Who the fuck records rock ‘n’ roll albums anymore?
The New York Dolls’ Sylvain Sylvain on putting the roll back in rock ‘n’ roll, boredom, and imagining a world without The Dolls
The New York Dolls are the foreplay to rock ‘n’ roll’s
horizontal bop. This is a band that has achieved legendary status in spite of
never really having a specific mission, in spite of its excess and chaos, in
spite of itself.
While on the
prowl for degenerate kicks, the Dolls inadvertently kicked off several crucial
movements in rock ‘n’ roll. If there had been no New York Dolls, there would be
no punk, there would be no glam. And as seminal as bands like The Ramones may seem — or Blondie or The Talking Heads —
they simply would not have happened without the New York Dolls.
It was 1971
in New York City
and the band came out blasting blues-heavy rock ‘n’ roll in the spirit of its
pre-Presley pioneers. You know the ones; brothers who were going to undermine
white America
with the big beat, rape our daughters, and ruin our youth. Singer David
Johansen roared like Howlin’ Wolf when he wasn’t honkin’ on the harp. Sylvain Sylvain and Johnny Thunders’ twin guitars were pure Bo Diddley and Chuck
Berry hijacked and goosed with a lot more threat, sex, and shake appeal. Johnny
B. Goode? Shit, Johnny B. Bad. And
The New York Dolls’ rhythms were pure jungle, baby.
The band
upped the ante further by decking out in drag. And despite the lipstick,
powder, and paint, they still swung ominously with a street-tough switchblade
swagger.
But the band
seemed pre-destined to crash; doomed by drugs and drama and music biz
monkeyshines — everything around it except the music. The title of The Dolls’
second album in 1974 sums up the band’s fate, more or less: Too Much Too Soon.
Original drummer Billy
Murcia suffocated in 1972 when friends tried to revive him from an apparent
overdose. By 1975 the rest of the band was either strung out or drunk and it
was curtains for the New York Dolls.
Most pursued
solo endeavors but a cloud still hung over some of them. Guitarist Johnny
Thunders was found dead under suspicious circumstances in a New Orleans hotel in 1991 and drummer Jerry
Nolan died of meningitis in 1992.
Morissey
brought the three remaining Dolls — Johansen, Sylvain, and Arthur “Killer”
Kane — back together when he convinced them to play for his Meltdown festival
at London’s
Royal Festival Hall in 2004. Fans went ape. Sadly, Kane died less than a month
later.
But the New
York Dolls were back. Sylvain and Johansen fleshed out the band, recorded a
brand new record, One Day It Will Please
Us To Remember Even This, and hit the highway.
Fresh off a
European tour, The Dolls are back on the road stateside with Little Steven’s
Underground Garage Rolling Rock And Roll Show.
I called
Sylvain at his hotel before a gig in Portland,
Oregon. A woman with an
incredibly sexy, sultry, voice purred a smokey “hello” into the phone before
putting the tres-cool legend on the line. It was a thrill to speak with him.
Here’s what was said…
City: What
got this whole new chapter started?
Sylvain Sylvain: Well, Morrissey is the one to
really thank. He convinced David. He really didn’t have to convince me and
Arthur Kane ’cause we woulda done it at the drop of a hat.
Why? Was
Johansen skeptical?
Yeah, it wasn’t so much skeptical, it was just… I think he thought
it was just a long time ago and should remain to be that way. I think there
were a lot of people like that. But once we did get started the phone just
didn’t stop ringin’.
So the
Meltdown convinced you?
Yeah, not only us but the whole industry basically, too…the
re-awakening of The New York Dolls if you will.
Is it kind
of bittersweet without the original guys?
Of course. We lost Arthur right after
Meltdown. He waited his whole life to get up there and shake his butt again to
those old tunes, you know? Thanks again to Morrissey for giving him that
privilege.
And how
bout you? You had
things going but you were up for a reunion, right?
Yeah, ’cause you can do everything so far as I’m
concerned. You can do a little bit of everything and it doesn’t take
that much outta your life.
How about
the people that didn’t think this was a good idea?
Yeah, but they said the same thing when we lost Billy
Murcia. They said we should quit right there. Can you imagine if we listened to
them then?
Also
people may not be aware but you and Johansen toured Japan as The
Dolls without any of the other guys in 1975.
We did, but it was a whole different thing. Then it was more
’cause we had the gigs coming and we were needing gigs
so we grabbed that. But now what it is, is an
evolution of the original band — and why we even started this whole damn
thing to begin with.
Why did
you start this whole damn thing to begin with?
Not that we really knew, but we thought — what I see now
and I’m so proud of now— was that we tore down that wall. Before us you had
to be The Beatles to get a record deal. And before us you had to play like Jeff
Beck on the guitar to even have an excuse to get up there and be on the stage.
And once we broke down that wall the first band outta New York was Patti Smith — probably the
most talented one. Then after that was The Talking Heads and Television and
Blondie and way down the road was The Ramones. And that’s only in New York City. I once read
someplace the singer of U2, Bono, he marked as one of
his influences The Ramones. Well there wouldn’t have been a Ramones if there
hadn’t been a New York Dolls.
What did
you think you were doing? Was it a movement? Revolution?
We thought, This is gonna last two weeks. We were just walking, talking art
shows. Instead of being hung up in the museum, for us you walked it, you talked
it, you dressed it, you sang it. This is something that was not made up from
the industry. I always have fears, when the industry takes over it’s sorta like
a government taking over a little scene and making it their own or destroying
it actually in the midst of it all.
How soon
before you realized your importance, your relevance?
Oh sweetheart, it was the minute they put us in the
centerfold in Melody Maker in late ’71 or early ’72, and then we were
super-instant stars in England. And that was it. We knew we were important
then. We found out it wasn’t just the EastVillage
that was bored. We found out that there were pockets of boredom everywhere in
the world.
So what’s
motivating The New York
Dolls to write and play and remain important today?
Well actually it’s boredom again, being the animals that we
are. You know what sound checks like? “Hey, snare drum” — BAM! BAM! BAM! We said, “Fuck this, man,
lets jam on some blues.”
Blues?
Because if you take away the rouge a levres — as they say in French,
or lipstick in English —from The New York Dolls you’ve got the blues under
there. “That’s pretty cool, let’s whip that song out tonight and show it to the
crowd and see what they think.” And they went kinda seamlessly between [songs
like] “Trash,” and “Personality Crisis,” and then we’d do a new song like
“We’re All In Love” and the kids’ll be singing it just like it’s one of those
old songs. Like I said, it’s the blues. The blues can be interpreted in so many
different ways. Every day there’s an adventure in it. You consider even the
girl groups of the ’60s — that was still the blues. And you can do it
forever.
On this new
record Johansen goes from primal lyrics to thinking man’s lyrics. The Dolls
have to be the only band to rock so primitive, screaming like monkeys, and yet
slip in words like “acquiesce,” “superfluous.”
Our songs are not just…we like a lot of intellect in our
music and in our words. And I can’t just sit there and say, “Hey, I want to
party and dance with you all night long,” you know? To us that doesn’t go
anyplace. I think you gotta really mean something. What we do is a performing
art.
Do you
think you’re finally getting the appreciation you deserve?
Not really. Were doing it right now and we’re not really
making that much money so it’s really for the love. But sooner or later it’s
got to turn into some kind of a where-I-can-afford-to-pay-the-rent kind of a
deal.
How about The Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame?
What about it?
The Dolls
ever gonna get nominated?
I dunno. You gotta ask them sweetheart.
You’ve had
some pretty impressive impresarios and icons behind you — Andy Warhol,
Malcolm McLaren, and now Little Steven.
I just thank God that there are still people like that.
Thank God for all the Morrisseys, the Little Stevens…
everyone that’s putting the life — the roll — back in rock. Cause it’s been
just rock. And it was just rock when The Dolls first started in 1971 and it was
not roll. It was a long journey, a few subway stops away from rock n roll. But
man it’s a lifetime of travel to get there. It’s better when it’s done because
of frustration, because of a desire to change and make better. You hear it and
say, “That’s a bunch of crap,” and you go ahead and make your own.
What’s
frustrating you?
Who the fuck records rock n roll albums anymore? We can
probably count them on our fingers. Like I said to David when we finished the
album, I said, “Hey even if we made one mistake — and the big question is if
—- it’s a rock n roll album.”
How does
it feel to see all these bands fashioned after and inspired by The Dolls like
you’re your current openers The Chesterfield
Kings?
It’s a form of flattery, you know? To me that’s how we got
paid.
Who’s
coming to see The New York
Dolls now?
We get everything. Every aspect, young, old, to those in
their 30s and they know what it’s all about. Some we spawned from the punk
movement, some we spawned from the hair metal movement. Which, you know, those
two camps hate each other. But here they are together now just dancing to
“Dance Like A Monkey.”
The drag
approach doesn’t care as much shock weight any more. The music pretty much
speaks for itself now, doesn’t it?
You know what? They called us drag queens or this or that.
Man, the dolls had the biggest balls of anybody. That’s the real goddamn truth.
The New
York Dolls headline Little Steven’s Underground Garage Rolling Rock
And Roll Show with The Supersuckers, The Charms, The Chesterfield Kings,
and The New York Vaults, Saturday
November 18, at The Town Ballroom, 681
Main Street, Buffalo,
716-852-3900, at 8 p.m., $20, 21+
This article appears in Nov 15-21, 2006.
