Heart on a Stick
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It’s Monkey Time (New York Dolls/Tralala, South St. Seaport, 8/18/06)
posted 09/05/2006
They just rock, is all.
I’d interviewed* the Dolls’ Sylvain Sylvain earlier that day for Brooklyn Vegan** (you can read that here), and one of the questions that didn’t make it in was: “Are you still having fun?”
It’s a legitimate question. We’ve become pretty inured – I hope – to “comebacks” and reunions and other manu-hyped “event” programming. Over-priced Mad Money tours that only serve to get Pete Townsend out of the house for the month it’ll take to put in his new Bruckheimer-funded pool. (Seriously, fuck The Who.) On the other end of the spectrum are those roving reunion tours of spare parts – who’s singing for “Journey,” again? – who gratefully regurgitate their greatest hits collections with all the yeomanly panache of a tribute outfit.
The New York Dolls’ (myspace) 2004 reunion featured the three surviving members from the band’s glory days; now there are only two. The subsequent touring, the new record – couldn’t this just be the case of a perpetually overlooked and fiscally unrewarded group cashing in on the sudden wave of attention? That was the question: Are you going through the motions for the money, or the adulation, or... are you still having fun?
They answered that for me, and for everyone who came to the Seaport show, by having a fucking blast. Sylvain entered – blue eyeshadow, white boots – with a big flamenco stomp; Johansen was all smiles, belly shirt (with Krishna?) and bling. Pirate hat with a glittery skull and crossbones. He was glad we could all take a break from all the pillaging and such, he said, to come together for some music. It was “a beautiful thing.” The new guys – you know: that guy, that other guy, and the guy on drums – strutted and laughed just as much as the survivors did.
These are your New York Dolls, now. Those who are gone are included, too: Johnny Thunders and Arthur Kane have their songs dedicated to them, Billy Murcia’s father was standing just off stage. No one’s being replaced, it’s just a bigger club. Easier to accept, I’m sure, for those of us who never got to see Thunders and Kane and Nolan and Murcia; for others, it’s tough, I understand. But you can’t begrudge Johansen and Sylvain this opportunity to play these songs for these people. For us.
And to play them so well. Though the crowd was weirdly sedate – “What’s with all this fucking hushing?” Sylvain asked – just about everything worked. “Pills” killed. The Joplin was a hundred times better than it did at last March’s CBGB show. The new material fit in pretty well. Keyboardist Brian Koonin was absent, and I think that gave them more room – physically, musically – to stomp around up there.
Preparing for the interview I listened to the new Dolls CD a lot, and I’m glad I did. My initial reaction wasn’t too favorable. It’s a wordy record, and Johansen’s tendency to cram $10 phrases into nickel slots irritated me, at first. Sometimes it seems like it’s trying too hard – c’mon, “Fishnets & Cigarettes?” The opener, “We’re All in Love,” enters with an off-putting mewl, then starts to force-feed the band’s mission statement – they’ve been “excommunicated then canonized,” while “[others] go to work, we go to play.”
But eventually the song, and then the record, just start to rock. Johansen’s overzealous lyrics turn on themselves (they’re “pretty fancy words, but not really real;” later “anthropomorphize” is followed by the nonsensed-up “polymorphisize”); he’s having it both ways, getting serious, then making fun of anyone who’s taking it seriously. The best lyric on the record may be a huge, punctuative “Duh.” The more you listen to his doubletalk, the smarter and sillier it gets. Silly, of course, is a good thing.
The music’s good, too. If nothing seems as urgent and immediate as that first Dolls record – well, that’s a tough comparison to make, isn’t it? We’ve had those songs for almost thirty-five years. Yes, there’s some sadness – “Maimed Happiness’” “I doubt that I’d want to live this wasted life over again” is pretty rough stuff for “a rock and roll record” – but “Lonely Planet Boy” was just as down. “Plenty of Music,” their girl-group song, is lovely.
And “Dance Like a Monkey?” That’s the sound of a bunch of boys, having fun.
*
This seems the right place to announce that I’m madly in love.
Tralala (myspace) is a band fronted by four hot chicks attractive, tambourine-bangin’ women; I was expecting Josie and the Pussycats – the original headliner tonight was The Box Tops – but there was a healthy sloppiness to their set.
Still, their name is their address. This is a band that put out an EP of original Christmas music called fa la la-la-la with Tralala. Brilliant. They had me at “la.” Heck, they even blog. Sort of.
If having fun is half the battle, then that woman above is bringing home the bacon. She ran offstage, mid-set, to grab a fistful of brew; she implored the crowd to buy merch because “we just got back from Scandinavia and we’re broke.” After the set, someone complimented her and she said, “Thanks! We’re total hacks!”
I want to have her babies. “Kick Me” signs are so hot.
Don’t hand me any lame dissuasive arguments. No “She’s out of your league,” or “She has a boyfriend/is married” (let’s assume the huge “Johnny” tattoo on her arm was a tribute to Thunders), or “She’s gay.” I can work around those. Unless she murders homeless men and bathes in their urine, or works in advertising, or is in any way related to Dick Cheney, she’s mine, dammit.
Holy crap, she also appears in a band called Direct from Hollywood Cemetery as “The Lovely Lucretia Secretions.” Fake blood is involved! Plastic fangs! It was meant to be!
*
When I say I’m in love, you best believe I’m in love, B-L-G:
Amuse Bouche - Chuckling
- Drive Like Hell
- Free to Good Home
- Horvendile
- Lost in the Grooves
- Piercing Metal
- Pop Tarts Suck Toasted
- Rants and Raves of Joe
- Tick Tock Goes the Clock
- Waved Rumor
- WFMU
- Will Around the World
- Yeti Don’t Dance
More photos here.
*
(*)I don’t usually read interviews with musicians. Not because they’re not interesting people – though some, certainly, are not – or because the interviews are poorly conducted – though some certainly are – but because they seem unnecessary. Everything a musician has to say to me should be in his or her music. Or, at least, it’d be more interesting in their music. Presumably.
But when Vegan mentioned the opportunity to interview one of the Dolls – I didn’t find out which one until a couple days before – I jumped. Not because I like the band (which I do) but because there’s real history, and there were real questions, there. So many bloggyblog interviews are (necessarily) with Brand New Bands – fine in a getting-to-know-you fashion, but once you’ve gone through the “How’d you meet” and “What are your influences” (and the ultimate self-serving question: “What role do you think (yawn) blogs and the internet have to play in music today?”) there’s just really not a whole lot to say unless you go off-topic. Because most of these bands haven’t done anything, yet, and most never will.
Anyway, I never read those interviews.
But the Dolls did do something, and that legacy and how they’re dealing with it during their current reunion is an interesting thing. I hope the interview’s an good read. It was tough to strike a balance in the questions, introducing the band and its well-documented history for newcomers while finding out stuff for fans who know a lot more than I do. I wound up skipping over the band’s actual career – it’s all build-up, fall-out, reunion – but I only had 45 minutes (originally, it was 30) and it just didn’t seem to be the right time for Behind the Music-style stories or to reminisce about Thunders. You give 100 people those same 45 minutes, you’ll come back with 100 different sets of questions. These were mine. As an interviewer... well, I was nervous. It probably would’ve been smart to warm up with a few Brand New Bands. Sink or swim.
Sylvain was great, readily talkative, and I hope some of his character comes through. It was important for me that these weren’t a bunch of college grads living the dream in W’burg; these were New York kids making music in a very different New York, taking an option that wasn’t really open to them. “You’re gonna learn how to cut shirts.”
(**) Totally didn’t eat meat for 24 hours beforehand. Swear.
YES? YOU THERE IN THE BACK? (4)
1. mjrc left...
09/05/2006 5:16 pm :: http://lostinyourinbox.blog-city.com
did you know that when i first started reading your blog, i thought you
were a woman? although after you wrote that veronicas review i had some
doubts, and then when you reviewed pride and prejudice, i knew for certain
you weren't. isn't that funny?
2. J____ left...
09/07/2006 10:58 am :: http://heartonastick.blog-city.com/
Wait... I'm not?
3. mjrc left...
09/07/2006 2:04 pm
you've never read it?? shocking. well, you wrote something about it (the
film), referencing keira knightley perhaps? mentioned a part of your
anatomy that indicated gender? obviously i have a pretty clear memory of
said post. so clear that i can almost find it in the archives . . .
4. amazonca left...
08/19/2008 10:48 am
Great post about nice and talented guys! Thanks a lot! especially for
photos.