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New York Dolls


Naam : New York Dolls
Genre : Punk-rock
Land : Amerika
Website : http://www.nydolls.org

Discografie

New York Dolls
Dancing Backwards In High Heels
2011
Blast Records
New York Dolls
One day it will please us to remember even this
2006
Roadrunner records
New York Dolls
All dolled up
2006
Wienerworld presentation
New York Dolls
personality crisis
1974
polygram
New York Dolls
New York Dolls
1973
Mercury

Concerten

(Geen concerten gevonden)
Alle concerten

Artikelen

New York Dolls - Dancing Backwards In... 07-03-11 / Album review / 4 reactie(s)
Winnaars New York Dolls prijsvraag 28-07-08 / Nieuws / 6 reactie(s)
Gratis naar New York Dolls 28-09-06 / Nieuws / 6 reactie(s)
New York Dolls - One day it will... 20-07-06 / Album review / 10 reactie(s)
New York Dolls reunite at... 13-04-04 / Nieuws / 0 reactie(s)

ONE DAY IT WILL PLEASE US TO REMEMBER EVEN THIS

"Mick Jagger stole everything from David Johansen!"

Morrissey recently exclaimed this with a fervor that somehow made his chronologically impossible claims seem plausible. Watching footage of the 'Dolls onstage two years ago at the behest of one of their biggest fans (who was curating the prestigious Meltdown Festival in London) one realized just how vast - and heretofore unsung - their influence truly was. Everyone knows the famous logo: chrome lipstick, scrawling that name across an unseen mirror, but it's more than the great brand. It's not about the androgyny either. Skinny boys were wearing make up long before them. Little Richard. Elvis. It's not even about the music, as the Dolls themselves were always quick to credit 50's R&B numbers or early 60's girl group productions as their own influences. Really, what makes the Dolls so eternal is the attitude - it got into rock's water supply and never left. Kiss, Aerosmith, The Ramones, Blondie, The Sex Pistols, The Damned, Motley Crue, Guns N' Roses, Hanoi Rocks, The Strokes, The Libertines and just about any gang of strutting rockers who are convinced that their band could take your band and possibly your whole town in a pretty for pretty, ugly for ugly throwdown. The Dolls, and their disciples win, not just with brawn but with what guitarist Sylvain Sylvain calls "plenty of intellect and plenty of sex."

The New York Dolls are, simply, the Beatles of attitude. Thirty five years into their existence (thirty one since they disbanded down in Florida in a haze of smack withdrawal and managerial anarchy), with three men down, they can still take your band, pretty for pretty, ugly for ugly, onstage, and now, with the long (long) awaited follow up to 1974's awesome Too Much, Too Soon, on CD too.

"You know how England is," David Johansen quips in his Staten Island drawl, thick as South Ferry sludge, "We made a big noise over there, and we were having so much fun, we decided to keep going." "The phone didn't stop ringing," Sylvain adds, "The kids wanted this. Kids of all ages." An album's worth of brand new New York Dolls compositions, as unlikely as it may have seemed in 2003, was a foregone conclusion after wildly successful festival and live dates that spanned the past two years. They were a reunion when they re-started. Now, with replacement members feeling comfortable stepping into the stack heels of departed legends like Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and most recently Arthur "Killer" Kane, they're a gang once more. "It won't be very long that we'll be together longer than the original band was," Johansen laughs.

And so we have official studio release #3, ONE DAY IT WILL PLEASE US TO REMEMBER EVEN THIS, where the New York Dolls' hallmarks: perfectly mean riffs, deceptively sweet choruses and miles of that infamous attitude meet the 21st Century. What's the same? "I think it's still an up kind of thing," Johansen says describing that quality that makes the Dolls, whatever, whomever and whenever, unmistakably "the Dolls." "It's got a non-defeatist philosophy and attitude. It says 'We can do anything."

What's different? Well, listen to a track like the harmonica driven mid-tempo ballad "I Ain't Got Nothing," and it's clear that you're also dealing with real survivors. "We are older," Sylvain acknowledges. "But we share the same spirit as when we were fucking 18." They wear it well too. The world-weariness isn't depressive, but rather philosophical… glamorous even. Think mid-period Sinatra (if he'd hailed from the Bronx and not Hoboken) or Leonard Cohen (if he were less Canadian). "It's a statement of where we're at in life," Johansen says, "Life gets better as it goes along and you're more aware of the totality of the thing. When you're a kid, you can - at least I could - block out the not so happy happy, party party aspects of it. Do I feel like a survivor? Yeah."

The New York Dolls don't stare into their whiskey glasses too long. The up-tempo, Motown-flavored single "Dance Like A Monkey" would likely inspire heated debate on intelligent design vs. evolution if its tribal rhythm didn't unite believers and pagans out on the dance floor. It should quickly enter the pantheon of great simian songs in rock history. Tracks like "Gimme Love and Turn On the Light," all blues and garage rock horniness serve to remind (if anyone's forgotten) the "sex" that is brought to the fore, nudging the "intellect" back a bit. Iggy Pop's backing vocals punctuate the statement. "There's an attitude we have towards rock n' roll that's kind of fierce," Johansen explains, "There's something in this band where we really want to swing and swing hard."

Radio never really 'got' the 'Dolls in their first time 'round, and although they were made for MTV, their own timing was off with that phenomenon. Their first two records are in every cool kids collection today (as they must be) and from "Lonely Planet Boy" off the first record to Too Much Too Soon's "Human Being" (not to mention Johnny Thunder's indelible "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory," which the Dolls still play live), the guys always had a way with a timeless pop melody. ONE DAY IT WILL PLEASE US TO REMEMBER EVEN THIS continues this tradition. "Take A Good Look At My Good Looks," is perfectly realized retro-romantic pop. "Our producer heard it and said, 'Syl you still have one foot in the Brill Building," Sylvain laughs.

"Dancing on the Lip of A Volcano," featuring backing vocals from Michael Stipe and a shimmering hook, is easily as catchy as any new pop written by Swedes and not recorded by rock legends. "We thought, "Michael Stipe would be great on this," Sylvain explains. "And so we called him. I live in Georgia and met him at a Patti Smith show. He said to me that he had seen David and I perform and that I handed him a bottle of Perrier. We heard his voice on the track and it was like 'man this belonged on there all the time." Stipe is one of only a few guests, whose impact on the tracks are subtle. "We got good stuff," Johansen says, "We're a good band. We can do what we gotta do for better or for worse. I didn't feel like we need this, or we need that."

Although recorded, mostly live, with producer Jack Douglas (who was an engineer on their self-titled debut, and produced classic albums for Aerosmith, Cheap Trick and John Lennon), this is a cleaner sounding 'Dolls. The rawness is there in the aforementioned attitude, but nobody is pretending Nixon is still in office either. "You can never be amateurish again," Johansen explains, "Those two Dolls albums are like folk art. Urban folk art. Alan Lomax could have made them. They captured some Grandma Moses thing. We were so young and new at playing. When I was considering how to go about writing, I was saying,,. as you go through life and get more skilled at your craft, you can never go back."

And so we move forward. "This is phase two," Johansen says. "It's a new band. A whole new thing." Purist fans may scoff that it's not the Dolls without Johnny, Jerry and Arthur, but both Johansen and Sylvain insist that bassist Sammi Yaffa, guitarist Steve Conte, keyboardist Brian Koonin and drummer Brian Delaney are indeed Dolls now. "We didn't set out to replace anyone," Sylvain reminds us. We're talking about the deceased here, not the dismissed, after all. "They're great guys," Johansen assures those who may be in doubt, "They're part of every aspect of everything. That's what being in a band is all about. I've got them all psychoanalyzed. Very interesting subjects."

Is the world really ready for The New York Dolls 2006? "I don't care if this record is a hit," Sylvain assures, "Just as long as every man, woman and child buys it."

- Marc Spitz

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