Last night RULED!

I met up with Lucy at the Rescue Rooms at about eight  so we could check out the Punk Rockers going into the New York Dolls show but disappointingly they were fairly few and far between.  There were a few glam rockers in fact one of them sold me a fanzine with ‘bitch’ in the title that had some stuff about Johnny Thunders in it that looks pretty well put together and came with a compilation CD which will be either funny or tragic (first song title ‘0800 Fuck You’).  Anyone writing about Johnny Thunders in 2008 is in my cool club though.  It was so good to see Lucy properly, we haven’t hung out and chatted on our own for a while even though, until recently, we saw each other at the quiz.

We checked out some of Loyalties, the support, who were a head-down slightly glam punk band with only a smattering of Chuck Berry riffs and a lot of chanty choruses. We got told off by a bouncer for standing in the DJ Booth so had a sitty on down so that by the time the New York Dolls had come on and the place had filled up we were 2/3rds back and Lucy couldn’t see anything.

I thought it was GREAT. I’ve seen David Johansson before when he did the Harry Smiths blues thing and had a beard like Richard Branson but this was David Johansson and next to him Sylvain Sylvain who I LOVED as well just for looking like he was LOVING being in the New York Dolls and playing live again.  You’ve got to think about the story, you start off playing in this little scene in New York that gets world-wide recognition but there is NO MONEY in it, one of your friends in the band DIES, you make a great album, tour a bit and by 1977 when all the stuff you influenced seems to be taking off it’s all over.  Johansson did some solo stuff and became BUSTER POINDEXTER and appears in SCROOGED, Johnny Thunders and jerry Nolan form the INCREDIBLE Heartbreakers, I think Sylvain kept playing dolls songs but fifteen years later when everything had been pretty patchy, Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan had died so, in a way, it was all only ever going to be history.  It was kind of done with.  You were never going to see the New York Dolls again.

I called Morrissey a DICK a lot last night (to the distress of some people sitting next to us) but to have the IDEA to approach the remaining New York Dolls and get them to play, 30 years after they had split up, imagining that they still COULD and that it might not be embarrassing, has to be the heart-felt gamble of a fan and I can’t not give him credit for that like I can’t not give him credit for the book/zine he wrote about the New York Dolls.  I was a sceptic to some extent, Johnny Thunders was SOOOOOO much of that band (My friend Shaun texted me saying he was going to see Dolly Parton last night because she was the original member) but seeing the film of the Royal Festival Hall show and how the guitar guy was playing perfect Johnny Thunders riffs and Johansson was AMAZING made me kick myself for not going..

I was talking to Stuart, the sound engineer about the ENORMITY of these people coming to our town and he was telling me about when Scotty Moore played and just told everyone stories about Elvis and how Stuart was doing the sound for SCOTTY MOORE and for a lot of the night (especially after the show) I think the thing that overwhelmed me the most was that all the stuff I’ve read about these people, ‘please kill me’, all of the biographies and magazine articles, all of the records I have and the thousands and thousands of hours of thinking about these people and THERE THEY ARE, in that room.  That’s DAVID JOHANNSON…..singing JET BOY! To add extra value, Sam Yaffa from Hanoi Rocks, who I don’t think even plays with Hanoi Rocks now was on bass (you’ve got to factor the Killer Kane aspect into the story too, thirty years in the wilderness then shortly after the reunion, he dies – what a GREAT last chance and a way of reminding people of who you are before you go).  Sam Yaffa looked less WEIRD now than he did in his twenties.

The big bone of contention in the show was always going to be the guitar-work.  I was ambivalent throughout and knew I was being unfair every time I frowned when the guitarist did something that Johnny thunders wouldn’t have or couldn’t have.  I’m not sure it was the same guy who did the Royal Festival Hall but on reflection he did a good job. I wasn’t 100% happy with his sound, a tiny bit too crunchy (I mean tiny) and there were too many false harmonics flying around but you KNOW there had been a meeting that went ‘try to be consistent with what Johnny did on the albums but we’re an ongoing band now with a new album so play the songs your way’ and to be fair stepping into that roll in that band makes CJ Ramone’s job seem easy.  Added to that Sylvain Sylvain kept the simple part riff/part chord thing going in a more rudimentary and Chuck Berry way so you had to be LOOKING for problems and I’m sure I was guilty of that.

The set was made up of classics, Jet Boy was Incredible, Trash was incredible, You Can’t put your arms around a memory running into Lonely Planet Boy was touching, Personality Chris was strangely less strong and there were a few songs from the new album which I’m not keen on but hey chose the best ones for the show.  They did, unforgivably play ‘another little piece of my heart’ though.

After the show it was SURREAL.  I was sitting with Lucy and Anton and having a cool chat but to our left were the new drummer and guitarist having their dinner and over by the food bar Sam Yaffa was talking to some girls but my favourite bit was Sylvain Sylvain standing by the food bar with a menu open in front of him looking like he was in a Bob Gruen photo.  The photo in my head is better than any real photo would have been and its going to be an amazing memory-nugget.  I spent about an hour and a half just being amused and happy that the two of them were hanging out in the room chatting to fans and while I normally like to go and get badges, it was cool chatting with my friends with this also going on in the room, I wasn’t so much star-struck as happy that these people were just milling around and people were appreciating them.

It was GREAT having a post show chat with Lucy and Anton which consisted largely of me saying stuff was SHIT (Art Brut, The Mighty Boosh etc) and how I often don’t resent specific people but the emperor’s new clothes mentality of the HUGE umbers of people (who often should know better) that love them.  The Smiths are no more important to me than the Housemartins, who aren’t’ important to me at all but have a similar place in music and Morrisey is an overtly over-intelectual talking loud and saying nothing, but one BILLION people from three or four generations of music fans buy into him as profound and/or witty.  Oasis are a sub-standard, dull band who make music that doesn’t even have rhythms you can dance to but somehow there are LOVED by LEGIONS and there is NOTHING THERE. I don’t get annoyed at the people themselves (although it’s funny to have a go at them) but the sheer amount of RUBES who still bet £10 that the pea will be in the middle match box.

I’m sure, I’m pretty positive on the whole and Lucy and Anton know the topics to get me going AGAIN. Saying the words ‘Art Brut’ will always get them 20 minutes, saying ‘Jealous’ 20 more etc.

Anyway it was the COOOOOOOOOOOOOLEST night.  The night I went to see The New York Dolls.  In 2008.

Who? Woulda? Thunk it?