Shindig! Issue #177 – New York Dollls
On the 53rd anniversary of THE NEW YORK DOLLS’ influential debut, TIM STEGALL revisits the moment when Manhattan’s walking personality crisis became punk’s recruitment poster by lookin’ fine on television… on two continents. “Mock-rock” indeed!
When they trooped into West London’s BBC Television Centre on the afternoon of 26th November, the Dolls were hardly looking to make friends – they never were, when it came to authority figures. Told by The Rolling Stones’ Mick Taylor the year before they were “the worst high school band [he’s] ever heard” and that they had “just six months to polish it up,” Johansen snarled, “No, they were the best high school band he’d ever heard,” and he could “go screw”. He petulantly sniffed to CREEM’s Ben Edmonds that prior to signing with Mercury, the front rows of their shows were filled with “balding old relics with their polished heads, snorting coke and thinking that they’re so outtasite. I’m supposed to get a record contract outta these people?” he bayed. “It’s like I’m just a prostitute, right, but if I’m okay maybe they’ll give me a Lincoln and make me a pimp.”
Hence Harris shouldn’t have been surprised, upon showing up backstage to gladhand the Dolls, that Johansen sniggered that he had “bunny teeth”. Equally, Johansen could hardly have been shocked at Harris’ introductory description of the band as “to the Stones what The Monkees were to The Beatles – a pale-if-amusing derivative”.
Nineteen seventy-three television cameras apparently loved Johnny Thunders’ back. In both appearances, the camera widens from a tight close-up of whatever adorns his spinal column, revealing him whirling around as he bangs out the opening riff. In this case, it’s a skull-and-crossbones crudely painted on back of a beaten vintage motorcycle jacket, planting his lineage more firmly in rockin’ rebel territory than glam androgyny. Strapped over his shoulders wasn’t the Gibson Les Paul Special he’d played at The Midnight Special, but a Vox Teardrop guitar similar to Brian Jones’, purchased by bassist Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane in a Leeds pawn shop for £20.
‘Jet Boy’ roared from Britain’s tinny eight-inch TV speakers the following night, lip-synched from the new single – odd for a show that generally favoured live-in-the-studio performances. Was Auntie Beeb implying the Dolls weren’t good enough to play live?
Thunders did his stumbling whirling-dervish act, Sylvain proudly displayed his new Gretsch White Falcon guitar he’d picked up shortly before flying out of New York, and Johansen mugged viciously in a polka dot chemise. It’s noticeable, watching their movements to the playback – which sounds even clearer than the record – how musical the Dolls were, despite their amateurish reputation. Thunders and Sylvain are not bashing tandem power chords, like most of the punks who followed them. The guitars are arranged, in interlocking parts, with a fully developed dynamic sense. Arthur’s bass locks in with Jerry Nolan’s post-Gene Krupa swing, playing minimal lines that are hardly meat-and-potatoes root notes. This was not The Shaggs.
The song ends with a quick cut to Harris in close up, chuckling “mock rock”. He likely thought he was condemning this blighton “proper” rock. But that sneering establishment reaction was a dog whistle to a generation of future UK punks watching at home: the old guard hated this thing. Which meant young outsiders immediately sensed life in it. “Fuck you, you old wanker! I’m stealin’ a bleedin’ guitar! Imma be Johnny Thunders when I grow up!”
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