DISGRACELAND - The New York Dolls: Born to Lose, Lipstick Killers, and R&B in Four-inch Heels

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

The New York Dolls were one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll bands of all time. They came to life when their hometown of New York City was coming apart at the seams in the midst of rising murder, rape and burglary rates. Their drummer drowned. Their bassist was nearly murdered. Their guitar players despised their singer and the only thing their singer loved more than Archie Bell was himself. This of course was all part of the act. The self-destruction, the violence, the intra-band squabbling, but it was of course also part of the band’s reality. They were too pure to last. They were born to lose. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. This episode was originally published on March 16, 2021. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠Instagram⁠ ⁠YouTube⁠ ⁠X⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠ ⁠TikTok    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed, I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things, Tana Monsu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places.

Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like, like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcast, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Brought to you by Cotton, the Fabric of Our Lives.

Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about the New York dolls are insane. They came to life when their hometown of New York City was coming apart, the seams in the midst of rising murder, rape, and burglary rates. The dolls dressed like women, fucked with men, and made the antics of the Rolling Stones look like innocent schoolboy shenanigans. Their drummer drowned, their bassist was nearly murdered. their guitar players despised their singer

and the only thing that their singer loved more than Archie Bell was himself. This, of course, was all part of the act, the self-destruction, the violence, the intra-band squabbling, but it was, of course, also a part of the band's reality. A reality that in early 70s, New York, in that weird moment between downtown avant-garde music and the coming punk explosion,

between the velvets and the Ramones, a transitional New York City reality that the New York dolls embodied. There were a band that at the time, just like the city they were from, seemed born to lose. There were also a band that made great music. Unlike that music I played for you

at the top of the show, and that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Kansas City Flapjack, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Family Affair by Sly and the Family Stone. And why would I play you that specific slice of thicker than the mud funk, could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on Christmas Eve, 1971. And that was the day the New York Dolls played their first show and forever changed the trajectory of rock and roll. On this episode, Lipstick Killers, a city in transition in the New York Dolls. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Discretchen. The Bandido lived a life that was envied, separate and apart from the daily life of his fellow Colombians who struggled under the constant threat of violence from political unrest, or alternately under the thumb of political oppression via the National Front. The bandito was immune to such social stressors. He took what he wanted, when he wanted, and if you couldn't get with that,

then he wouldn't live to see the next Bogota sunset. This particular outlaw with his skin-tight American jeans, cowboy boots, too tight cowboy shirt snug around his bulging belly. A belly that everyone knew was just bound to send those mother-a-pearl snaps bursting open one day, had a particular type of confidence, a no-good type of confidence that was plain as the black on his Stetson. His confidence sprung from the fierceness he knew and everyone else knew he was capable of, the violence he'd demonstrated time and time again when faced with any conflict. When it came to his trade, smuggling, tax-free goods from America into Colombia, and increasingly marijuana from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Mata Mountains to America,

the bandito was savage in protecting his livelihood and reputation. Cross him once and you'd be lucky to get a warning. Twice and he'd deploy his favorite form of justice, the Colombian necktie, a neat little trick where he'd slit you ear-to-ear under your jaw with his switchblade and then yank your tongue through the fresh hole in your neck. And if you really upset him, before killing you, he'd detail all the horrible ways he was going to rape and murder your surviving family members.

Savage. Bandito. In Columbia, even in the late 50s, early 60s, it was widely known that the banditos, a loose group of smugglers, were not to be crossed, especially in Bogota, where the drug trade was just beginning to take shape and centralized power. If you found yourself in opposition to the banditos, it meant one thing. Certain violent death.

It didn't matter if you were a fellow smuggler, a government official, a member of a parliamentary group, some high-ranking rival crime syndicate associate, or even a lowly ice skating rink owner like Mr. Mercia. Cross the banditos and you, my friend, were dead as disco. Except disco hadn't happened yet. Not yet. Not by the time Mr. Mercia and his family arrived. in Queens, New York from Bogota to start their new life free of Antito hostility. Disco would come much later, but its celebration of blended gender identity and hedonism

would be made possible, in part by one of the youngest mercies, Billy, who didn't know it then upon arriving as an immigrant in Jamaica, Queens, that he would one day go on to massively influence American culture with his future band, The New York Dolls. 1970, New York City, Crime, Grime, Unrest. The city was fast becoming a startling example of urban decay. A decade prior of social upheaval, cuts in law enforcement, disappearing blue-collar job opportunities had led to a new wave of rampant crime. A hundred percent increase in arrests,

a tripling of the rape and burglary rates, and a murder rate that was quickly skyrocketing from 681 murders a year in 1969. to 1,690 murders by 1974. That's more than a thousand more murders per year. Middle-class residents fled to the suburbs. Landlords torched their apartment buildings for insurance dollars. The desperate did what they had to do to survive, and the criminal-minded thrived.

The New York City subway became known as the Muggers Express. Times Square, once the crowned jewel of Manhattan with its landmark theaters and golden cinemas, became overrun by peep show joints. Pimps, streetwalkers, prostitution parlors, and skin flick movie houses, a seedy symbol of the city's decline. Downtown, the Bowery was overrun with homeless. The West Side Pier served as the city's unofficial gay hookup spot,

a dark in Bakanal filled with not only men desperate to connect in a thoroughly repressed society, but also with gay bashers, wallet snatchers, and rough trade slashers. He approached the piers in the 70s. with the thrill of your life in your chest, but also by taking your life in your hands. These and many other factors all combined to give 1970s New York City a new moniker,

Fear City. It was in this city that Colombian export, Billy Mercia and his Egyptian immigrant pal from Jamaica Queen, Sylvan Mizrahi, fed their twin obsessions, fashion and rock and roll. They played drums and guitar, respectively, and started their own fashion label, Truth in Seoul. And they applied their immigrant grit and sense of entrepreneurship to create their

own opportunity in a city that was fast approaching a 10% unemployment rate. Billy's mom, Mercedes, imported a master Lumer from Columbia. And the clothes they created garnered a write-up in the influential women's wear daily, and Truth in Soul quickly sold their inspired designs to a bigger company, the results of which were a windfall of cash for young Billy Mercia and his friend, Sylvain. And they quickly get the fuck out of Fear City, headed to Europe. And they went their separate ways, partied, drank, chased Euro skirt, sniffed glue, brawled, took in some new fashion ideas, and eventually linked back up in London to fill their travel chess with Ludwig drums, martial amplifiers, and dozens of hard-to-find Mickey Mouse ringer teas.

They shipped it all home along with the new Jaguar they'd purchased, and when they themselves finally made their way back to Manhattan, they discovered their future roaming the streets of New York City right under their goods. glue-sniffing noses. Right alongside the pimps and the pros, the hustlers cruising Christopher Street and the bums on the bowery, he was only 5'7, but still he cut an impressive figure. You'd think it was the four-inch platform shoes he was wearing a la T. Rex's Mark Bolin, or the impressive Italian tailored suits he was rocking while still just a teenager.

But it was so much more than that. It was the way he carried himself, like a motherfucker. with a rock star's confidence and outlaw's confidence, even at such a tender age. He learned from getting up close and personal with rock and roll's most infamous bandito at the time, Keith Richards. He'd heard about this bar on 5th, around 13th Street. Supposedly John Lennon hung out there,

members of the MC5 too. So, of course, he began frequenting the bar, and sure enough one night, he found Keith Richards sitting by his lonesome, just drinking and smoking. He and his friends joined Keith. who was more than happy to share his smokes with these fast-talking American street kids. He couldn't believe it.

He was in love with the Stones. He made sure he was right up front near the stage when they played Madison Square Garden in 69. And there he was, sure enough. In the Maisel Brothers' Gimmy Shelter documentary on the Rolling Stones, he can be seen four or five rows back opposite Mick Jagger, looking so cool in the audience that you wonder why he's not on stage with the band. John Gonzales, a Queens, New York. he later give himself the rock and roll name Johnny Thunders.

It was part DC comic hero reference, part homage to the kinks, and part harbinger of doom, a nod to the born-to-lose attitude he would bring to his band that was destined to do just that. But before burning out, he'd need to get his start. And that start happened with Billy Mercia and Sylvain Mizrahi, who is now calling himself Sylvain Silvain. They joined forces and were now in need of a bass player

and another guitar player for the new band they were playing. together. Johnny kept his head on a swivel, not knowing where in New York you might find opportunity. It came to a one night on Bleaker Street while holding up a lamp post with the lean of his effortless cool. Johnny nonchalantly took in the action, which at the moment meant two dudes, one short, one massively tall, trying to steal a motorcycle. They'd secured it and were now comically trying to lift the massive bike into the back of their van. Johnny watched and they noticed they did not look happy. They abandoned their new bike mid-theft and walked straight toward Johnny.

Johnny saw them coming but was helpless. Running away in Forge Platform Boots wasn't an option. He resigned to look tough, get into it on his terms if he had to at all there under the lamppost. When the two got up on him, he noticed their threads, inspired, rock and roll, not as bespoke as his but cool nonetheless. Their faces betrayed their intentions, not to whip his ass, but to instead, gather intel. The tall one, fucking long-haired rock and roll Frankenstein that he was, spoke up. Aren't you the guy who plays guitar or something from that Stone's movie? Johnny nodded. They played too. Their names were Arthur, Killer Kane, and Rick Rivets, rock and roll as fuck. A jam session was

planned with Billy and Sylvain as well. It all jive, and now they only needed a singer. Billy knew about this guy who dated a chick from the Warhol scene. She was much older and a model. So that was cool. Supposedly he was some sort of poet who vibed on Cuban music, could shout like Otis Redding, tighten up like Archie Bell, and looked like a more masculine version of Mick Jagger. And that all sounded great to Billy and the rest of the band. Like Billy Mercia, this guy's given name was so cool that he didn't need a stage name to join as their singer. David Johansson hooked on after one rehearsal, and the New York Dolls were born. Their first show was a beggars banquet for welfare recipients at Manhattan's Endicott Hotel,

a rat trap on 81st Street, where four women were mysteriously slain in the early 70s. They were billed as a dance band. No one danced. One of their next shows was in Brooklyn at Man's Country, a gay bathhouse that advertised with the following. Just a 15-minute ride on the Iron Horse puts you in our corral. No one cared about the band. Those who were there were more interested in the sex being had to.

and the bathhouse changing cubicles. But the indifference didn't matter. It was now in 1972. Lou Reed had long split the Velvet Underground and the torch of downtown Cool was about to be formally passed to the New York doll. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl.

You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me?

The cops didn't seem to care, so they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were underwere

people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive head first into the complex power of secrecy, how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything, and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of showed me out of the way and said, move. And he went out of the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off and that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets starting May 7th on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark.

When like young people come up to me and they want to be an act or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like, making karate noises.

And the entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellow-O. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kimman broke up with Keith Thurban.

Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things. Tena, manu, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver. And more.

Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. The New York Dolls were officially a thing. In New York City, the grimy crime-strewn city that spawned them, you'd best believe was in love, L-U-V. There's no way the band could have just been called The Dolls. They were 100% New York all the way through. To someone from anywhere else, conceptually, they made little sense.

The New York Dolls played Sacred R&B. Music spawned from the south and Midwest, jumped up blues and soul written by black American master traditionalists like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, men and artists who were larger than life. But the New York Dolls were five skinny white kids from the outer boroughs. Like the city they came from, they were a meld of diverse ethnic backgrounds, Colombian and Egyptian immigrants, a second generation Italian American, a Norwegian Irish kid from Staten Island, and an Irish-American kid from the Bronx that all came together in a way

that was distinctly American, an America that generations of immigrants from New York's Ellis Island put their stamp on. Their attitude, on and off-stage, exuded a pronounced outer borough masculinity, a sort of, what, you're talking to me, toughness, yet their fashion sense

was the total opposite. Straight up, in 1972, just three years after Stonewall, five years before Harvey Milk, 43 years before the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land, and a fucking eternity before mainstream America even began to consider equality for trans, non-binary, and gender-fluid sexuality. The five dudes in the New York dolls dressed on stage in all seriousness as chicks.

In no way does this sound today as revolutionary as it was in 1972, but it was completely groundbreaking at the time. The key was that what the dolls were doing wasn't drag. They wore platform heels, skin-tight pants and tutus, heavy eye makeup, and lipstick. But the overall effect was not to transform them into quote-unquote fags, as they were often referred to by jealous, less enlightened seamsters. The New York dolls were far from it. They dressed as women, but they played hard, crunched up power cord,

shrieking solos, anphetamine jungle beats, driving rhythm, scorched, overtly sexual, vocals and a higher than the Empire State building too fucked up to care type energy. When the New York dolls applied this approach to three-minute R&B songs, they were inadvertently building the foundation for punk rock years before Johnny Ramon or Johnny Rotten, whatever even enter a recording studio. It was utterly confounding and to make things more confusing, despite the way they dressed, like women, or perhaps because of it, women, hot women, wanted to fuck them. Men were afraid of them, of course, but that all went out the window as soon as beautiful girls started flocking to see the dolls, because wherever hot women go, men follow.

The band was gorgeous and fun and totally unique, and of course a little bit dangerous. Actually scratched that. They were a lot dangerous. They continued their pension for playing shows wherever the hell they could and set up shop at a decaying Mercer Arts Center at 673 Broadway. There was no real stage. The band played basically in the middle of the audience and thrashed around in their makeup and four-inch heels. The crowd was wild. Models, Rock Kids, Artists, Drag Queens, Bikers, Thugs, Horrors, Stars in the Making, who would steal and refine the Dolls Act, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss,

and even bona fide rock stars like Elton John and David Bowie came through to see what was up. Attendees didn't know if they were going to get maimed by a guitar head, stabbed in the bathroom, were cast in Andy's new film, or impregnated. by the band. Early New York doll shows had the down-home danger and violence of the Chitland Circuit and the high art, glamour, and sex appeal of the Warhol factory. Their Mercer Center shows are legendary. Nearly every quote I can find from anyone who is there is roughly some version of the same thing,

put best by rock photographer Bob Groon, who said that seeing the New York Dolls at the Mercer Center was, quote, just the most exciting thing I had ever seen in my life, end quote. Groon wasn't the only one who thought this way. The band quickly became the toast of the town, rubbing elbows with Bet Midler and Mick Jagger and attending parties uptown with the likes of Gloria Vanderbilt. It was low art meets high society. After conquering their hometown, London beckoned.

And in London, it was more of the same. Paul McCartney came snooping round one of their early shows. Members of the Who as well, with their managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, the lead dogs in the race to sign the New York dolls to a record deal. Mick Jagger came round again to see them play on his home turf, but officially passed on signing the band to the newly formed Rolling Stones Records. In Stone's guitarist, Mick Taylor quipped to the press that the dolls were,

the worst high school band I ever saw. David Johansson quickly shot back. No, we're the best high school band you ever saw, buddy. The kids will love us. So awesome. So New York. But the rejection didn't matter. Dolls were a sensation in London, and as was the custom of most young male rockers throughout the history of time, they partied their faces off. Booze, sex, drugs, more booze, more sex, and more drugs were everywhere for them.

And on November 6, 1972, it proved dark for the young band with the bright future. Billy Mercia was the life of the party. The Cromwell Road flat was stacked with second-generation Chelsea set actors, fashion designers, and international call girls. A scene, if there ever was one, and all of them in the throes of the American rock and roller, keeping them entertained with his undeniable New Yorkness. Sharp, funny, handsome,

Billy Mercia lived up to his band's height, a band who had recently blown the locals away with their opening set at Wembley Pool in support of Rod Stewart. Billy knew no one, really. Indeed, he ended up there by mistake, but it didn't matter. A good time is a good time.

so champagne was guzzled and quailudes were ingested, and sooner or later someone noticed, possibly fashion designer Malcolm Raines, that Billy Mercia wasn't moving. He was passed out, unresponsive. One of the more experienced revelers called it immediately, O.D. Most everyone split.

The few who didn't, rather than call an ambulance and risk getting busted by authorities, but what limited experience they had toward solving the problem. They called out his name, He didn't respond. They slapped his face. He didn't respond.

They ran a cold bath, dumped ice in it, and then dumped Billy's prone body into it. He didn't respond to that either. They pulled his head up and poured hot black coffee down his throat, and this likely did more harm than good. They slapped him some more, nothing. They pressed ice cubes to his cold flesh. Again, nothing.

They drug him out of the tub and tried walking him around the flat, his wet shoes dragging all over the plush carpet, no response. Eventually they put him back in the tub. where he drowned. By the time authorities were on the scene, there was nothing they could do. The coroner who just two years earlier had overseen the inquest into the death of Jimi Hendrix said that by far the best thing to have done would have been to get an ambulance straight away

and certainly not put a person in a bath of water. Billy Mercia, drummer of the New York Dolls, was dead at the age of 21, and his band was on the fast track to self-destruction, the only track available to a true rock and roll band. We'll be right back after this word, word, word. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.

And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated, the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me?

The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe.

On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you saw. it was. Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Danny Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we felt the plain turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive head first into the complex power of secrecy,

how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive because I wasn't eating anything. And me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off.

And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets, starting May 7th, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever, my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do?

Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance like he's about to attack me. Like making karate noises. And here's the entire the Kardashian family over there,

everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been sleepwalking. David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction

or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wait. not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting.

I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Madarazzo from Stranger Things. Santa Monsu. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. After Billy Mercy's death, the band returned to the states to regroup. Unsure of their future, eventually the band was brought back to love. by Billy's replacement on drums, Jerry Nolan.

Again, intact, there was only one thing for the band to do. Hit the road. The New York Doll's first U.S. tour was a waiting whirlwind that almost never started. Disaster struck before the band even left New York, and it came in the form of Connie. Connie, all 6'10 inches on her. Or whatever her actual height was, she was huge in Amazon like most of the woman who got with New York Doll's bass player, Arthur Kane. She had a body straight out in our crumb comic. Arthur himself stood over six feet tall and liked his women big.

Where exactly he found them, his bandmates didn't really know, but they were pretty sure he found Connie wandering Times Square at night, either looking for a John or dodging her pimp. With her blade and her boot for protection, Arthur was a sucker from the first time he laid eyes on her. She was hot, but hot-tempered too, and on this night, her mercury was way up the tube. Connie was furious that Arthur was going to L.A. without her to begin the doll's tour in Los Angeles.

There was nothing he could do about it, he explained. The band was broke, true, and girlfriends therefore weren't able to accompany them on the road because there simply wasn't enough money. Kind of true. Connie waited until Arthur fell asleep in their apartment. He was exhausted. The dolls had just finished a 10-show run at Maxis, Kansas City. He was crashing, trying to grab some rest before departing for the West Coast in two days. He slept face down on his stomach and awoke to weight bearing on him.

Connie, with her massive body naked straddling him, holding him down. What was she trying to kill him? Worse? She was trying to saw his fingers off with a knife so he could no longer play bass. Can't bring me to L.A. with your fucking band, you fucking dickhead fuck. Well, fuck you! Try playing bass without a thumb. Arthur threw her off, and in the process, she got his hand good with the knife.

Blood gushed, Arthur stood. Connie naked, mid for the window in order to hit the fire. escape. Arthur tried going after her but quickly fell on his face. Connie had tied his shoes together and now she was gone with no clothes on into the New York City night. Arthur's wound was bad enough that bass playing was out of the question for at least two months. He was so depressed the band ended up taking him on tour anyway to ensure that he didn't commit suicide while they were gone. They enlisted their friend Peter Jordan to fill in. When they hit L.A., L.A. flipped out. It was groupie mania. And Johnny lasted all of five minutes before infamous kid group,

Isabel Star, scooped him up. She was 15, and Johnny was smitten. Immediately he was calling home, telling his family he was going to marry this girl. Her age, it seemed, didn't matter. Nothing mattered. It was gross, as was the behavior of most rock stars who made their way through the L.A. groupie scene in the 70s,

but it didn't stop a lot of them, and it didn't stop Johnny Thunders and the New York dolls who were in constant motion. Play, shock, fuck, repeat. They slayed during their five-show run at the Whiskey-A-Gogo. By the time they left L.A., 14-year-old boys were walking down Sunset Strip and lipstick, which was exactly what authorities feared. The tour rolled on to Memphis, home of the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley,

who, by 1973, was starting to look more like a Kung Fu Liberachi with his Vegas rhinestones and hip-huckers than his former heteronormative rock and roll avatar self. The fact that Elvis may have somehow owed some of his newfound glam-farmes, fashion to a movement the dolls at birth was lost in the King's hometown police, who were chomping at the bit to bust the dolls. Memphis's finest got their chance on September 21st, 1973, when the band hit the stage at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, Tennessee. Prior to their show, word spread of the band's cross-dressing, debauchery, and general challenges to authority. Local papers covered the out-of-town exploits of the band in great detail prior to their arrival. As a result,

Tickets to their show sold out in a matter of minutes. With the big crowd came a heavy good old boy police presence to keep everybody, especially the New York Dolls in line. Iggy Pop opened up. No one cared. But when the infamous New York Dolls took the stage, and kids started to bob around to get into it, that was all the cops needed for an excuse.

Out came the billy clubs. The pigs swung them mercilessly. One kid busted through the crowd, and after he left up onto the stage, charged singer David Johansson and planted a big fat wet kiss on his lips. That's when the cops really lost it. The beating commenced. A full-scale riot was in effect.

The band kept playing, and David cracked wise into the mic. Hey, how do you know he's not the mayor's son you're beaten on? And the melee continued until one cop grabbed David and pulled him off stage. They quickly cuffed him, yanked him out of the venue, and stuck him in the back of the cruiser. They arrested him for lewd behavior because he dressed in women's clothing and for inciting a riot because, well, he kind of did, but not before the cops kicked it off. David Johansson spent the night in an open cell

with three other prisoners in Norma Cameli pants and women's shoes. He made bail in the morning and remarkably made it out of jail without further notice. But violence and destruction, when it came to the New York dolls, was just a kiss away. Real rock and roll bands, real rock stars, don't last. They exist for brief moments of time, either die or break up. It is impossible for a rock band, a rock star, for real rock stars, to make it in any long-lasting

sort of way, because time corrupts. Either through the natural process of aging, rock and roll is, after all, the young person's game, or through the corruption of the music industry that demands some sort of mainstream compromise in order to survive, or because the pressures and distractions of stardom cause them to take their eyes out the creative ball. Whatever the reason, it happens. Real rock stars don't last. This is not an opinion.

This is fact. How many truly great long-lasting bands or musical artists have zero bad records? I can think of only one, the Beatles. The key phrase here being long-lasting. Plenty of short-lived artists put out only great music, artists who never lasted long enough to misstep creatively. The sex pistols and Nirvana immediately come to mind, but believe me, after in utero, given the pressure the band was under,

Nirvana was due for a dud, and there's no way in hell that the sex pistols, had they survived their first and only U.S. tour, or we're going to go into the studio and play nice and focus and create a great second sex pistols record. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it. Eventually, one way or another, an artist's success will open the door to some sort of compromise or distraction, and before you know it, we, the fans are given crap like dirty work by the Rolling Stones

or St. Anger by Metallica or saved by Bob Dylan. All of these artists recovered from their many missteps, most do, because most artists are good ones anyway. or survivalist, self-preservationist. The New York dolls were anything but. They were not merely good. They were great. And they were not survivalists.

They were born to lose. Born to lose because they were one of the purest expressions of rock and roll anyone had ever seen. The New York dolls, like many bands of the time, or at any time, really, lived as excessively offstage as they played on stage, with wild abandoned, without caring about anything that wasn't either fun, exciting, cool, or some combination of the three. The drugs, Coke, speed, LSD, pills, heroin, the sex with groupies, models, socialites,

and wanted by women and now men alike. It was textbook rock and roll hedonism, sure, but what separated the dolls from any other artists before was the subversiveness they brought to the music industry, namely in the way they presented themselves as women, but not in the Jack Lemon, Tony Curtis, comical way with fake breasts and dresses, but instead in tied off silk blouses that showed off their hair,

chest and skin-tight spandex that showed off their cocks. The makeup, the hair, the skin, glamour from the gutter. It was literally unlike anything that had been seen in pop music before. And it was all on display on the cover of their Todd Rundgren produced debut on Mercury Records. The rumors that all of the members of the band were gay were there from the start. But the album cover only reinforced those rumors. Something that the band thought ridiculous, never missing an opportunity to play up the rumored homosexuality in public for shock value. David Johansson claimed he was trisexual, explaining that he'd try anything. It was all silly, it was all a way to stand out, a way to grab a lap. From the band's perspective, the way they dressed or what they did with their dicks was all

secondary because when it came down to it, they could bring it on stage like no one else. And ultimately, that's all that should have mattered. That's not how the game is played. What should matter has nothing to do with it. What does matter matters most, and what mattered in terms of of making it in the music business in 1973 was what influential radio programmers and promo men thought. These were the men who held the success of artists in the palms of their thick, greasy little hands. They decided which artist's records got spun on the radio, and thus which artists sold and advanced their careers. And to most of these men, many of whom were from the Midwest or from a previous generation, with less relaxed views on gender, a band that looked like this,

a band that openly flaunted cross-dressing and homosexuality was, of the question, so no radio play. And so, the New York Dolls debut album, despite being a rave-up classic of proto-punk post-rock-and-roll glory-day greatness, was dead on arrival. There was only one thing to do, shoot their way out of the business. When mafia families used to go to war in New York City, they called it going to the mattresses. Small crews of mob soldiers while at war would disrupt their normal living routines, rent out tiny Manhattan apartments, stuff them with 10 or so mattresses to scatter on the floor and sleep on, in a group for protection, away from their families to protect them as well as should anything happen.

And they'd all be together, and they'd all go down together. The New York dolls were going down, but not without going to war first. They were at war with the music business. They didn't know it, but it was a war they could not win. Valentine's Day, 1974, East 14th Street, a holiday massacre, not unlike the hallowed Halloween hit on Albert Anastasia back in 57. The Lord High Executioner of Murder Incorporated, leader of one of the deadliest crews of gangland contract killers ever assembled.

But there was now a deadlier crew of assassins on the block, and Anastasia saw his end in chair number four of the Sheridan Hotel Lobby Barbershop. Rival mob boss, Fido Geneviz gave the order. Crazy Joe Gallo organized the hit, pushed Anastasia's button with ten bullets fired in front of 11 witnesses. No one saw a thing, only in New York. But now, 1974, another crew of killers, lipstick killers. Lipstick killers.

Lipstick killers, a looved head in Metro Manhunt. That's lame, known to be a tough custom. Pretty boy Noah, Giovanni Ginzop, alien Johnny Coney, Joe Hank. There's dust. Killer kick in the junior. There was no telling who the lipstick killers were going to strike again, but even money was on the boss. The big man with the pinky ring on a thick, greasy little hand. The hit was planned for the Academy of Music, Billy Fox's old movie palace.

The lipstick killers sped up their German gangster sled slid slid into the spot out front of the marquee dressed to kill. Three-piece suits, pinstripes, fedoras, wide-knought ties, carnations, and patent-leather shoes. Their guns by their sides, they raced in blazing, down the aisles of the theater firing off rounds from their hardware indiscriminately. Messy-ass was their style, just looking for one bullet to kiss the boss, pierce his greasy skin, shoot him down. But the shots backfired. The plan was a bust. The lipstick killers had run out of track. They were now on stage in the theater, playing it cool, nonchalant. And they picked up the band's instruments, shed their pinstripes, donned their spand, and did what came natural.

Rock the house, in a way that only the New York dolls could. Unbridled, unhinged, impassioned, inspired, rough, real, raw, sexy, chic, pure rock and roll. And they kept it up as long as they could act with the show. Through the promotion of their glorious second album, too much too soon, they continued to scorch audiences with their unique pre-punk brand of rock and roll.

They drank, fucked, dressed outrageously, challenged any and all doubters, killed like the killers they were, until it came time to compromise, to grow up, to play nice. They went the opposite direction, drank more, fucked more, drug more, nearly killed themselves in the process until breaking up a few years later. They had scars, just like the city they spawned from. But the boss went unscathed. The boss always wins, and the New York dolls were always born to lose. A disgrace, you be the judge. I'm Jake Brennan, and this.

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away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever and my first thing is always can you think of anything else

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