Doll Parts
The New York Dolls descend from on-high and keep on going
By David Cotner 10/23/2008
Occasionally the Ventura Theater books acts that are as heartstopping when you see their names on the marquee as when you see them on stage. Case in point: the New York Dolls. Expecting them to have ever appeared in Ventura is like expecting an entirely new species of land mammal to be discovered slightly north of Foothill. With all the elegance of the survival instinct of the cockroach, the Dolls have soldiered on despite the grinding deaths of former members Billy
Murcia (the drummer, in 1972), Johnny Thunders (the guitarist, in 1991), Jerry Nolan (another drummer, in 1992), and Arthur “Killer” Kane (the bassist, in 2004).
And yet the whole point of the Dolls’ existence in this life all along has been that they are alive – even after shattering passings, even after band members go their separate ways and even after the lead singer suddenly transmogrifies into a calypso lounge explosion. Like Iggy Pop and Kraftwerk, they influenced countless bands – almost any punk or new wave band from New York in the ’70s can claim heritage after their endless gigging and showmanship back then – and now walk amongst them, not gods who destroy the bands they notice but instead a phenomena unto themselves, forging once again into the breach.
With David Johansen on lead vocals and harmonica and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain on backing vocals, sometime Hanoi Rocks bassist Sami Yaffa, second guitarist Steve Conte, and drummer Brian Delaney – what have they in store for the gathered faithful? One of the hallmarks of the Dolls has been their unpredictability – emblems of rock excess like male macho obviousness are undone by lipstick and cutting wit, glamour continued even through the AARP years; even Johansen’s ’80s transformation into party monster Buster Poindexter and his hit “Hot Hot Hot,” he lamented as being the “bane of my life” because of its rampant popularity.
So what’s new from the Dolls? Re-releases of their 1973 and 1974 albums, respectively, the self-titled New York Dolls, name emblazoned across the cover with the epitome of glam: lipstick graffiti, and Too Much Too Soon, both on Mercury Records. One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This, was a new album in 2006 that included musical contributions from Michael Stipe and Iggy Pop. Rock photographer Bob Gruen published a new book early this past September of almost 30 years of more than 200 unseen photographs, with commentary by rock critic Legs McNeill and singer Morrissey.
To say that such an effort would grace coffee tables everywhere is the hugest understatement of the few minutes it’s taken you to read this far. But what’s truly new from the New York Dolls? Grandiloquence. Grandiloquence is, according to Merriam and/or Webster, “a lofty, extravagantly colorful, pompous, or bombastic style, manner, or quality.” It is a quality of character that surpasses the tawdry leanings of current fashion. It’s forged from countless trials by fire and the terror that youth has of growing old. Dolls are by nature essentially eternal – the endless smile, the capacity for joy and the almost animist capacity for the giving of love regardless if anyone will love them back. We live in an age when even our hardiest proponents of the pop narcotic are aging themselves. Al Jourgensen, Thurston Moore and Michael Jackson have all turned 50 this year. That the New York Dolls continue onward, singing those florid warhorses like “Jet Boy” and “Trash,” is a testament to the preservative qualities of rock music, the alchemy of which developed in part under the Dolls’ tender mercies.
This is not to say that there haven’t been casualties. This is not to say that aging itself isn’t a sucky proposition. This is to say that with age comes the transcendence of experience – and all the pain and bliss that that implies. Conversely, with age comes ossification and petrifaction. The endless smile of the doll, after all, is in fact a frozen one. Audiences expect the Dolls to do a particular thing, to be and to move in certain ways. This is just another aspect of grandiloquence: that the artist knows he has become tradition and that certain traditions must be upheld: the pout, the wit, the flash and the filigree. The New York Dolls deliver precisely what you want them to – and yet the Dolls were never something that anyone expected. Plan accordingly for the unexpected to come down fast when you catch them in this one fleeting moment.
Wednesday, Oct.29, the Ventura Theater. 26 S. Chestnut St., Ventura. 653-0721. www.venturatheater.net.
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