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Three decades ago, The New York Dolls set the Rock world on fire, influencing almost every band that came after them.
They are almost single-handedly responsible for the entire New York punk scene. And they STILL Rock today!

My youngest brother, Tim, came over one day to help me haul away some stuff and to hang out for a while. While we worked, he told me that the New York Dolls were coming to The Tralf Music Hall in Buffalo, NY and I nearly flipped. He even gave me a clipping of the ad from the paper.
When I got home that day, I looked up the band's PR people and requested an interview and photo pass for the February 19th show. The next day I got a response. It was yes. I was very excited. This was after all, the New York Dolls! As one of the key progenitors of Punk, the New York Dolls created in their brief existence a sloppy, sleazy, glorious rock-&-roll sound that has rarely been equaled.
The days seemed really long until the show date, but it finally arrived.
Dawn and I left Syracuse under clear skies for the two and a half hour drive.
The drive up was pleasant and passed quickly.
When we got to Buffalo, the skies clouded right up and the snow began. At points, we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of the car. Whipping winds drove the blowing snow into whiteout conditions. Luckily we were already in the city or we would have been bummed.
We drove around slowly looking for a place to park and finally ended up parking in the lot right next to The Tralf. We paid the attendant, grabbed the gear and headed inside.
Dawn and I arrived at The Tralf just as the band and crew were getting ready to do sound check. We let ourselves in and found a table that was out of the way and started getting ready.
I plugged in my new HP Photosmart portable printer and got it charged up. I received the printer from my wonderful Aunt Marsha as a Christmas gift. Funny part is, she didn't really know what it was when she gave it to me. But it turned out to be the best gift I could have gotten. It prints cool 4 x 6 inch photos in less than a minute. It was my very first time trying it out. It came in very handy.

New York Dolls

NYDolls.org

Tralf Music Hall

As we sat there at our table, a guy came up to the door behind us and knocked. It was the videographer for We Are The Fury, the opening band for the night's festivities. With him was another guy that came in and just hung out. I assumed he was with We Are The Fury as well.
Soon, members of the Dolls came out and tested the sound and tuned their instruments. David Johansen joined them and they ran through a few tunes.

The couple next to us saw our photos and we talked with them for a while. It turns out they used to live in Syracuse and know quite a few of Syracuse's finest rockers. We all talked about what a small world it was… They also bought a TATW button from me.
The other couple sitting next to us observed this whole conversation. They liked what I do and got a button as well.
A few moments later, the guy that had come in earlier joined us and began talking with us. He was really friendly and well versed on the history of the Dolls.
It turned out that he was not with the opening band as I had thought.
His name was Don. He is an art teacher from New Paltz, NY that is down by New York City. He was in Buffalo for business and was just out to see the Dolls. He used to hang out with the Dolls back in the day. Don was very excited to be seeing them again.
As we sat at our table near the stage, Dawn looked up, hit my arm and said, "Isn't that Andy, from Syracuse… the drummer for No Followers?"
I looked up and, sure enough, it was Andy! (Check out No Followers Page on MySpace.com Tell them I sent you!)
I immediately walked over and said hello. He was with his girlfriend Allie. They were as surprised to see us, as we were to see them!
They joined us at our table and we talked and hung out until the lights went down for the opening band.

We Are The Fury is from Toledo, OH, and was formed in 1999.
Vocalist Jeremy Lublin, guitarist Chris Hatfield, and bassist Alan Hoffar got together while still in high school and formed a band called Hearsay, later changing the name to Hearsay TAO.
The group added Lublin's younger brother Stephan on drums, and gigged around for a year.
Shortly before their album Where Vision Ends was recorded, keyboardist Todd Wehrle joined the band. Hearsay TAO became one of the biggest drawing acts in the Toledo area.
In 2002, Hearsay TAO released the EP By Land, by Air, by Sleep.
Around that time, he guys felt a name change was needed and they became The Fury, putting out a five-song, self-titled EP in 2005.
Along with the name change came a style change (presumably because of it), the guys traded in their emo post-hardcore ways for a stylish post-punk attack influenced by Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Queen, and the Cure.
The band was forced to change name in the fall of 2005 to avoid legal problems, and became known as We Are the Fury.
After a move to Los Angeles, We Are The Fury caught the attention of East West Records. The label reissued their 2005 EP, re-titled Infinite Jest, in late January 2006.
During 2006, the quintet toured nationwide, hitting up the year's SXSW and CMJ music festivals, all while readying the debut full-length Venus, which was finally released in early 2007.
The band's ability to take the Glam influenced rock of the past and make it sound new made them a great choice to be on tour with the legendary New York Dolls.
Jeremy Lublin's vocals are well handled and reminiscent of Freddy Mercury on many songs. The musicianship of the band is excellent and exciting. The crowd liked what they did and so did I.
After their set, the members of We Are The Fury were hanging out by the merchandise booth and I got a quick photo with Jeremy Lublin. He was a really nice guy. I complimented him on his terrific performance, and then gave him a button andtold him about my site. He said he would check it out! I hope he does!

Tom: Frannie Spiopta of Syracuse wants to know: Have the New York Dolls been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Sylvain: Have they?
Tom: Yeah.
Sylvain: No, no.
Tom: You guys think you belong there?
Sylvain: I really don't know. I know they have some things of mine in the way of a display. To me, that's not really the trophy that I'm looking for. I'm looking for that trophy where the banker calls me up and says: "Hey, Sylvain, you're making a lot of money. Go spend it"
All of the members of the New York Dolls played in New York bands before they formed in late 1971. Vocalist David Johansen joined guitarists Johnny Thunders and Rick Rivets, bassist Arthur Kane, and drummer Billy Murcia. Early in 1972, Syl Sylvain replaced Rivets and the group began playing regularly in lower Manhattan, particularly at the Mercer Arts Center. Within a few months, they had earned a dedicated cult following, but record companies were afraid of signing the band because of their cross-dressing and blatant vulgarity.
Tom: Gene Simmons of Kiss once said that he wished the New York Dolls had made it huge because it would have been a big shock to a country that thinks Miss America is still a virgin. But in a way, the Dolls did make it huge. You guys were the epitome of Glam and influenced almost every band that came after you. How does it feel looking back and seeing all these bands that have taken the idea that the Dolls started and ran with it to such an extreme?
Sylvain: Well, first of all, I don't know if I'm going to answer your question, but anyway... The thing that was in front of everybody in, um… back when we started…. Which was this invisible wall that you had to be as big as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones to even get a record contract or to even think about even getting on stage.

Following the disappointing sales of their two albums, Mercury Records dropped the New York Dolls. No other record labels were interested in the band, so they decided to hire a new manager, the British Malcolm McLaren, who would soon become famous for managing the Sex Pistols. With the Dolls, McLaren began developing his skill for turning shock into invaluable publicity. Although he made it work for the Pistols just a year later, all of his strategies backfired for the Dolls. McLaren made the band dress completely in red leather and perform in front of the USSR's flag, all of which meant to symbolize the Dolls' alleged communist allegiance. The new approach only made record labels more reluctant to sign the band and members soon began leaving the group.
Tom: Near the end of the Dolls first run you guys were managed, and some would say mismanaged, by none other than the infamous Malcolm McLaren. What was it like working with him?
Sylvain: Well, you know, I introduced Malcolm and Vivian Westwood to the New York Dolls at a clothing trade show back in 1971. I had a company called Truth in Full Sweaters, which was like, ya know, back then if you weren't in the grind of it you just went into the schmatza business in New York. We had this trade show at one of the hotels in NY and I was in one room, and down the hall there was this company that came from England called Let It Rock. And Let It Rock was Vivian Westwood and Malcolm McLaren. And the last day of the show I invited Johnny Thunders and David Johansen.
I said hey, because that's the day the designers, they don't want to go home with their samples, so they sell them or trade them or whatever. And we went up to their room, and you know, I introduced them and Vivian Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, they fell in love with the Dolls. We took them to our show the next evening or whatever. That was it. That was the marriage within that whole thing. Now, if I could fast forward to 1975… Just before we broke up we weren't getting along with our managers, they lied to us, and there was no reason to be with them. Malcolm was hanging around in NY, he was selling his goods, and he came to see us, and he found out what all the deal was. I asked him to help us and he rented us a loft, we got all that new show together, which was called red patent leather…
Tom: What did you think of the idea of the whole red patent leather and the whole communist…?

Sylvain: Well no, it wasn't communist. Me and David wrote a song, it was called Red Patent Leather, and it was 'red, you're the judge, red you're the executioner, red you're the jury,' after the famous judge, jury, executioner. And it started off with just one pair of red shoes. And the next guy down said…."Oh yeah, I'll get red shoes." And then everybody got red clothes for some reason, and it was Vivian Westwood who was making the clothes, so why wouldn't you wanna wear it, ya know? And then, of course, which I think, David Johansen and Malcolm McLaren, who really never had two words to say to each other, at one point or another they came up with "Hh…well now they were all red with the song and everything, why don't we just put up the communist flag?"
That was interpreted, by others, to be whatever it came to be. But really, to get back to the deal there, when we broke up in 1975 after the red patent leather show there, we were supposed to come back to NY and play the Beacon Theatre and all that stuff… It was supposed to be our comeback. But the boys, they all broke up, everybody got in fights, and we were five individuals, and we could all go on our own.
Ya know, we all got record contracts. But after our breakup we all got solo record deals, basically except for Arthur Kane, ya know. It wasn't just like, the Dolls and were weren't going to make any more records but we all started our own careers and solo projects, and they were quite successful.
But that's what it was, when we were breaking up Malcolm McLaren started helping us. After the red patent leather show didn't work out everybody went their own ways. I was with Malcolm and he was going to fix me up with the guys in England, hence he wrote me this 6 or 7 page letter that is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by the way, it's displayed there, and he goes on for like 7 pages about how he doesn't trust this one and he doesn't trust that one. And then he sent me these little quarter booth photos, we're thinking about calling this guy Johnny Rotten. He can't sing, but he can definitely sing better than Johansen. He goes on and on about how the Sex Pistols are gonna be my band, and come to England… So, I gave him my white Les Paul and I gave him my Fender Rose piano and stuff, in trade to get a plane ticket to go to England. Well, guess what, I'm still waiting for that damn plane ticket.
Tom: Yeah, cause I asked how come you didn't do it?
Sylvain: I wasn't about to do it anyways, ya know. I was getting my own solo deals at that time. And then I signed with RCA. To me, I love Malcolm and everything, but I didn't see that to be his real art. I thought he should be making records. And I always thought the reason why the Sex Pistols… I think their most important member was Malcolm McLaren, but that's my own feelings. But if you listen to the band… They had one or two songs that I dug, and that was really about it.
Tom: You ever talk to Malcolm any more?
Sylvain: He wrote about us when we came up in the paper, The Guardian.
Tom: For the reunion, yeah…
Sylvain: In England yeah, when we did the Morrissey thing. You know, him and David never really got along.
Tom: At some point I want to sit down and do and interview with Malcolm, I would love to talk to that guy.
Sylvain: Yeah, if you can find him.
Tom: Yeah, right, that's what I hear. At one point you said you gave the guitar to Malcolm there, and he gave it to Steve Jones, who still has it…
Sylvain: No, he doesn't have it. He has been buying and making a pretty good little living on buying those things, putting the same decals on that I had on there, the girl on the record… and he has been buying them and selling them, and actually I did his radio show in Los Angeles and he talked about that.
Tom: How did it make you feel when you guys heard the song New York from the Sex Pistols and it was pretty much slamming the band.
Sylvain: Ah, who cares? It's a bunch of crap.
Tom: Right…
Sylvain: You know, I think that was more of they were trying to talk to Johnny Thunders. That doesn't really matter to me. It never meant anything. It came and it went and you're the only one I ever heard talkin' about it.
Tom: Oh really? Sorry.
Sylvain: No, It's ok, I don't think it's that important. It's probably part of some kind of history to someone, but, you know…

By the middle of 1975, Thunders and Nolan left the Dolls. The remaining members, Johansen and Sylvain, fired McLaren and assembled a new lineup of the band.
For the next two years, the duo led a variety of different incarnations of the band, to no success. In 1977, Johansen and Sylvain decided to break up the band permanently.
Over the next two decades, various outtakes collections, live albums, and compilations were released by a variety of labels and the New York Dolls' two original studio albums never went out of print.
Upon the Dolls' break up, David Johansen began a solo career that would eventually metamorphose into his lounge-singing alter ego Buster Poindexter in the mid-'80s and had a hit with the song "Hot Hot Hot"
Syl Sylvain played with Johansen for two years before he left to pursue his own solo career. Johnny Thunders formed the Heartbreakers with Jerry Nolan after they left the group in 1975. Over the next decade, the Heartbreakers would perform sporadically and Thunders would record an occasional solo album. On April 23, 1991, Thunders - who was one of the more notorious drug abusers in rock & roll history - died of a heroin overdose. Nolan performed at a tribute concert for Thunders later in 1991; a few months later, he died of a stroke at the age of 40.
Tom: After the Dolls you said you did the solo albums, you did the Criminals and the Tear Drops. But I also read somewhere that you were a cab driver for a while. How the hell did that happen?
Sylvain: Well, you know, everything falls apart… you got to feed yourself. What comes first is you and your family. You cant just like come home stinking drunk every night and they're all telling you how big you are.
Tom: Right…
Sylvain: …and then that's the end of that. I went back to making clothes again and I was knitting sweaters and making hats, and I tried to start up Truth and Soul up again, you know. I'll tell you one thing, driving the cab. When they lost me, they lost the biggest NY diplomat that they ever had. I was still around when the kids would come in, and parents with their kids. I would show them where Ghostbusters was filmed, and all the movies, and this one stood there, and that one did that here, and, you know, Bob Dylan once played at the Folk City. I was a walking, talking NYC encyclopedia.
Tom: Cool.
Sylvain: Sometimes I would drive kids, and they would go, "This dude is famous! Can I have your autograph?"
In 2004, former Smiths vocalist Morrissey, who was once the president of a British New York Dolls fan club, invited the surviving members of the New York Dolls to perform at the 2004 Meltown Festival, a music and cultural festival that was being put on that year by the singer. To the surprise of many, David Johansen, Syl Sylvain, and Arthur Kane agreed to the gig, with Steve Conte (from Johansen's solo band) standing in for Thunders and Gary Powell from the Libertines sitting in on drums. The group's set was well received by critics and fans (and was recorded for release on DVD and compact disc), which led to offers for other festival appearances, but only a few weeks after the Meltdown show, Kane checked himself into a Los Angeles hospital with what he though was a severe case of the flu. Kane's ailment was soon diagnosed as leukemia, and he died only a few hours later, on July 13, 2004, at age 55.
Tom: Now, uh, we're going to fast-forward to 2003 here again when Morrissey asked you guys to reunite to play the Meltdown Festival. What was your initial reaction to that?
Sylvain: Mine? Uh, I could have done it like, uh, you know, 1975. Post the New York Dolls first break up. Me and Arthur Kane would have done it at the drop of a hat. But thank God for Morrissey, and he deserves the biggest kiss in the world. He convinced David Johansen. David just was not interested, and he had been very, very different as compared to that music.

Sylvain: We didn't have to fire-breathe, we didn't have to spit blood on you, whatever it was. That's a shock. That's more like, what's the other guys name, Manson. He's a shock. There's no real art in it. And they come in and they go, and in the case of Kiss, I swear to God, if I'm six years old and I dig them, that's cool. But anybody past the age of six years old, that still digs that band, I got a problem with them.
Tom: Right...
Sylvain: I hate to tell them that. I'll ask you to quote me on that ok?
Tom: I will. I will quote you on that. I've got to ask you one more, quick, question. It's a yes or no.
Sylvain: What?
Tom: Do you guys plan on recording any other new album anytime soon?
Sylvain: Yes, but I hope it's not going to be another 30 years.
Tom: All right. Well, thank you very much Syl. I appreciate you taking the time. Keep rocking! Knock them dead tonight.
Sylvain: No Problem. You stay cool and I'll see you next time in Buffalo.
Tom: Anywhere I can get within a six-hour drive, I'll be there.
Sylvain: All right…
Tom, All right brother, take care.
Sylvain: Thanks.
After the New York Dolls finished playing, Dawn and I grabbed the set lists from the stage as the band left. Much of the crowd dispersed and made their way home in the vicious storm that was raging outside. A few moments later, the band came out and signed autographs and posed for photos with the remainder of the crowd.

HeroQuest

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