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In Reply to: Shout out to J, re: New York Dolls. posted by olddude55 on March 28, 2007 at 18:43:22:
This band hardly ever performed their music. It was an act with a prerecorded tape. This is to music what professional wrestling is to sports.If you like this band, you must LOVE the Monkees and the Partridge Family.
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That's one of the more amazingly ignorant posts I've seen.Where do you get yr information? A lip sync performance clip from Old Grey Whistle Test or something?
There is a valid Monkees connection, as Don Kirshner did have the Dolls on Rock Concert in 1973.
There's always another troll out there, I guess.
I saw Amazing Bass' post last night and thought about responding but then realized that you would be able to tear it to shreds better than I ever could. The Dolls lip-synching... LOL!
//Where do you get yr information? A lip sync performance clip from Old Grey Whistle Test or something?In my high school years in the 1970's, my older brother was really into the drugs and rebellion, and took me to 5 of their concerts. Everybody knew it was a ritual, it wasn't intended to be real music. Kind of like Rocky Horror Picture Show. I got wasted at the end of a couple of them.
The last concert I attended was in 1974. After like the third song, a small fire set off the alarm in the building, the band members stopped, but most of the music was still playing. It was kind of funny. When they resumed their act, the whole place erupted with applause. The fakery was part of the mystique.
He also took me to a couple Kiss concerts. Similar ritual, but it was a real band. Much bigger settings. We were never able to get Stones tix.
Around 1985, my brother gave away his punk albums to Goodwill after offering them to me, but I said no thanks. He never really was into music like I was. I play some jazz, and it's noise to him.
I think someone may have hijacked yr anecdote with an agenda that seemed believable at the time. It has never, ever been suggested that the New York Dolls didn't play their instruments, and the idea that it 'wasn't intended to be REAL music' (emphasis mine) leads me to ask what it is exactly that you would in fact define as 'real music.'I assure you, that music was and is very real. Malcolm McLaren worked with the New York Dolls & specifically applied some of the managerial ideas towards his next experience as a manager of a rock group, which was with the Sex Pistols, who were definitely influenced by the New York Dolls. They were one of the very few bands that were a direct influence on both the punk rock bands in New York circa 1975 (such as Television, Patti Smith, Ramones et al), and London circa 1977. Buster Poindexter is heard at many, perhaps most, formulaic weddings in these parts for going on 20 years now. As I previously stated, Hanoi Rocks, influenced by the New York Dolls as much as any other act, kick-started a genre, also influenced by acts such as Aerosmith, that came to be known as 'hair metal,' and which was very popular in the late 1980s. There were certainly people who didn't think of what they did as 'real music,' which was a prejudice previously applied to a variety of acts such as the Fugs, the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and others. It would later be directed at many rock bands in New York in the mid-70s, then in London, then in Los Angeles, and so on. A rock snobbery that thumbed its nose at what we now call punk rock, which was different during its earlier incarnations in New York than what it became in London, when spiked hair, safety pins through the cheek, mohawks, and spitting became associated with the relevant acts. In New York it had been more low-key, less violent, and revolved more around poetry than politics. I can't speculate that the idea that you have that it wasn't supposed to be 'real music' came from the snobbery that was espoused by a segment of musicians and fans whose interests ran towards commercial rock, art-rock, prog rock and so on, but it's possible that that's the root of it. This led to silly 'genre wars' that exist to this day where fans of one or the other denigrate one or the other. There are targets on either side, and it's seen even on this board from time to time.
I would take a look at my Dolls bio to see if there's anything in there that jibes with yr recollections, as it's been a couple of years since I read it, but, again, I don't remember ever, ever hearing any such charge levied at this act. As you saw in the link provided, they did in fact play their own instruments. Of course, some of the covers they did (Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williamson, etc.) may have been considered eccentric by 1973 standards, but that doesn't make it not 'real music.' Oh, olddude, if you're reading this, the new album from last year leans heavily on the sort of girl-group influence that comes through in some of their work, but also on the solo albums I've mentioned, especially toons like 'Great Big Kiss.' I'm glad you got my message, I'll be in touch via email though it may take a couple of days.
Anyway, AmazingBass, not to be disrespectful, but in spite of what you're describing, that comes across as a baseless charge. Which is not to say there's any reason to like the music if it isn't yr thing, but Monkees-type situations where the band didn't actually play have been pretty well documented at this point, and the Dolls were never charged with such a scenario.
There is a reference to a DJ in the UK making a Monkees reference in a derogatory fashion, but, if there's any valid reason to believe that they were charlatans who could not or did not play their instruments, I've never, ever, in more than 20 years of following their career, and picking up just about every recording associated with them, along with most of those associated with their solo careers, heard of such a thing. If you have any further information, please share it with us.
// and the idea that it 'wasn't intended to be REAL music' (emphasis mine) leads me to ask what it is exactly that you would in fact define as 'real music.'I can't tell whether you're serious or sarcastic, but your writing skills are at a level where you should be doing your own blog or working for Rolling Stone or New York Times, not wasting your time here. I think you'd attract an audience. You have a talent for writing that I don't see too often.
I knew you knew more about the Dolls than I did, but the idea that they didn't play the instruments--Johnny Thunders didn't play guitar--is just ludicrous.
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Yeah, I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier...I was out all day yesterday & it figures, the first I see of the thread is when it's gotten to a point where I couldn't help but call that BS for what it is.My take on the Dolls is a little different than a lot of people who like them: it's not that I don't like those records, I just don't know that they ever quite captured some of the qualities that stand out for a lot of people. I mean, here are guys whose natural inclination is to play sloppy, and worry less about precision than energy, which was pretty much unheard of at the time outside of a couple of exceptions, mostly from Detroit. There's a flow that comes out in live performance that can be difficult to recreate in a recording studio, at least when you're talking about this sort of act. The reaction of many was that they simply did not know how to play their instruments, which is of course ignorant. Jerry Nolan was probably the most accomplished instrumentalist, but Johnny Thunders (who took more than a couple of cues from Dick Dale) remains one of the most influential stylists of the era. Actually, he probably bears a good measure of responsibility for the look of the hair metal bands, most of whom were directly influenced by Hanoi Rocks. There was one band that managed to get it right, and that was Gun N' Roses, who actually sounded & played like people who'd heard a New York Dolls record or two.
Over time I've come to appreciate the second album more than the first, but I think the 1st one has the stronger songs. Just doesn't flow as well. But what I like even better is what happened after the band broke up. Thunders & Nolan formed the Heartbreakers with Richard Hell, who'd just left Television (and soon left to form the Voidoids because Thunders was more interested in simple lyrical topics than Hell's poetry & stuff like 'Love Comes In Spurts'). David Johansen formed the David Johansen Group, which Sylvain Sylvain did some work with. And Sylvain put out a couple of records of his own. (Prior to this, though, after Thunders & Nolan quit, the Dolls played without them for awhile, replacing Thunders with a guy we'd later come to know as Blackie Lawless from W*A*S*P*)
The Heartbreakers (this was years before Tom Petty used that name) made one record, L.A.M.F., and broke up in England amidst the messes they made of their lives & careers with heroin addiction. The original version of it never really got off the ground; I think it was considered to be a poor production, wasn't promoted properly, maybe the record company folded, something, I don't remember exactly. It was a rare item for years. It's one of the greatest rock'n'roll albums I've ever heard, way better than either of the Dolls' albums to my ears. Thunders remixed it in 1984, creating the L.A.M.F. Revisited album, which has a very different feel, but I still think it's a good rec. It was just done with more of a slick 80s production mentality in mind. Not that it was made to sound overly commercial, but certainly more so than the raw, demo-like sound of the original. Either version is ESSENTIAL.
After the Heartbreakers broke up, Thunders made a great solo album called So Alone. It's as least as good as either Dolls album. Great tunes, and a cover of Daddy Rollin' Stone with Phil Lynott & Steve Marriott each taking a verse. This rec's essential too, but not quite the rock and roll powerhouse the Heartbreakers turned out with L.A.M.F.
The first David Johansen Group record is ESSENTIAL. Again, better to my ears than either of the two Dolls records. Every song is a hit. Johansen followed it up with a relatively decent couple of recs, collaborating with Blondie Chaplin (after he left the Beach Boys) on one, Here Comes The Night, that yielded a fantastic ballad called Heart Of Gold (not the Neil Young song). Then, after a minor live release from 1978 (that was fleshed out into an essential full-length CD 15 years later), he released a live rec that yielded a hit, a medley of Animals songs that was big in the early days of MTV. Not long after that he gave up on rock and roll and started the Buster Poindexter thing.
Sylvain Sylvain's lyrics are pretty lame, but I also like his first solo record more than either Dolls rec. Great cover of Ain't Got No Home (Clarence 'Frogman' Henry, I believe). ESSENTIAL. After that he did a couple of decent recs, Syl Sylvain & the Teardrops, though nothing in the league of the first album, which was on RCA.
Thunders would re-form the Heartbreakers for 'rent party' gigs to fuel their drug habits from time to time. One is documented on 1979's Live At Max's, which is as good as the David Johansen Group's Live At The Bottom Line; another is 1982's Stations Of The Cross. But after that his solo work was pretty much spotty & his rep as either putting on the best show you've ever seen, or the worst, started to catch up with him (even as the Replacements, whose first album included 'Johnny's Gonna Die,' seized that title from him). We all know what Johansen did with the Buster persona; and three albums later he did a Latin record with that outfit. After that, he started a blues project called the Harry Smiths (both albums are excellent, and the first is certainly ESSENTIAL).
And then Morrissey put the band back together for a performance in the UK three years ago, which were successful, yielding a live DVD...and then Arthur Kane died, all of which is documented in the biographical "New York Doll" DVD. And Johansen & Thunders decided to keep the reunited band together. I saw them three years ago, and they were good, but Iggy & the reunited Stooges followed them, which would probably blunt anyone's impact. Last summer they released a new record? I had NO expectations. I didn't think it was possible they could come up with anything that I'd think was good at all. I was stunned. Really good rec, AT LEAST as good as either of the first two Dolls recs. HIGHLY recommended.
Of my recommendations, if you had to choose only two, I'd say the first David Jo record, & the Heartbreakers' L.A.M.F. One? L.A.M.F. all the way.
I have a Dolls bio, but if you haven't read Please Kill Me, what are you waiting for?
Glad you took this plunge. Most will disagree with me on the post-Dolls recs being better than the Mercury platters, but then some think the Dolls were manufactured & played to a tape.
I like Johnny's remix job on "Revisited," but I always thought it was a little too polished for the music. "The Lost '77 Mixes" is a lot rawer and, to me, more reminiscent of the band's live sound. It was compiled from the best of over 200 takes by producer Speedy Keane. If you don't already have it, check it out. It's well worth having.
One thing always leads to another, and I'm already on the hunt for those LPs.
BTW, I like the production of the second Dolls album better--I've never cared for Todd Rundgren's music or production--but I haven't decided which one I actually like better. "Private World" from the first album just knocks me out.
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It's interesting, because there are so many similarities to Aerosmith, who is one of my absolute least favorite acts ever, though even I can hear a tune or two in there somewhere. There wasn't a rivalry, for the most part, and I don't think there ever really has been, yet you could construct one if you wanted to. Oh, and my enjoyment of the Dolls is not based on their being unknown & therefore cool, as opposed to massively popular & therefore uncool, or some other such nonsense.One interesting link here, though, is Bebe Buell, who dated Johnny Thunders, had kids with Steven Tyler, and raised them with Todd Rundgren.
Who I'm also not a fan of, and whose name I might well look at, in a production capacity, as bringing in a sensibility I'd be more likely to dislike than like. However, while I would agree in a general sense that the knob-twiddling on Too Much Too Soon probably works better than that on the first rec, I would not heap any scorn on Rundgren for his work on the first rec. Actually, if anything, I think he did a pretty good job. Might there have been a better choice? I don't know. A more interesting choice? Perhaps John Cale or David Bowie, or someone else who had some experience with people trying to get the sorts of sounds guys like Thunders & Sylvain were interested getting. On the Kirshner show, Thunders is playing a Vox teardrop through an Orange amp, an unusual combination. The MC5 had used Orange...so had Black Sabbath, though, among others. But the MC5 were the ones back in 1966 having to talk engineers into letting them capture tones that sounded like noise to most people. Their early singles, included on the great Big Bang anthology, give a better example of this than the live & crappy-sounding Kick Out The Jams, or most of their later records. The Stooges had done this sort of thing; of course, others had to, but not quite with the same mindset. But Rundgren hadn't worked with bands like the Stooges, and his resume shows that he'd worked primarily with acts that were far more commercial. Plenty of damn good acts, but not a lot that, like the Dolls, would later be considered influential among what were for many years bands that were considered far more obscure & underground, than mainstream and/or popular.
Also interesting is to cherry-pick a few Stones songs from roughly the same period, say Goat's Head Soup up through Some Girls, and play some of them alongside some of these other records, especially the first David Jo rec, and Thunders' So Alone. Along with moments from the Stooges' Raw Power, a Saints track or two, and the Flamin' Groovies. Heck, that'd make a dandy of a comp. Maybe I'll try to get in touch with ya...
I just grabbed the first Johansen LP from Ebay.
I'll be looking for "Please Kill Me," too. Local library should have a copy.
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Shit, man, Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew were everybody's favorite rock band back in the 1960's only you never knew it.
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Cool 60s pop, even if they didn't write/play most of it.
It's a ridiculous argument. First of all, I don't care if it's the Monkees, the Beach Boys, or friggin' Milli Vanilli--if the listener enjoys the music, ultimately that's more important than anything else. Second, sessions musicians need work, too: in this age where it would be considered a breach of integrity for an act to not play their instruments on their records, many session musicians are struggling to find work. I believe I saw an interview, or even just a blog rant, with Steve Lukather, I think it was? Not too long ago. There's no work for the session guys. I think I heard subsequently that there will be a Toto reunion tour? Coincidence?Third, the only reason the Monkees--with the exception of Davey Jones--didn't play on their records is because Don Kirshner wouldn't allow it. Does that mean those records are no good? It wasn't all that long ago I got laughed at by someone who has different priorities than me when it comes to music. I actually have to like the music. I happen to like the Monkees more than the Doors--a lot more. I try not to hate the Doors, but I find them tough to take, in spite of a few good tunes, what with their leader & his cult & not enough in the way of what I consider good music for me to think any higher of them. This guy's argument wasn't really based on the merits of the songs either band had, it was all about, the Doors played on their records & the Monkees didn't. When I brought up the Beach Boys not playing on Pet Sounds that was dismissed because to his way of thinking, the Beach Boys were little more than a boy band anyway. Oh, the humanity.
Mike Nesmith's work with the First National Band is pretty good to my ears. Can't say I've heard anything much from the Monkees since they cashed in on their reunion, but Head is an incredible film, and this here segment puts the lie to the idea that they didn't or couldn't play.
The Monkees didn't play on the first two albums. It might have been Kirshner, or it might have been a time factor with the television show depending on which liner notes you read, but that really doesn't matter. And they did play on the concert tours.
Then they fired Kirshner and did play all the instruments except some horns and keyboards on the next two albums.
After that, they were rarely ever in the studio together. Each Monkee was given his own studio time and they usually recorded with their own groups of studio musicians.
The First National Band albums have always been essential part of my own music stash.
And according to the liner notes for the Byrds Mr. Tambourine Man Legacy series remastered CD, the only Byrd that played on that album was Roger McGuinn. The ubiquitous Hal Blaine and the Wrecking Crew played everything else.
There are good reasons why bands record with sessions players. Just because sessions men play on albums doesn't degrade the music's legitimacy.
The Monkees were pure fabrication, but they did want to be a real band at one point and tried pretty hard to get there. The Nesmith, Goffin/King, and Boyce/Hart songs were pretty damned good (as long as Davey didn't sing them), and IMO Headquarters would be considered a lost power pop classic had it been recorded by any one other than the Monkees.
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I don't recall ever really "hearing" it, so it'll be neat to hear it on decent gear.Davey Jones wasn't that bad, though. I say that only to defend a "neighbor." He lives in the next town over from me here in Central Pa. Has a horse farm.
He does local gigs once or twice a year and, often enough, uses the show as a fundraiser for some local need.
Some of the locals still talk about meeting Davey at the local Lowe's hauling a sink up to the checkout counter for payment.
Davey seems like he'd be pretty cool, but his voice kind of grates and he always seemed to get the cheesier songs on the albums.
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