But we never hear of the Old York Dolls...

Sylvain Sylvain, New York Dolls guitarist, age 69
January 13, 2021

I had not heard about this.  I haven't listened to them much in years, but I was a fan of the New York Dolls.  The real version anyway, I didn't bother to listen to any of the albums Sylvain made with David Johansen a decade or so ago.  Now Johansen is the only one left and the only one who's had any success in pop culture.

They're more known for their influence than any actual popularity.  Their two albums were barely noticed.  Their managers also handled Aerosmith and despite all the attention and media going to the Dolls, Aerosmith was the band that became popular, they had musical talent while the Dolls focused on image.  As what remained of their career was falling apart, they got Malcom Mclaren as a manager and although that quickly failed and the band broke up, it gave him some ideas when he went back to England and formed the Sex Pistols.

And that was basically it.  They had influence on other bands.  I first heard of them on Guns'n'Roses' Spaghetti Incident cover album and I got Sylvain's autograph a few years later when he played a local bar.  Johansen changed his name to Buster Poindexter where he became a one-hit wonder with "Hot Hot Hot."  He also started a little acting, probably best known as the very entertaining Ghost of Christmas Past in Bill Murray's movie Scrooged.  He has also appeared in a Mick Jagger movie, Freejack, not his only time hanging around famous people.  His legs are seen in one of John&Yoko's odd movies.  And looking it up, it seems he appears in a 2015 Bill Murray movie about Christmas, directed by Sofia Coppola.  He also played Toody in a 1994 Car 54, Where Are You Movie which I did hear about at the time and I'm kinda surprised I never saw, but that's probably a good thing.

So that's the Dolls.  Despite their lack of musical talent, they were very good at making use of what they had and their original songs stand out as fun versions of what would become hard rock.  I'm listening to some songs now and they're still enjoyable, a good mixture of pop, rock and theater.