David Johansen-
Live @ The Downtown
Farmingdale, LI
5/21/04

by Vin Dee

“We’re opening up for The Who tomorrow night at Madison Square Garden,” says David Johansen, in the basement office of Farmingdale’s The Downtown. It’s sort of an odd thing to hear coming from the founding lead singer of the New York Dolls—the band who, thirty years ago, infused rock & roll music with a nihilism that would birth punk rock, a visual aesthetic that would birth glam rock, and that would directly influence, for better or worse, hair metal. It’s also a bit odd to hear, considering that half of The Who are, well, dead. Imagine Robert Plant & Jimmy Page touring as Led Zeppelin, or Paul ‘Talkin’ Bout Freedom’ McCartney touring as the Fab Four. Kind of rubs you the wrong way a bit, doesn’t it? Specifically, though, it’s strange because the New York Dolls were the textbook cult band—a group whose record sales never came anywhere near measuring up to the amount of inspiration they evoked in their listeners, the cultural inertia they set into motion.

Before David Bowie was anything more than a folk singer, and CBGB was anything more than a typo, the New York Dolls fanned a spark lit by Andy Warhol and set New York City on glittering fire with speed-fueled performances, brash, powerful guitar riffs, and birthed a scene filled with drunken, speed-fueled, glittering fans who would change music over the course of the next twenty years. They directly inspired Joey Ramone, Malcolm McLaren, and Morrissey to each start their respective bands. And while the Dolls were, for a time, all the rage of the critics’ community, that fervor never really translated into mainstream, commercial success. Their two major studio efforts, 1973’s self-titled debut, and 1974’s Too Much Too Soon each sold relatively poorly, with the latter failing to crack the Billboard Top 100. The group disbanded shortly thereafter, with legendary lead guitarist Johnny Thunders going on to start The Heartbreakers, another hard rock group, with Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan.

David Johansen, however, was never someone so predictable—when the New York Dolls disbanded in 1977, after releasing a solo rock record, Johansen went on to make a Motown record (In Style), a live medley of Animals songs (Live It Up), and a dance record (Sweet Revenge). Then, in 1984, Johansen changed his whole identity and began playing shows as a costumed ethnomusicologist named Buster Poindexter—a moniker that would produce Johansen’s biggest hit, the inescapable “Hot Hot Hot,” which may or may not have ended up in Police Academy 5. Regardless, considering that Johansen and the two other surviving Dolls—bassist Arthur Kane and rhythm guitarist Syl Sylvain, have recently scheduled dates to play as the New York Dolls at London’s Brixton Academy, and at New York’s Randall’s Island, I’m a bit worried that maybe Johansen has picked up on some bad habits. For someone whose musical career was so fearless and dynamic, the thought of David Johansen repeating himself, if even for only a little while, just seems out of character.

“It’s not a tour,” Johansen insists. “We were just going to do the one show, then it sold out, so we decided to add another.” When asked if the reunion was simply to get Morrissey off his back after all these years, Johansen replied, without a hint of amusement, “No. He just called me up, asked me if I wanted to do it, and I thought about it and said okay.”

Over the course of the interview, a lot of things like this seemed to happen. Despite being incredibly accessible and down-to-earth, Johansen seemed averse to answering questions posed to two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, to stars viewed in black & white from afar. Other such quips which failed to meet Johansen’s fancy were: In reference to former Guns N’ Roses guitarist, Izzy Stradlin’s “just never getting back to” Johansen to fill in for the late Johnny Thunders—“Wow, a member of Guns N’ Roses flaked out. Who’d have thought?” And when Cityzen co-founder Craig Cook asked Johansen whether having a street named after him a’la Joey Ramone Way would be something he’d like for himself someday, Johansen replied incredulously, “You mean after I’m dead?” Always the sign of a good interview.

Following suit, when asked about how he felt about the current state of the local New York City rock music scene largely founded by the New York Dolls in the early 1970’s, Johansen was somehow evasive and insightful at the same time; he quotes Krishna: “All that is transcends all that was.” When asked if there are any bands he feels are particularly transcendent, he states that he likes “songs more than bands…there aren’t too many bands that I can say ‘I like everything by this one band, I like everything they put out.’” After a couple of minutes, it becomes apparent that David Johansen isn’t one to jump into anything too entirely.

Understandably, though, some may still have some reservations as to the motives behind the New York Dolls' posthumous reunion shows. On paper, yes, it still seems like a farce. And yes, there are plenty of sickening travesties on currently tour like “The Who,” “The Beach Boys,” and “The Doors,” all who seem to be doing their best to wipe themselves as thoroughly as possible with their own legacies in the name of the all-forgiving dollar. With the “New York Dolls,” though, I think it’s more about getting together and celebrating something remarkable that never really had its day in the sun, in front of an audience who’ve waited decades to partake. I don’t think they’d ever get to the scale of selling out Madison Square Garden, or of becoming as apathetic as the Stones, and I wouldn’t hold my breath for a Dolls’ answer to Voodoo Lounge, either—I don’t think they were ever wealthy to the point where they’d become desperate to sustain a 25-year old rock star’s lifestyle. There are no mansions to pay off, no supermodels to be kept happy. “I never made any money from a record company, or anything,” says Johansen. “I always just went out and sang for my dinner. Luckily, I’ve always just loved singing.”

The NY Dolls are playing Little Steven's Underground
Garage Festival at Randall’s Island, August 18th.