The New York Dolls’ self-titled debut and The Rolling Stones’ “Goats Head Soup” were both released in 1973. For critics at the time, it was convenient to make comparisons between the two. Both albums dabbled in 1950s Rhythm and Blues. Both bands featured a swaggering lead singer and junkie guitarist (and bassist and drummer). And while The Stones were slumming in a post-Exile, post-addiction hangover, the New York Dolls were having a cheeky conversation with The Stones “as signifiers.” But, in more ways than it is useful, the juxtaposition is extremely limiting. For one, in 1973 The Dolls were the much better band and made the much better album. Moreover, whereas The Stones mostly mined the Blues and Country music for inspiration, The Dolls leaned on Metal, Doo Wop and Cabaret. The former were born into the middle class of England, were interested in canonical art, and blossomed alongside the 1960s counter-culture. The latter were born in the outer boroughs of Manhattan and were interested seemingly in both everything and nothing at all. They died on the vine, rather quickly, alongside the post-Hippie malaise of the 1970s.

The tragic legend of the New York Dolls is, in some ways, bigger than the legacy of their music. Four of the six earliest members of the band are dead, largely a result of drug abuse. Their lead guitarist, Johnny Thunders, has, in particular, been romanticized in death. For decades his very name and face have come to embody the band’s legacy -- doomed, dreamy, campy, earnest, punk, beautiful, disgusting. But, in truth, it was never Johnny’s band. The Heartbreakers were Johnny’s band. The Dolls were Sylvain Sylvain and David Johansen’s band. This fact has been obscured by iconography and the morbid infatuation with Johnny Thunders. But if you listen to all of the music Johnny made outside of The Dolls and then do the same for Sylvain and Johansen, the math is clear. The screeching, sloppy, Chuck-Berry-buzzsaw guitar is a useful constant in The Dolls. The bass, piano and, most especially, the vocals, however, are the variables.

Born in Egypt, moved to Paris and then eventually to Queens, Sylvain Sylvain was a fledgling Jewish fashion designer, bassist and pianist. Formerly the owner of a second hand clothing boutique, his sensibilities greatly distinguished The Dolls from The Heartbreakers, The Stones and, well, everyone else. However, it was their lead singer, David Johansen, who elevated the band from a better and better dressed joke to something revelatory. Johansen was perhaps the least musically talented member of the band. But he was the most curious, the most singular and the brightest of the lot. Not only did he intuit what The Dolls signified, he knew precisely why they mattered. He has, it seems, always been too smart for his own good. He also, it seems, always had more words to say than could possibly fit in his mouth. And that is quite a feat, because David Johansen has an enormous mouth.

Never has a lead singer sounded more like a New Yorker than David Johansen. For one, his singing actually accentuates his Staten Island accent rather than softening it. He sings like he talks -- fast and loud. His apparent lisp plays as broken, but also as overconfident. His words are mouthfuls of flashy vocabulary, malaprops, slang and inside jokes. Like the best Pop Art, his songs are both profoundly true and deeply ironic. As an instrument, David Johansen is supremely limited. But as with many great singers, it is about his voice more than his singing. And David Johansen has a truly great voice, composed from the leftovers of Tom Waits, Eric Burdon and Otis Redding.

Since I was too young to experience the Dolls in their legendary first run, I can only describe what it was like to discover them a decade later as teenager trying to decipher art, Punk, masculinity and subculture. Unlike, say, Television and Wire, the New York Dolls were more musically familiar, if not accessible, to my teenage ears. On the surface, they sounded like slapdash R&B. A dash of the Sex Pistols? A dollop of The Stones? Maybe something that sounded like early 1960s girl groups? At fourteen, and without the context or history, I couldn’t understand the order or magnitude of it all. It felt like information overload. I couldn’t reconcile their brazen, alpha masculinity with their transvestitism. I couldn’t tell if it was a gag, or if it was Low Art or High Art. But for me to hear and see the 1973 model David Johansen, was to see a confidence and fluidity in art, music and manliness that was most beyond my imagination. That being said, something about that singer and that band also appealed to me. Instantly, I was curious. And soon, I was an avowed fan, both of the band and, in particular, their lead singer. 

Glam Rock was nominally a style. Generally, it was a conversation about the spectacle and symbolism of stardom. So, while early 70s Bowie and T Rex might share the faintest of formal similarities, the genre -- to the extent that it even is one -- is actually much broader than it implies. And whereas the theatrical and psychedelic version, popularized by Bowie and Bolan, are the most referenced, it is the Metal and Punk variations that proved more influential and enduring. In England, early Queen were both a product of the formative Glam moment as well as a great influence on the speed and sound of Heavy Metal bands for decades to follow. And, in New York, the Dolls, influenced more by the seeds of Glam in Warhol’s Factory rather than the English bi-product, were the first band to assert than, not only could they look like whatever they want but that they could sound like whatever they want. Beauty and proficiency be damned. The New York Dolls were certain that no band had ever been greater or more glamorous than they. And, in that extraordinary, hard charging, beautiful, amateurish and destructive confidence were the tracks to Punk Rock. Amazingly, though, the Dolls’ impact went far beyond Punk. The sheer force and speed of their music was absorbed into Heavy Metal, ostensibly birthing the Hair Metal style that would dominate the second half of the 1980s. Without the New York Dolls, there is no Sex Pistols, no Ramones, no Kiss, no Guns ‘n’ Roses. Their impact was nothing short of seismic.

This sonic boom happened largely over the course of two albums and three years. The first album is a ferocious, kitchen sink magnum opus, containing most everything you’d ever need to hear or know about the band. And while “Personality Crisis,” the album’s howling, Heavy Metal meets Cowboy Boogie anthem is rightfully the band’s best known song, it is far from their debut’s best song. “Frankenstein,” “Vietnamese Baby” and “Jet Boy” defy description, showing the band capable of surfing genres and displaying great complexity while retaining all the volume, humor and tunefulness of the album’s opener. In seemingly staying far away, producer Todd Rundgren managed to capture both the high treble din and the low bass vocals that were the essence of the Dolls. The result is an eminently perfect album. Perfect. Better than great. Better than essential. Better than legendary. Nothing wasted. Perfect.

The band’s 1974 follow-up, “In Too Much Too Soon,” is a lesser, though worthy, follow-up. The distortion is cleaned up. The girl group backing vocals are pushed forward. And the bottom of the sound is elevated. Much more an R&B record than their debut, “In Too Much Too Soon” found the band both on the cusp of popular breakthrough and complete implosion. Shortly after the release of their sophomore album, the Dolls were dropped from their label. Soon thereafter, Johnny Thunders would leave the band to form The Heartbreakers with Richard Hell. Johansen and Sylvain would persevere for another year or so, sustained by a flicker of interest in the U.K. and France and by their own legend at home in New York. But, by 1976, they were done. If “In Too Much Too Soon” was to be their last album, never was a title more appropriate.

Following the dissolution of the Dolls, it took David Johansen a couple of years to dust himself. When he reemerged, he appeared as a marginally cleaned up hipster. As a solo artist, he initially worked in between the lines of Soul music, cabaret and the complex, urban balladry that Bruce Springsteen and Willie DeVille were playing. Johansen’s self-titled debut featured songs that the Dolls were playing in their final days, but performed without the squalor. Appearing almost naked, without his costume and band, David Johansen appeared to be, if only briefly, an important American singer-songwriter. His debut manages to be fun and campy, at times, while also being largely poignant and honest. Though never a Pop star, he flirted with the bottom of the charts, opened for The Who and became the sort of prestige artist who could get a record deal on accounts of his charisma and his loyal fanbase. 

In the mid-80s, Sylvain was living in LA and releasing music only sporadically. Johansen, on the other hand, in all of his eclecticism and musical restlessness, had meandered his way into a new Lounge act of sorts, blending old R&B with Jazz, Cabaret and World music as his alter ego “Buster Pointdexter.” Buster Pointdexter scored an infamous novelty hit, “Hot Hot Hot,” a cover of a Calypso song that played both ironically and unironically as a comment on high 80s decadence. As Buster Pointdexter, Johansen would go on a ten year run, playing lounges and small theaters around the world. In the video for “Hot Hot Hot,” he literally eschews his past as a New York Doll in favor of his newfound class and dignity. The joke, lost on most everyone, suggested that the Dolls were part of an irretrievable past. As someone who so adored the band and Johansen’s early solo work, the implication seemed both sad and completely logical. The New York Dolls were frozen in ember. They were once perfect. But time, age and Hair Metal had killed them. They were obviously done.

Towards the end of that decade, though, with the revival of Punk and the ascension of Alternative Rock, came renewed interest in the Dolls. Old bootlegs and demo albums of the band appeared. They were endlessly name checked by hip bands and critics alike. And their gender fluid style, previously appropriated as a one line joke for Metal acts, now was inspiring a younger generation of artists, both queer and straight. It was increasingly common to see straight men with long hair and facial hair, fronting Grunge bands, in dresses or girlish attire. It was equally common, and more de rigueur, for Alternative acts to mention the Dolls as an influence or inspiration. Of all of these artists though, the one whose reverence was most precocious and pronounced, though, was Morrissey. Before he was Moz, before he formed The Smiths, Stephen Morrissey published a cheaply, limited edition, loving fanzine honoring the Dolls. Though to me the New York Dolls were frozen in ember, to Morrissey they were timeless and alive. And, in 2004, he proved as much.

Morrissey is both famously impossible and capable of the impossible. To confirm as much, he invited David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain and Arthur Kane, the Dolls’ surviving members, to reform the band and play at the Meltdown Festival he was curating in 2004. Incredibly, they agreed. And though Kane was ill with undiagnosed leukemia, Johansen and Sylvain, in their mid-50s, were still in good health and form. Johansen, in particular, was still spry and practiced from decades of touring. The actual performance, with the three Dolls surrounded by three new, younger devout members, was vital and fun enough to suggest that the band may have a second life. It was not life changing the way an early 70s show may have been. But it did not in any way embarrass. And, if any band deserved a life after death, it was assuredly the New York Dolls. 

By 2006, Arthur Kane had lost his battle with cancer, leaving Johansen and Sylvain to carry the flag. That year, with the benefit of appreciation for their pasts and some commercial tailwinds, the New York Dolls released “One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This,” their third studio album. All of the fourteen songs were written by Johansen, and most were co-written Sylvain. Perhaps more than anything, you can hear the band -- the original members and rookies -- trying to honor the band’s legacy. From beginning to end, it sounds like a reverent tribute to the spirit of the original band, updated with greater technical proficiency and more middle-aged humor and world view.  

It was fair to wonder, after thirty years wearing different clothes, whether David Johansen could still fit comfortably into his old costume. And while he avoided the heavy make up and skirts, he quickly confirmed that he was still completely comfortable as the frontman for the New York Dolls. More than comfortable, in fact, he seemed inspired. At thirteen songs and nearly forty-five minutes, “One Day” reveals a vibrancy that comes from something pent up. As a Soul singer, Pop singer, Folk singer or Lounge act, David Johansen had to modulate his ferocious squall. As the Dolls’ lead singer, he could fully open his mouth and fill his songs with as many syllables as they could muster. 

While “One Day” shows both honor and inspiration, it does not fully succeed. There are, gracefully, no embarrassments. But it would surprise no one to hear that six middle-aged men could not muster the same danger and atomic power as five desperate, twenty something drug addicts. “We’re All in Love,” the album’s opener is, musically, a close cousin of “Human Being” from “In Too Much Too Soon.” Basically two chords that pick up steam, the song is a free love, gender fluid, anti-repression anthem that re-intoduces us to Joahnsen’s harmonica and to Dolls fan, Laura Jane Grace (of Against Me!), on backing vocals. Without any dynamic changes or a singalong chorus, and with Johansen’s vocals mixed too far back, the song manages to entice but fails to deliver. On the following track though, as if to almost apologize for trying something vaguely new, the band settles into “Runnin’ Around,” a dirty boogie number with some honky tonk piano and a hook borrowed from Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs.” Johansen’s vocals come forward, the band stays with the idea and they mostly just let the singer and the piano do the talking. The song doesn’t do much, but everything it does is great. 

Generally, the band is superb, in that they sound tight and very able to channel the Dolls’ squalor and squeal. Because all of the players are more in control, however, there is less excitement behind the vocals. Johansen famously sang complex verses, overflowing with syllables, precisely on the beat. At times it could almost sound like he was rapping more than singing. However, with less chaos and a more insistent beat behind him, the drums now sound a little heavy and boring, as though there is too much weight on the beat.  The harder and faster tracks most suffer from this effect, which is doubly affected by the wear of Johansen’s voice. Though he has gained character over the years, his range, already limited, is even more so in 2006. As a result, on the louder tracks, his reaching can sound like shouting. As much as they were inspired by and an influence on Heavy Metal, the New York Dolls did not excel at Metal in 2006.

Where the new version of the Dolls does excel, though, is in the mid-tempo R&B and, especially, the slower, more soulful Rock ballads that Johansen succeeded in during his early solo career. “Plenty of Music,” “Maimed Happiness,” “Dancing on the Lip of a Volcano” and “I Ain’t Got Nothing” all resemble the latter. They slow things down, often with acoustic guitar and piano, and feature high arc, singalong melodies that remind one of Bruce Springsteen’s slowed, piano front songs or, maybe, Jarvis Cocker, middle-age and solo. Like Cocker, they are witty and self-aware but, like The Boss, they are more at ease with sentimentality. These are full-hearted songs written and performed by a funny, charming man of the world, whose voice shows plenty of age and wisdom but not quite weariness.

Elsewhere, as on “Dance Like a Monkey” and “Rainbow Store,” the band sounds like they are still in their early 1970s, New York vintage. Though neither song would improve upon anything from their first two albums, neither would be out of place. On the former, Johansen uses the words “anthropomorphize” and “polymorphosize” (not really a word) in successive lines. The mouthful serves a joke about Creationists and uptight academics, alike. But, moreover, the mouthful serves to remind us that no singer could ever fit more syllables, winks, nods, double entendres, big ideas and quick jabs into a line. At his best, David Johansen could sing like Mohammed Ali could box. 

The New York Dolls made two more albums before their second, and likely, final, dissolution, in 2011. The reborn Dolls actually released more songs and lasted longer than the original version. At the time of their last one, “Dancing Backward in High Heels,” the co-founders were in their sixties. For his part, Sylvain did not seem ready to close the book and continued to tour with bands called “The Dolls” and “Sex Doll” (with Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols). Johansen, on the other hand, eventually seemed to tire from wearing his younger self’s costume. He put on his old dinner jacket, combed his hair way up high and took up residency at the posh Cafe Carlyle, on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Always a minor New York celebrity, and beloved below Fourteenth Street, Johansen would appear weekly, singing songs from his five decade career for the city’s hoi polloi. And, this past year, it was announced that Martin Scorcese would direct a documentary about Johansen. The news sounded like a very appropriate lifetime achievement award, bestowed from one legendary New Yorker to another. And though I suspect the New York Dolls have recorded their final album, I’d also venture that Johansen will write and perform for years to come. It’s hard to imagine him settling down. At seventy, he’s fully a troubadour. Plus he’s got that big, thirsty brain. And, also, that mouth.

by Matty Wishnow