New York Dolls

Relevance

Morrissey has covered Trash, Subway Train, and Human Being live in concert. "Human Being" was released as a B-side on You Have Killed Me (CD2).

From New York Dolls pay tribute to Morrissey - NME (November 23, 2006):

Speaking exclusively to NME.COM, reclusive guitarist and founder member Sylvain Sylvain took the time to give props to former Smiths frontman Morrissey for reuniting the band for the 2004 Meltdown festival in London.

He said: “I think David Johansen (singer) thought that those shows would just be a one-off but deep down, I knew that once we got back together the fans wouldn’t let us go.”

As a youngster, Morrissey bombarded the offices of NME with letters declaring his love for the New York Dolls and at one point was even the head of the UK fan club.

Sylvian added: “If it wasn’t for him, we wouldn’t have got back together and thankfully we managed to do it before Arthur Kane (original bassist) died. We’ll always be grateful to Morrissey for that and he’s a great guy too… and so are his cousins!”

From Moz The Cat - LA Weekly (January 31, 2007):

All right, I’m trying to imagine experiencing glitter rock fresh, and I want to know what it was like for you when you were 11 or 12, and you were seeing it happening as a kid. Did it seem like these were other English people to you or did it seem like they may as well be from Mars?

It seemed to me as if they were from Mars, because even though it was 1970, 1971 in reality, the fact is that England in 1971-’72 was really still stuck in 1958. So, if you can imagine how 1958 was, and then suddenly you have the New York Dolls, they seemed so intergalactic, absolutely nothing to do with the human race, and thank heavens for that.

But really, people can no longer comprehend how bleak the turn of the ’70s was. There was nothing to buy. You couldn’t buy decent clothes. So therefore, when you would see somebody like the New York Dolls, you would be absolutely mystified as to where they actually found their clothes and their shoes, because certainly in Manchester, there were no accessories. Everything was very, very fundamental and very drab. So, the very idea of, as you term it, glitter rock, or, as some people term it, glam rock . . . It was more extraordinary than people can really even imagine. It was an absolute revolution.

If you can examine what was happening within music, if you can examine all the things that were successful, you can then realize how completely perverse the very idea of the New York Dolls was. For me, when something can break into the mainstream and it’s so obviously subversive, it’s worth its weight in gold. And to me, that’s what the New York Dolls were then. They were smashing through, and to hell with anybody who didn’t approve or didn’t like them. And even now, I look at the old footage and it’s an art form. It’s not even pop music. It’s art. The same goes for certain other people of that period — which was very brave, it was very robust, and it flew in the face of absolutely everything that was accepted and was approved of, and that really takes guts, I think.

Morrissey picked the New York Doll's album New York Dolls #1 in FOR HISTORIC RECORD, BEFORE I DIE. ...the ten most important recordings - Morrissey Central (2019).

Morrissey also picked New York Dolls #1 in Morrissey's favourite 13 albums of all time (2010).

Morrissey picked "Jet Boy" in Morrissey's favourite 13 singles of all time (2010).

Morrissey picked "(There's Gonna Be A) Showdown" in Desert Island Discs - BBC Radio 4 (2009).

Morrissey picked "Vietnamese Baby" for Songs_To_Save_Your_Life (2004).

Morrissey picked "Trash" for Under The Influence (2003).

Several Dolls images have been used as backdrops.
The "Jet Boy" and "Looking For A Kiss" videos have also been used in pre-concert intermissions.

A colored version of the debut album cover was used as a backdrop in 2021 during Half A Person.

video source

Mentioned In

Discogs Information

Profile

New York City-based band formed in December 1971 and active until early 1975. Johnny Thunders (guitar) and Rick Rivets (guitar), Arthur Kane (bass), and Billy Murcia (drums) were joined by David Johansen (vocals) in the initial lineup, named Actress (3). In 1972, Sylvain Sylvain replaced Rivets and the band began to regularly play venues in Lower Manhattan, particularly at the Mercer Arts Center. The band had varying levels of success, but were never widely accepted in the US outside the New York City area, primarily due to their appearance. Thunders and Nolan left the band while on tour in Florida in early 1975, and the band soldiered on, often being billed as "The Dolls" for a few more months with fill-in musicians. The New York Dolls reunited from 2004 to 2011, with Johansen and Sylvain anchoring a fluid lineup of backing musicians.

External Links

Wikipedia Information

New York Dolls were an American rock band formed in New York City in 1971. Along with the Velvet Underground and the Stooges, they were one of the first bands of the early punk rock scenes. Although the band never achieved much commercial success and their original line-up fell apart quickly, the band's first two albums—New York Dolls (1973) and Too Much Too Soon (1974)—became among the most popular cult records in rock. The line-up at this time consisted of vocalist David Johansen, guitarist Johnny Thunders, bassist Arthur Kane, guitarist and pianist Sylvain Sylvain, and drummer Jerry Nolan; the latter two had replaced Rick Rivets and Billy Murcia, respectively, in 1972. On stage, they donned an androgynous wardrobe, wearing high heels, eccentric hats, satin, makeup, spandex, and dresses. Nolan described the group in 1974 as "the Dead End Kids of today". After reuniting, they recruited new musicians to tour and record. They released three more albums—One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006), Cause I Sez So (2009) and Dancing Backward in High Heels (2011). Following a 2011 British tour with Alice Cooper, the band once again disbanded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Dolls