls on Don Kirshner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uZQ7lgJijk

Hadn't seen this before, a live & loud "Personality Crisis" on The Midnight Special.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP5ngHRuoTI

There's like five people up front who are into it, and everyone else is waiting for Argent. Also note the roadie playing bass over in the shadows because Kane's hand was messed up at the time.

lookin' fine on television.

I think both were out of print for about a decade starting in the late '70s (at least in Canada). I bought the first as a British import in 1980 or so; my copy of the second album is Japanese from around the same time. In Stranded, Christgau was writing about a 1977 British reissue of both albums as a double. (I have terrible luck trying to post photos and photo links the last while, so just the URL.)

https://images.eil.com/large_image/NEW_YORK_DOLLS_NEW%2BYORK%2BDOLLS-264269.jpg

Those kids upfront screaming along on the Midnight Special are the real heroes

Shouts to Johnny T for even with 2-3" of teased hair and 3-4" of stacked heels is still being very obviously short

he was 3 inches taller than Syd
Johnny was 5’7 and Syd was 5’4

idk why i felt the need to explain that

In Stranded, Christgau was writing about a 1977 British reissue of both albums as a double

That's the Dolls vinyl I have. Interesting liner notes making no bones about how drugs & alcohol tore the band apart.

Both albums appeared on CD in the late '80s, but for reasons unknown the TMTS disc went out of print in the states sometime in the '90s I guess, and has had a weird reissue history since (Hip-O Select's limited/not limited online edition in the mid-'00s, and a remastered limited edition mini-LP from Culture Factory in the '10s).

Meanwhile the s/t stayed available as a budget title. I got one for a friend at Fry's for $5 about 5-6 years ago.

Hadn't seen this before, a live & loud "Personality Crisis" on The Midnight Special.

📹

There's like five people up front who are into it, and everyone else is waiting for Argent. Also note the roadie playing bass over in the shadows because Kane's hand was messed up at the time.

yeah that's peter jordan on bass. he was also subbing for arthur the night i saw them. his band stumblebunny put out a pretty good record back in the day.

Didn't he sub for Arthur more often than not?

this page does a fairly thorough accounting of their gigs and personnel changes:

http://www.fromthearchives.com/nyd/chronology.html

I was curious as to whether CNN had a story up--they do.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/15/entertainment/sylvain-sylvain-death-scli-intl/index.html

Would they have 10 years ago? Doubt it.

rolling stone interviews johansen on loss of sylvain:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/david-johansen-sylvain-sylvain-1115612/

I'm not big on latter-day performances, but a friends' brother (who saw them in 1974: "The few spectators there really didn't get the Dolls that night") posted a clip on FB of something he shot at a Burlington show in 2010. It's clear, Sylvain introduces the song, and Johansen throws flowers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CQtDl-fiYw

i enjoyed steve conte having to unlearn how to play guitar as he progressed in his thunders role. he sort of got it by the end. not quite though. he would still insert random thunderisms here and there, but there was nothing random about JT's playing. his parts might have sounded anarchic but they were through-composed. even if you watch those dolls videos up there he is more-or-less playing what he played on the records. his style was sui generis -- like a greek chorus. very conscious of the lyrics.

holy shit, how to age with dignity, i guess? from an old witness.

Revisiting some of their stuff this morning. I love this band, but I want to say they're better served by their obscure indie releases than the two major label albums that people are more likely to know. The live Paris album from 1974 is just f-ing fantastic. I'm not sure which release is the best, but if you stream it on Spotify, French Kiss '74 + Actress - Birth Of The New York Dolls sounds a LOT better than the Paris Burning release on the same service.

Glad to see A Hard Night's Day up on streaming services too, I love that CD. Stuff's been reissued in many configurations, but that one probably sounds best. No surprise given who put it out and how it was done by one of the guys at Battery Mastering (all Sony engineers who have done a ton of stuff for them).

Never listened to either of those, thanks for the tip!

This is sending me further down time travel rabbit hole I was already exploring.

yeah thx for the recommendation- excited to dig in!

Don't pick it up!

You're welcome! There's more stuff for diehard fans, but in terms of sound quality and the quality of the music, the 1973 studio demos produced by Paul Nelson (A Hard Night's Day) and the 1974 Radio Luxembourg show in Paris (French Kiss '74) are the best records out there by a wide margin.

The NYFF just announced the premiere of "Personality Crisis: One Night Only, Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi’s documentary featuring a man who, like Scorsese, is a New York institution, entertainer David Johansen, singer-songwriter of the 1970s glam punk groundbreakers the New York Dolls, and his reinvention as hepcat lounge lizard Buster Poindexter."

!

NY Daily News says film features features a 2020 Cafe Carlyle performance by Johansen,

Just came back from the film's second screening. (Premiere was Wednesday night at Alice Tully Hall, today was at Lincoln Center's Walter Reade Theater with a Q&A afterwards.) Contrary to the clips seen in the film, Johansen apparently isn't all that talkative, at least these days or at least when it comes to talking about his past. His daughter wound up interviewing him for the film (possibly due to the pandemic - they all took place at his home in various locations and from what I can tell, only his wife and daughter were around) and she said she was a little concerned that he'd offer up only monosyllabic responses. But he complimented the film, saying "it was a version of myself I can live with" and "in the wrong hands this could've been VERY sordid!" He also answered a few questions, remembering that his first encounter with Scorsese's work was going to an arthouse theater with Sylvain Sylvain in I think the LES (joking it was "clean") and watching Mean Streets. He said he may have smoked a joint beforehand, but when the film started, he honestly thought it was a documentary.

I love the Dolls but I don't know very much about Johansen. The film does capture what's presumably a full set. (They filmed two shows and wound up using all the footage since both shows used very different angles - Johansen complimented the DP Ellen Kuras saying she can get up really close with the camera and be easily ignored, which he considered a real talent.) Weaved throughout is the archival footage and interviews on his work and life, and it actually does make sense of his career. For example, he was in a band in high school, but it's his discovery and time with Charles Ludlam's Ridiculous Theatrical Company that gets far more attention and draws out the most vivid memories. To him, it was going to "heaven" after the hell of working in a dank basement where he discovered the costumes that would lead him to the Ridiculous Theater. In fact, it makes the Dolls cross-dressing more understandable. In his interviews he claims women's clothing was the only affordable clothing they could find that made them look like rock stars, so they went with it, but I don't think it's a stretch to say the idea of wearing those clothes felt more comfortable and organic after his time with Ludlam. (They even dug up one photo of a theatrical production where it looks like Johansen and at least one or two other men are on-stage wearing dresses.)

The film even makes his time with Buster Poindexter seem logical. The Carlyle show is supposed to be "Buster Poindexter doing the songs of David Johansen," which sort of explains why the setlist is heavy on torch songs (and why the rockers have a light lounge jazz arrangement, save the final number which revives the sound of the Dolls on "Personality Crisis"). But footage of the Buster Poindexter most probably know, looking slick and clean cut in an immaculate suit, doesn't show up until late, and it was supposedly a cabaret act he created because he was tired of touring and wanted a gig that he could do for his friends near home. During his solo tours before that, he was playing ice hockey rinks opening for metal bands (which he didn't like at all, mentioning they would call their magazines "books"). You get the feeling that it's not the rock but the theatrical elements of being in the New York Dolls that truly took hold of him. That's why something like Buster Poindexter is more palatable than the metal tours. (His Milos Forman story backs this up. He really wanted to star in Hair and Forman really wanted to cast him, but someone - Galt MacDermot? I forgot which, it's not a musical I actually like - refused, claiming he couldn't sing.)

Morrissey appears and he actually gives the best interview on the Dolls - this was archival, taken from the time he got them to reunite. This was also around the time I was introduced to Morrissey's solo work, and it was bittersweet remembering what that was like. A smart, witty guy who IIRC even made some cutting remarks about George W. Bush when he stopped by Chicago and gave an amusing reaction when some in the audience pushed back at his criticisms of Bush's policies. Feels like a lifetime ago.