Rewind: New York Dolls - New York Dolls (1973)

On this day  in musical history Mercury Records released the Debut Album from the New York Dolls.

Much maligned when it was released it is regarded these days as somewhat of a classic. It's one of those albums that surely inspired a lot of the early Punk bands and is considered to be one of the best Debut Albums ever.

The album was recorded over the space of eight days and the band had no real idea what they were going to do when they began recording and opted for songs that they considered had been received well during their live performances.

Although it was released in the States on this day back in 1973 here in the UK we would have to wait until 19th October 1973 for Mercury to release it here.

In a rave review for NME, Nick Kent said the band's raunchy style of rock and roll was vividly recorded by Rundgren on an album that, besides Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power (1973), served as the only one "so far to fully define just exactly where 1970s rock should be coming from".



In 101 Albums That Changed Popular Music (2009), Chris Smith wrote that the New York Dolls pioneered punk's aesthetic of amateurish musicianship on the album, which undermined the musical sophistication that had developed over the past decade in popular music and had been perfected months earlier on Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (1973). In The Guardian's list of "1000 albums to hear before you die", the newspaper credited the record for serving as "an efficacious antidote to the excesses of prog rock".


All songs except Pills (Bo Diddley) were written by the band and it's an album loaded with cracking tunes right from the off with Personality Crisis to the very end with Jet Boy. Many of the songs have been covered down down through the years I especially like Joan Jett's Personality Crisis and Sonic Youth also did a pretty tidy acoustic version of it as well. The Pastels did Lonely Planet Boy. Morrissey has done Trash in an almost Rockabilly style (he has also done Subway Train - a part of it anyway as an introduction to Everyday is Like Sunday and also Human Being from Too Much Too Soon), also The Panic Buttons released it. Dee Dee Ramone and The Lurkers had both done Pills inspired by the Dolls version. The New Bomb Turks have covered Bad Girl. Electric Frankenstein recorded Frankenstein (Orig) for their We Will Bury You Project.

 New York Dolls - New York Dolls

Mercury

Produced by Todd Rundgren
Released 27th July 1973
US Chart #116

Tracklist

A1 Personality Crisis
A2 Looking For A Kiss
A3 Vietnamese Baby
A4 Lonely Planet Boy
A5 Frankenstein (Orig.)
B1 Trash
B2 Bad Girl
B3 Subway Train
B4 Pills
B5 Private World
B6 Jet Boy

New York Dolls
    David Johansen – gong, harmonica, vocals
    Arthur "Killer" Kane – bass guitar
    Jerry Nolan – drums
    Sylvain Sylvain – piano, rhythm guitar, vocals
    Johnny Thunders – lead guitar, vocals

Additional personnel
Buddy Bowser – saxophone
Todd Rundgren – additional piano, Moog synthesizer
Alex Spyropoulos – piano

Singles on New York Dolls

Trash / Personality Crisis

Mercury

USA
Released: July 1973

Personality Crisis / Trash

Mercury

Sweden

1973

Jet Boy / Vietnamese Baby

Mercury

UK

November 1973

(Picture Cover from Netherlands Release)

The Music of Johnny Thunders

(Photo by Kees Tabak)

Someone dropped me a line a few days ago asking the question why I only ever seem to post about old music and old musicians and dead musicians! Can you believe that? I thought I'd tackle that question here as I post another bunch of old music by a dead musician!

Firstly the old music, well, a lot of it was actually new music once upon a time, especially when I was a kid (there were some artists I listened to back then who had already passed out of the world) and a lot of it formed the soundtrack of my young life. I feel I shouldn't need to apologize for keeping the memory of good "old music" alive!

 

Also some of these older artists, who are still pretty much alive, are making great new music as well, with a lot of them sounding much better than they have done so for years and it's a good thing to turn the spotlight on it and them.

As to the dead musicians, what can I say? Death is one of the only certainties in life, like taxes! It seems the respectful thing to do in honouring the life work of a musician to keep all that he has done out in the public so it will not be forgotten. Again, there really is no need to apologize for such a thing I think!

This brings me to Johnny Thunders. A lot of people are just prepared to write him off as "just another mixed up junkie" (to borrow a line from a song by The Boys' Terminal Love) but in doing so miss out on a wealth of brilliant music stretching back to the early 1970s when he was in the New York Dolls, to the mid to late 70s when he was rocking it with The Heartbreakers and then into the 80s and early 90s when he was doing various band projects but also out performing on his own. I've included an album of each period below. Enjoy.

 

Today is the anniversary of his death in New Orleans back in 1991. He apparently died from drug related issues but some have contested that there was foul play at work because the levels of drugs in his system were not regarded as fatal according to the autopsy. The autopsy also revealed that he had advanced Leukemia. Depsite the efforts of his family to get the New Orleans Police Department to re-investigate Johnny's death, it still remains a bit of a mystery.

Thirty six hours before his death Johnny Thunders was recording for the last time. He was with Die Toten Hosen laying down Born to Lose for their up and coming Learning English Lesson 1 album that featured many old school punks singing their songs with the band (there doesn't appear to be any of the album on You Tube apart from the track they did with Ronnie Biggs, so apologies for not sharing anything from it).

(New York Dolls)

New York Dolls

Mercury Records

27th July 1973

Produced by Todd Rundgren

 

L.A.M.F.

Track Records

3rd October 1977

Produced by Speedy Keen and Daniel Segunda

Hurt Me

New Rose Records

1983

Produced by Johnny Thunders and Christopher Giercke

Alphabet Beats #097: N is for....New York Dolls

N is for....

 

 

When the story of Punk is written the timeline always goes back to the early 1970's and a band that combined the glam of Alice Cooper and the sound of scuzzy rock 'n' roll and whilst they officially only released two albums at the time, their sound was the template for many that rose up later in the decade.

 

The New York Dolls returned to the business back in 2004 playing at the Royal Festival Hall, London as part of Meltdown currated that year by Morrissey. New music followed as did tragedy. Original NY Dolls Billy Murcia died in 1972, Johnny Thunders died in 1991, Jerry Nolan died in 1992, and Arthur "Killer" Kane sadly passed away 22 days after the Reunion show in London. David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain have continued to work together and add musicians for touring etc, past members have included Sam Yaffa (Hanoi Rocks), Frank Infante (Blondie), Gary Powell (The Libertines), and Steve Conte (Michael Monroe Band) to name but a few.

 

Click on the links to get the full flavour of the New York Dolls.

 

 

The Music

 New York Dolls (1973)
Too Much Too Soon (1974)

Rock 'n' Roll (1994)

Live in Paris 1974 (1998)
One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006)
Cause I Sez So (2009)

Vive Le Trash '74 (2009)
Dancing Backward in High Heels (2011)

Live Dolls

Live at The Matrix San Francisco (1973)

 Live at Waldorf Asoria Hotel (1973)

Siren Festival, Colney Island (2007)

More Dolls

Personality Crisis.

Jet Boy (Old Grey Whistle Test).

Pills/Trash (Musikladen).

Bad Girl/Stranded In The Jungle (Musikladen).

Jet Boy/Pills (CBGB's 2006).

On Jonathan Ross 2006.

Chatterbox (Don Kirshner 1974).

You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory/Lonely Planet Boy (Royal Festival Hall).

Coz I Sez So (Later with Jools Holland 2009).

All Dolled Up: A New York Story.

New York Dolls Documentary.