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 Caught in the Carousel - Music Reviews and More
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Getting in Tune, by Roger Trott
Hew, Screw + Glue: How Stuff is Made, by James Innes-Smith
Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride With Tommy James And The Shondells , by Tommy James
Mingering Mike, by Dori Hadar
New York Dolls, by Bob Gruen
Red Album of Asbury Park, by Alex Austin
Satchmo: The Wonderful World And Art Of Louis Armstrong, by Steven Brower
Stalker Girl, by Rosemary Graham
Stone Roses, by Alex Green
Three Wishes: An Intimate Look At Jazz Greats, by Pannonica de Koenigswarter
The Vinyl Princess by Yvonne Prinz
New York Dolls
Photographs by Bob Gruen
Abrams Image
Hardcover, 160 Pages
They may not have been the best looking girls around, but the New York Dolls sure were photogenic. Photographer Bob Gruen had befriended the band in 1971, took his first shot of them in 1972 and never stopped snapping away, capturing them at airports, in lounge chairs, at rehearsals, live performances and on movie sets. Everywhere the Dolls were, Gruen was there too and the band loved it. "The Dolls were very easy to work with," Gruen recalls. "They liked playing dress-up and they liked having their picture taken." It shows. David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain, Arthur Kane, Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan were consummate showmen who not only knew how to perform, they knew how to never take a bad picture. In addition to the photos, there's a batch of great interviews. Lenny Kaye talks to Sylvain Sylvain and David Johansen, the latter who sheds light on, among other things, the band's songwriting technique ("The great thing about Dolls' songs is the arrangements are like Lightnin' Hopkins, they're not verse, chorus, verse, chorus. It's kind of savant—parts on top of parts—and sometimes they wouldn't have a lot to do with each other").
In their short but fiery lifespan, The New York Dolls' sartorial theatrics showed a band that was willing to never stand still stylistically and keep transforming from day to day. "Things are always evolving," Johansen says at one point. "Nothing's going to stay as is—and if you think differently you should be an accountant, because that pretty much stays the same." Morrissey handles the post-mortem here, lovingly weighing in on their premature demise ("If you start your career with an almighty earthquake, how loud can your next sound be?") and the importance of the band on his life ("In memory, they have out-endured all of their contemporaries, and they are within me forever") and his essay is a moving tribute to his boyhood heroes.
What's great about this book is that if you open it up to any page, the New York Dolls are so alive. "They were living a decadent life," Gruen recalls, "and I joined right in, but I always knew when to get the photos." He's right. And they're all in here.
—Alex Green
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