Sylvain Sylvain: A Journey From The Suez Canal Crisis To The New York Dolls

By Devorah Ostrov

The New York Dolls pose in front of the Gem Spa

Photo: Toshi

"Even though our music wasn't that tight at the beginning, we knew we moved. And we knew that we had the essence of rock and roll. So we thought we were the most substantial band ever formed." David Johansen, talking to Rock Scene magazine, December 1973

"...the Dolls more than did their bit for the state and development of rock 'n' roll. They went out on a limb, and paid dearly for their daring. But without them, there never would have been a new wave." Trouser Press, November 1979

In September 1993, Triple X Records released the live New York Dolls' CD, Paris Le Trash. Recorded some twenty years previously at the Radio Luxembourg studios, it captured one of the Dolls' more illustrious performances, and it seemed like the perfect reason to call Sylvain Sylvain for a quick chat.

We ended up talking for more than five hours over the course of several days. Most of our conversation centered around Syl's childhood in Cairo and Paris and the early days of the Dolls, an oft-neglected part of the band's backstory, which I found fascinating.

Me & Sylvain outside a New York Dolls show at
the Manchester Academy in 2011.

But the article was never published because three hours into the transcription, I gave up. The tale I wanted to tell finished in 1972 with the death of the group's original drummer Billy Murcia, but it was still too big to fit into the confines of a fanzine. And the few questions I'd asked about their prime recording and touring years were too random to build into anything cohesive.

Finally, now I've dispensed with space limitations and my imagined editorial need for a comprehensive account of the group's entire history — here's the story of Sylvain Sylvain's journey from the Suez Canal Crisis to the New York Dolls. Funnily enough, we never actually talked about Paris Le Trash, although the CD's cover photograph provided our starting point.

* * *

Directing my attention to an indistinct hotel sign immortalized on the front and back covers of Paris Le Trash, Sylvain told me excitedly: "That's the Hotel Holland! That's where I grew up. All five of us [the family included Syl's older brother Leon and younger sister Brigitte], on top of the Mediterranean fish market. The whole house smelled of fish. My poor mom, she went nuts!"

So, our interview began with Syl's childhood memories as a refugee escaping a harsh political regime in Egypt and followed the path that eventually led to the formation of one of the most influential rock 'n' roll bands of the 20th century.

L-R: Arthur Kane, Johnny Thunders, David Johansen,

Jerry Nolan and Sylvain Sylvain

Sylvain Mizrahi (he vehemently denies reports that his real first name is Ronald) was born in 1951, on Valentine's Day, in Cairo, Egypt. Syl's parents were of Jewish descent. His father worked as a banker, and the family was financially well off.

Syl fondly reminiscences about riding around Cairo in his uncle Ralph's big Buick — "That was a lot of fun!" But another early memory is intertwined with politically painful details: "In the very early 1950s, our maid would take us to see the parades. That was before [Egyptian President Gamal Abdel] Nasser took over. When King Farouk was around, the law of the land was that you couldn't own a red car. He was the only guy with a red car! So, when you saw a red car, you knew it was the King. They threw his butt out; they threw us all out after the Suez Canal Crisis."

Surprisingly, even back then, American pop culture was readily available for consumption in Egypt, and little Sylvain keenly absorbed it all. "My whole thing was very American," he states. "The movies, Coca Cola, Marilyn Monroe, roller skates, Bazooka bubble gum... and all the crazes, like hula hoop."

"It's a new kind of music and for the masses it's 
gonna take a while until it sinks in," says David
Johansen in this 1974 Circus magazine feature.

He drops his voice conspiratorially. "I'll tell you the truth. I was really involved in the hula hoop craze; we used to have contests. And I loved the cowboy scene! I remember I used to get a bottle of Coca Cola and hammer a little nail hole into the top, and I'd drink it from my father's shot glass — so I looked like a cowboy drinking whiskey in a saloon."

On October 29, 1956, Israel and its allies invaded Egypt in an attempt to wrest control over the Suez Canal and oust President Nasser. The "Suez Canal Crisis" only lasted for seven days before political pressure from the US and Soviet Union forced the invaders to withdraw. But all shipping on the canal ceased, and political and religious tensions in the area remained high.

"Things got really bad," says Syl. "Being a Jew at that time was really, really bad. During the crisis, all my relatives had to gather together and live in one apartment. Then the government nationalized everything we had, so we were forced to leave. You know, it wasn't like they threw you out, but you didn't have anything anymore. And when you went down the street, they would yell out, 'Yahudi! Yahudi!' — which is 'Jew' in Arabic."

Remarkably, he can look back on those days with a philosophical viewpoint. "It's always been like that... religion, you know, it'll go on forever." And he thinks about how his father made light of the situation: "At Passover when he told the story of how the Jews were exiled from Egypt like 5,000 years ago, my father's joke was, 'And we were schmucks enough to go back and get thrown out again!' But that's the truth."

Sylvain was only seven years old when his family emigrated to France. "France was the first country that took us," he explains. "And we became almost like French citizens."

An Endless Valentine's Day All Night Party 
with the New York Dolls and all their friends

 at the Mercer Arts Center

The Hotel Holland, where the family lived, was in the Parisian artist enclave of Montmartre, just around the corner from the Follies Bergere. Of more importance to Syl, it was also around the corner from a shop that sold televisions.

"We didn't have a TV, so every day after school me and my friends and the kids on the street would go down there and watch the one in the window. Most of the time, it was Rin Tin Tin dubbed in French — Les Aventures De Rin Tin Tin."

Syl reflects: "There were a lot of Moroccans, Algerians... a real mix. In the late '50s/early '60s, Montmartre was like the Greenwich Village of Paris. My big thing was, I saw lovers kissing all over the place! I couldn't believe it. It was just like in the movies! Because in Egypt you can't do that, it's not allowed. And I remember the girls with their raincoats — those dark blue, very thin raincoats, and the guys had the ones without the belts."

This was also when he first heard American rock 'n' roll. "One of my uncles was crazy about black American musicians," says Syl. "He had a lot of Ray Charles records. I think that was the first time... And you also had the French copying the Americans, like Johnny Hallyday [the 'French Elvis'] and there was this band called Les Chaussettes Noires [the Black Socks]. Those guys were the hippest; they were like the Ventures of France. They were doing all this Elvis kind of stuff, and they did it really well. Between that and my uncle's record collection, I got a hankering for rock 'n' roll!"

One of a series of fabulous adverts using Dolls-era  

photos (this one with Lori Mattix) to promote 
Syl's solo shows at the Hotel Vegas.

In 1961, Syl's family obtained their Visas to come to America. But they couldn't just move anywhere in the US. There were designated cities where the American Jewish Committee helped new immigrants to settle.

"It was funny because there were only a few places that we could pick from," notes Syl. "They gave us a list, and I remember my relatives talking about it. It had Cleveland and Boston... and Buffalo, New York. My relatives thought — NEW YORK! So that's what they chose."

"And we came here by boat," he adds. "The SS United States — it was the fastest ship afloat at the time. I remember it was a foggy kinda day, a rainy day when we arrived in New York. Me and my brother were up on the deck looking at the Statue of Liberty, just like the immigrants that came in the 1930s. I was probably one of the last to see it like that, because after that everybody just came by air."

The house in Buffalo came furnished and included a piano. "I would go to the piano after school," says Syl. "That's when I discovered that I had talent. I would follow along with my uncle's records."

However, the Mizrahi's weren't prepared for winter in upstate New York (the year they arrived, the temperature in Buffalo plummeted to a record -20 degrees). "My poor mother never even left the house," chuckles Syl. "She'd never seen so much snow in her life!"

Early publicity photo with the original New York Dolls lineup.

L-R: Billy Murcia, Johnny Thunders, David Johansen,

Sylvain Sylvain and Arthur Kane

And even though John F. Kennedy had become the 35th President of the United States that January, prejudice and segregation remained rife in Buffalo. "We lived right across the street from this all-black school," recalls Syl. "But I had to travel to an all-white school. There was all this crap going on, a lot of hatred."

The ten-year-old who was fluent in Arabic and French, also remembers the reception he received at his new school. "Unfortunately, it wasn't like 'Hey!' all open arms. The first thing they said to me was, 'Do you speak English?' I said, 'No.' And they said, 'Fuck you!' That was one of the first things I learned how to say!"

Syl poses cutely with my old fanzine (NYC - 1984)
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Syl was too young to comprehend the complex socio-economic and political factors underlying his less-than-enthusiastic welcome. And he didn't understand why his mother cautioned him, "Don't ever tell anybody that you're a Jew!"

Instead, he blamed his problems on his dorky footwear. "It took us a long time to get the clothes," laments Syl. "We were stuck with what we'd brought with us. Our shoes were brown; everything was brown. And when we came here, everything was black. We just thought, maybe they don't like us because we're Jewish, and we walk around in these weird brown shoes."

The family's stay in Buffalo was short-lived. In 1962, they moved to West 6th Street and Avenue O in Brooklyn. "It was what they called an SY neighborhood," says Syl. "Which stands for Syrian Jews. They were all from our neck of the woods!"

By that point, he brags, "I could speak English better than you!" And his wardrobe had bucked up as well. "I remember, we'd take our new pants and put them on inside out and sew them while they were on, so they'd be real tight. Then take them off and put them back on to see if they fit. Sew them up and sew them up... until they were so tight, I swear!"

Sylvain endorses Ibanez in this advert

Sylvain was now ideally positioned for the pop music explosion of the early '60s. His fondness for the girl-groups of the era is well-documented, and its influence is easily discernible both in the music he wrote for the Dolls and in his solo material.

"When we moved to Brooklyn, the girl-groups were really happening," he says, "and I loved that! We had to go to this annex because our junior high school was really crowded, but right across the street was this bowling alley and we'd all hang out there. They had a pretty cool jukebox."

What was on it?

"It had everything from 'The Strip' to 'Leader of the Pack' — all the big hits! And the Ronettes... Oh god, I used to have this Italian girlfriend named Mary. She was crazy in love with the Ronettes! Every five minutes there was another dime going in the jukebox. And then, of course, you had the Beatles coming in..."

Sylvain was just a few days shy of turning thirteen when the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show. "God, that whole revolution!" he enthuses. "It was a great era! I mean, for music there was nothing like it. I'm very proud... I see kids influenced by what I did, the things that I helped to do, and that's really nice. But there's nothing like that era. That particular era. The impact that the Beatles had... Jesus Christ! They changed everything!"

The boys pose with their clothes in this

early publicity pic by Leee Black Childers. 

And it was the Beatles that decided Syl's choice of career. "Once I saw the Beatles, that was it," he states. "I cried my ass off, but I finally got this big acoustic Spanish guitar. That was my first guitar! I swear, I must have cried for six months to get that fucker. My mom finally said, 'He's gonna die if he cries anymore. Let him have it.'"

The Mizrahi family relocated again while Syl was still in junior high, following his Uncle Ralph, who had recently arrived from France and settled in Queens.

"I always looked up to my Uncle Ralph," confides Syl. "He was a really great guy. When he came to America, he bought himself a brand-new Chevy. This beautiful white Chevy. I said to my father, 'Why don't you buy yourself a car?' My father didn't believe in credit, and he was always scared because they'd nationalized his money in Egypt, and he thought it could happen again."

Syl was enrolled at Van Wyck Junior High, and he began working at a Jamaica Avenue novelty shop owned by one of his uncles. "Jamaica Avenue was the 14th Street of Queens," he says. "They sold all kinds of junk from Japanese guitars to toasters to cameras."

And it wasn't long before Syl's friend Billy joined him in the shop. Billy Murcia was another recent immigrant to the United States. His family, which included his older brother Alphonso and sister Heidi, had fled the Columbian capital of Bogotá and settled into a rambling old house in Queens. Billy's mother, Mercedes, rented out the spare rooms to other new immigrants.

Mercury Records publicity photo

L-R: Arthur Kane, Jerry Nolan, David Johansen, 

Sylvain Sylvain and Johnny Thunders

Syl and Billy met at Van Wyck, where the Murcia brothers were climbing their way up the school's social ladder in a unique way. "It was really funny," Syl recollects. "Billy and his older brother would pick on the toughest or the coolest... the kids that stood out. They went up to them one at a time. Alphonso would come up and say, 'Hey, yo! My brother wants to fight you.' One day, he came up to me and said, 'My brother wants to kick your ass.' And I said, 'Oh, yeah?'"

The scuffle didn't amount to much, and the two boys became inseparable friends; they even looked slightly similar. In an interview with Trouser Press magazine in 1979, Planets' guitarist and former Dolls' roadie Binky Philips noted: "Syl and Billy, they were very much alike with the corkscrew hair, with scarves and badges and crap sort of dripping off them."

Advertisement for Truth and Soul

offering a range of 22 hip sweater styles

By 1965 Syl and Billy were attending Newtown High School, along with fellow pupil John Genzale, who Syl terms: "This handsome Italian kid, who was always really well-dressed."

In high school, Syl and Johnny had a nodding familiarity. "We always liked each other," he says. "It was like 'Hey man, whatcha doin'?' But we came from far away. We saw each other at school, but we didn't live in the same neighborhood."

It was also about then that Sylvain more or less moved into the Murcia's basement, and he and Billy took some tentative steps towards becoming musicians. "Billy got some drums and I got my first electric guitar, and we started to rehearse with one little amp. We started learning 'Wipe Out.' That was the first song we learned."

Establishing a timeframe sparks another memory. "This is getting on now; this is the mid-'60s. I'll tell you when it was because me and Billy used to ride our bicycles out to the '64/'65 World's Fair. This is funny... I was talking to Arthur [Kane] recently. He used to work at the World's Fair in the Belgium Village making waffles. It's all connected, you know!"

By 1967 Syl and Billy had teamed up with local legend Mike Turby to form a three-piece outfit called the Pox.

The New York Dolls invite you Beyond the Valley. 

Flier for a show at the Diplomat Hotel - also appearing 
was Shaker, featuring future Doll Jerry Nolan.

"The Pox came together in Billy's basement," confirms Syl. "Mike Turby was a big star in Queens because he was from this band called the Orphans. So, wow! When we landed him, we really learned about the blues and everything else. He broke us in with Cream and all that kind of stuff."

Syl describes the Pox as "a real rock 'n' roll band. We were influenced by all the later '60s stuff, from Jimi to the Yardbirds. We were kind of like Blue Cheer, if you will."

Syl continues, "That summer was when we really got into the blues, B.B. King and that kind of stuff. And the English bands doing the blues, like the Yardbirds and John Mayall. I loved John Mayall! I remember seeing him at the Café au Go Go, and he had Mick Taylor on guitar. I remember seeing bands when they were just beginning, like Blood Sweat and Tears. We'd go down to Greenwich Village, to the Café Wah and the Gaslight and the [Night] Owl, the Underground, the Cock and Bull... I could go on and on, there were so many of them! And we'd see bands like the Blues Magoos and the Music Machine and the Lovin' Spoonful. It was the greatest time! We'd absorb it all; participate in whatever we could."

Pox's career apex was opening for the Group Image in the Grand Ballroom of the Hotel Diplomat, and in 1968 they signed a management deal with Harry Lookofsky (father of the Left Banke's Michael Brown). "Our parents had to sign the contract because we were too young," says Syl. The Pox recorded a tune called "Epitaph" for Lookofsky, but "it never really came out." In 1969, the Pox folded and Turby left for San Francisco.

The Dolls storm L.A. on the cover of Rock Scene 

March 1974

After the break-up, Syl and Billy "still played with this guy and that guy, we didn't stop playing." But following a stint at Quintanos School for Young Professionals (where they again crossed paths with Johnny), the pair started their own business, making colorful trend-setting sweaters under the moniker Truth and Soul.

One Truth and Soul advert presented a range of 22 "hip sweater styles in tweeds, stripes, ribs or suedes." Another ad made the snarky assertion: "Most Americans wouldn't be caught dead in our clothes. We wouldn't be caught dead in theirs."

"Our sweater company was really popular!" states Syl. "We were making sweaters by hand, with a handloom. Women's Wear Daily featured us, and we were selling to all the hippie shops in New York like Paraphernalia and Betsey Bunky Nini [which became Betsey Johnson]."

Truth and Soul even had a small shop of its own in Woodstock, New York, and the boys peddled their psychedelic sweaters at the festival from a stall located somewhere "between two trees." The young entrepreneurs later sold their brand to Nausbaum Knitting Mills and went to Europe. "It was a good time for us," says Syl. "Me and Billy were really successful."

While Billy took his share of the profits and flew to Amsterdam, Syl spent the remainder of 1969 and most of 1970 in London where he bought Marshall amps, shopped for the latest British fashions on Portobello Road, and saw Tyrannosaurs Rex at the Roundhouse.

Melody Maker reported: "...the Rainbow restaurant up above
Biba's might not be staging rock shows too soon after the

appearances by the NY Dolls. It seems the residents in 
Kensington didn't approve of the noise."

The earliest inklings of what would become the New York Dolls began when Syl and Billy returned home to Queens in late 1970.

"That's when Johnny started coming out to Billy's mom's basement to jam with us," says Syl.

Johnny Genzale christened himself Johnny Volume before changing his name to Johnny Thunders (after a comic book hero).

His prior experience included a high school combo called Johnny and the Jaywalkers, and when he began jamming with Syl and Billy, the iconic guitar slinger played bass.

"Yeah! It's true!" laughs Syl. "When Johnny came out to Billy's mom's place, he had a bass."

Although Johnny was obviously a tremendously talented natural guitarist, Syl showed him a few things. "Johnny used to come down to the basement to learn how to play the guitar. He used to say that I taught him everything he knew, which was a great compliment. And I'd say, 'Come back for more lessons!' We'd kind of trade ideas and stuff, and we'd go down to the basement to really blow it out. We would sleep there, and the next day we'd wake up and jam. That's how we learned, by playing the blues all night long."

According to some accounts, they were already using the name Dolls by then. If not, it was certainly something Sylvain was thinking about.

Celebrate New Year's Eve 1973 with the New York Dolls

and their friends at the Mercer Arts Center

During a brief tenure in retail, Syl worked at the hip clothing emporium The Different Drummer on Lexington Avenue, selling jeans to the likes of Janis Joplin and Brigitte Bardot. And he couldn't help but notice a sign on the building across the street: New York Doll Hospital (literally a hospital that fixed broken dolls).

"Me and Billy used to see that sign all the time, and I just thought it sounded good. I went for a sound. I didn't even know about the movie. I didn't know that Dolls was slang for pills. I just thought Dolls was a great sounding name. And it always stuck with me — DOLLS. And I remember I said that to the guys. But I never put the New York on it. I have to be honest, that was David's idea." (The credit for adding the NY prefix has also been attributed to both Johnny and Arthur on various occasions.)

Peter Max-designed poster for

The Different Drummer

But before their group got out of Mrs. Murcia's basement, Syl went back to London for the summer. "It was so cheap back then," he says. "I took my girlfriend. That was the summer I met Keven Ayers."

During Syl's absence, the New York Dolls formed without him. Most narratives agree that bassist Arthur Kane and his best friend guitarist George Fedorick (aka Rick Rivets) — both recently returned from a hash-funded visit to Amsterdam (one by choice, the other by force) — recruited Johnny for their band (which may or may not have been officially called Actress). In turn, Johnny brought in Billy.

As everyone involved hung out at a local bar called Nobody's, went to the same shows at the Fillmore, and spent weekend afternoons at the fountain in Central Park, they were all at least vaguely aware of each other. "That's how you met everybody," says Syl. "It was a clique."

However, scenarios vary about how David Johansen got drawn in. A sometime actor with the Ridiculous Theater who'd made a bit of a name for himself with Fast Eddie and the Electric Japs, David socialized with the arty Warhol crowd at Max's Kansas City.

Some stories claim that Arthur and Billy initially made David's acquaintance while Syl was away, but that's not the way he remembers it. "One of the guys who rented a room from Billy's mom, Rodrigo Sullivan, had moved to East 6th Street in Manhattan. Well, guess who lived in his building? David! Rodrigo said to me, 'Hey, you gotta meet this guy. He plays harmonica, and he looks like Mick Jagger!' I remember me, Johnny and Billy going to meet David. We got together and jammed a few times, and when I came back, they were all playing together."

Photo from the August 1974 issue of Creem

Insisting that he didn't mind, Syl adds: "We all still hung around together anyway. And I was working; I was doing more sweater stuff and boutique shows. So, I was kind of busy. And I knew it was my band anyway; I was a part of it. Not that I was pressing it..."

While he might not have pressed his rightful place in the group, he wasn't above dropping a subtle hint about the band's name. "I said, 'You guys are gonna have to figure out another name because Dolls is my name.' Billy knew that."

On Christmas Eve 1971, the embryonic New York Dolls (minus Syl) made their debut at the Endicott, a creepy welfare hotel across the street from the bicycle rental shop they rehearsed in.

"They were having a city sponsored Christmas party," David informed Circus magazine a couple of years later. "They needed a group and so we carted our stuff over and plugged in. We had no idea about balance or anything. We just played really loud."

"That wasn't a show at all," counters Syl. "It was nothing! People know about it because we told them it was our first gig, otherwise no one would have known. The only people who were there were the welfare people, and we're talking about heavy junkies. This was a welfare hotel in the '70s!"

Whether or not it counted as a show, the Endicott was Rick Rivets first and last appearance with the Dolls. Shortly afterward, Rick was out and Syl was in. "It might have been two or three months that they played together, if that long," he says. "I think Rick was drinking too much, stuff like that. He was just a screw-up kind of guy. They came up to me one day and said, 'Hey, you wanna do it?' And I said, 'Sure.' And that's how it all started."

Flier for a Benefit Boogie in aid of Dana Beal &

the Dolls first show at the Hotel Diplomat

Although the flier advertising a "Benefit Boogie" (in aid of activist Dana Beal) doesn't list the Dolls amongst the evening's entertainment, the website From the Archives states that this February 4, 1972 show marked their first performance at the Hotel Diplomat.

The website also features this quote from an unknown newspaper's review: "The Dana Beal benefit at the Hotel Diplomat was beautiful people getting together and having a good time and helping to free a brother at the same time... Anyway, Teenage Lust played some great rock and roll while the lead singer of the Dolls just blew everyone out."

Usually described as a "seedy residential hotel" off Times Square, in 1980 a fire eliminated the use of the Diplomat's ballroom as a venue, but Syl isn't particularly nostalgic about the place: "We got started there, but the Diplomat was only a small phase in our career. It was one of the poorest fucking hotels you could ever imagine, and it smelled like shit."

They played a few more gigs at the Diplomat during 1972, but the group soon found a niche in Greenwich Village at the Mercer Arts Centre.

Made up of a honeycomb of freshly renovated rooms surrounding a bar area, the Mercer Arts Center was situated at the back of the once majestic Broadway Central Hotel. But by the time the Dolls started playing there, the 100-year-old building had fallen on hard times and was a welfare hotel housing the poorest of the city's poor. Plagued by years of neglect and numerous structural code violations, the Broadway Central collapsed in 1973, killing several residents and taking the Mercer with it. (You can read a brilliant history of the Broadway Central here and find a collection of newspaper accounts of the hotel's collapse here).

Sylvain Sylvain - outtake from the photo session for the first LP cover

Photo: Toshi 

A flier reproduced on From the Archives indicates the Dolls played their first gig at the Mercer on May 5, 1972 (another source puts the date in early June). They played in the room called "the Kitchen" and were at the bottom of a bill that featured the Magic Tramps and Satan.

Rock writer Alan Betrock recalled the show for Phonograph Record magazine: "The headliner was Satan the Eternal-Fire-Eater, and the place was the Mercer Arts Center. The room was the Kitchen, approximately 13' x 60' in size. You walked in and took a metal folding chair off the wall, setting it down where you wanted. About 30 people were in attendance when the first group came on, and the quartet launched into their opening number: 'Don't know where I'm going, Don't know where I've been...'! Straight out teenage rock 'n roll. Then a fifth member, a Jaggeresque lead singer came out, and led the band thru a set of classy originals and rejuvenated classics. By the finale, the small room was packed full, and the sweaty bodies danced, shook and cheered for this unknown group, The New York Dolls. Later on, Satan took the stage, but that's another story."

Creem readers famously voted the New

York Dolls the best new group of 1973 
and the worst new group of 1973

"At the end of the night, we got paid like $1.25 each," inserts Syl.

But if you didn't feel like going to the Diplomat or the Mercer, you could also enjoy a late-night set at the band's house!

In early '72, Johnny, Syl and Billy moved into a large loft above a Chinese noodle factory at 119 Chrystie Street (fun fact: Spider-Man's alter ego Peter Parker lives a few doors away at 187 Chrystie Street). And round about the first of each month, they would throw "rent parties" in the space.

"Those were the best shows actually," declares Syl. "We'd charge like two bucks at the door. I don't wanna mention any names, but whoever made it later on was at those parties. It was the happening thing! If you wanted to be happening, you'd be there!"

* * *

Robert Christgau once wrote: "There has never been a band — not even the Velvets — who have conveyed the oppressive close excitement that Manhattan holds for a half-formed human being the way the Dolls do. The careening screech of their music comes right out of the Cooper Union stop on the Lexington IRT."

In a period dominated by earnest singer/songwriters, laid-back country ditties, and inoffensive soul crooners, the Dolls hit you over the head like a ton of bricks. The group's name is constantly invoked alongside the MC5 and Stooges as part of the holy trinity that begat punk rock. However, the Dolls' own musical inspiration can be traced back (at least in part) to the early R&B sound of the Rolling Stones and the pure pop melodies of the early '60s. And that, along with an infusion of irrepressible lyrical humor and over-the-top showbiz swagger, is what made their songs so special.

The Dolls on the cover of Phonograph Record

The five-page spread was headlined: New York's

Beasty, Brutal Music Explosion.

"The music the Dolls make...almost makes you believe in rock and roll again," proclaimed Rock Scene magazine.

Meanwhile, serious musicians sneered and said the Dolls were "extremely unpolished" and "musically unsophisticated." To which David once wryly observed, "It doesn't bother us when people say we can't play. When we met, we actually couldn't."

But it was the Dolls' outlandish glamor and glitz that really freaked people out. The term "Drag Rock" was seemingly invented to define the band to a worried middle-America. And journalists had a field day working scandalous phrases like "transsexual junkies" and "downed out high school toughs posing as bisexual psychopaths" into their editorial columns. One ventured so far as to call them, "A hard rock... 100% homosexual group in black tights."

The Dolls would never wear black tights! But they did wear a colorfully eclectic mix-and-match wardrobe of see-through polka dot blouses, red leather cowboy chaps, and lots of lamé sourced from their girlfriends' closets and acquired from European shopping sprees, antique shops, and thrift stores. And David simply adored his high-heeled pumps: "I would be a sex murderer if I didn't wear these pumps," he once solemnly disclosed to Rock Scene readers.

And then there was the makeup. While it was perfectly acceptable at the time to see male rock superstars like Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart smear on some blue eyeshadow and lip gloss, the Dolls tended to layer on a wee bit more Max Factor than was considered normal for manly men.

Mercury Records advert for the Dolls'
self-titled debut album

Syl acknowledges that the Dolls' early audiences included "the Warhol crowd and all the crazies from our crowd — the rock 'n' rollers, the wannabe Rod Stewarts, and all the drag queens from David's crowd. A lot of his friends were in theatre groups, and a lot of them were drag queens. They all mingled with the artists that were hanging around at the Mercer."

But he's adamant that the Dolls' image wasn't inspired by drag culture. "It was just who we were. Everybody claims that they told us to do it — that's a bunch of shit! We did it because we wanted to do it. That's how we would be dressed when you saw us on the street. And we would always put makeup on before we went out at night. If we were going to Nobody's, everybody there was putting on a little bit of makeup. It was just part of our lives."

It seems like the only ones not confused by the Dolls' image were the girls. "We attracted a lot of girls!" exclaims Syl. "We loved girls, and the girls loved it! It was great!"

"What we were doing wasn't feminine," he continues. "Well, I guess you could call it feminine. But it was sexy. Definitely sexy. And sometimes we pulled it off pretty good! I think we just got more outrageous the longer we stood in front of the mirror and the more time we had, you know."

Q: Was there a glam rock scene in New York when the Dolls were starting out?

Flier for the New York Dolls SF 
debut at the Matrix

Syl: No. We were the ones who made it happen. Especially with our pictures being in the newspapers, and all that.

Q: Were you copying the English glam look?

Syl: This was before the glam look. We were copying performers that were popular, that were already doing it. Don't forget we had to compete with people like Mick Jagger and Rod Stewart to keep our girlfriends.

Q: But the Dolls took it to more of an extent than those other performers!

Syl: Our extent wasn't really that extensive, not until the first album cover. What we really looked like was the photo in front of the candy store [the Gem Spa, on the back of the first LP]. When you saw us on the street, that's what we looked like.

Q: Did David usually walk around in high-heeled pumps?

Syl: Yeah, yeah. That's how we dressed every day. We dressed like that to go to the supermarket — but without the makeup.

Q: So, your look wasn't really that outrageous for the crowd you were hanging around with?

Syl: No, not really. I mean, we never wore dresses. Never.

Q: Except at the 82 Club.

Syl: Once (laughs).

Sylvain Sylvain and Richard Hell (NYC - 1984)
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

On June 13, 1972, the Dolls began a weekly residency in the Mercer's Oscar Wilde Room that stretched into October — by which time they'd moved into the larger O'Casey Theatre. But it's the Oscar Wilde Room with which they will forever be associated.

Although it doesn't mention the floor-to-ceiling mirrors which adorned the walls, the Mercer's informational brochure reveals: "The Oscar Wilde Room is a cabaret theatre seating 200. It has a thrust stage that can be arranged in shapes to suit the particular production. It also has its own separate dressing rooms and public bathrooms as well as a private exit onto Broadway."

Another in the series of wonderful adverts using Dolls-era
photos for Syl's solo shows at the Hotel Vegas.

"The Oscar Wilde Room became our room every Tuesday," stresses Syl. "It was amazing how people just picked up on it! The people that came down week after week, we kind of gave them nicknames. There was one guy, he was Clothes Pins. Then we had the Amazon Women, and the Vampire Rats..."

And he recalls the tunes that filled the Dolls' setlist at that point: "It would probably be something like 'Subway Train' and it would've had 'Frankenstein' and 'Bad Girl' and 'Looking for a Kiss' and 'Personality Crisis' and 'Lonely Planet Boy'... something slow, you know. And we'd do a blues cover like 'Pills.' And of course, we'd always have an instrumental. I taught them the 'Courageous Cat' theme, and we'd open the set with that."

In other words, the band was already playing most of the material that made up their pivotal debut album, and some numbers that popped up on the second LP.

The Johansen/Thunders-penned anthem "Endless Party" was also part of these early sets. Recorded at Planet Studios in 1973 along with a batch of other demos, the song was never officially released until it showed up on the Seven Day Weekend CD some eighteen years later. "You know, in the loft, we'd play the shit out of 'Endless Party,'" says Syl. "When we played it live, it would be like six minutes long. If we were a little bit drunk, it could be ten or twelve minutes!" But whenever the group talked about recording the song — "We'd always say, 'Nah, forget about it.'"

It was also at this juncture that they met music biz veteran Marty Thau, who became their manager. Thau's career began at Billboard magazine and included a stint as National Promotion Manager for Neal Bogart's Cameo Records. In 1967, Thau and Bogart formed Buddah Records and scored enormous bubblegum hits with the 1910 Fruitgum Company and the Ohio Express. Thau had recently resigned from his latest job as head of A&R at Paramount when he chanced upon the Dolls.

Max's Kansas City advert for the Dolls' residency

In an interview with Kris Needs for ZigZag magazine, Thau reminisced: "... at a celebration one night with my wife — dinner somewhere, walking around on a nice, warm spring night, we passed by the Mercer Arts Centre. There was this little sign advertising the New York Dolls, two bucks in the Oscar Wilde room. I said 'sounds interesting, let's go.'"

Sylvain picks up the story: "I remember after the show he said, 'I don't know if I've just seen the best show in my whole life or the worst show in my whole life. But you know what? I wanna sign you guys!' He got our number, and he called up the loft, and he came to see us."

"I concluded they were the greatest," Thau told Needs, "but very young, very inexperienced and primitive. These were qualities I liked... I watched and listened to the Dolls and I heard these arrangements — I didn't hear wasted lines or excesses, I just thought it was great and to the point and somewhere in that group one or all of them have a very fine understanding of pop-rock music."

Thau brought in Steve Leber and Marty Krebs to round out the Dolls' management team and put the band into Blue Rock studios to record some demos. (They would later regret signing contracts with Leber-Krebs without first looking up legal jargon like "in perpetuity." The animosity was still evident during this interview, with Syl calling it "the worst mistake we ever made in our lives.")

The nine-song Blue Rock demo tape (initially released in 1981 as a ROIR cassette under the title Lipstick Killers) was a good indication of the group at this stage of their career. It included most of their live set as well as covers of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Don't Start Me Talking" and Otis Redding's "Don't Mess with Cupid."

In a Record Collector magazine retrospective, Kirk Lake points out: "On these sessions, the Dolls display much of the arrogance and excitement that would later become an integral part of their appeal, but the songs had not been developed to their full potential. Many of the tracks are almost pedestrian in their delivery compared to what would come later."

By July, the Dolls were playing their first gigs upstairs at Max's Kansas City. The Village Voice advert reproduced on From the Archives shows the band played there on July 24th and 25th. (The website also notes that the 25th was a Tuesday, inferring they skipped their Mercer residency that week.)  

Creem editor Dave Marsh wrote an exposé of the new Manhattan music scene, and its connection to Max's Kansas City, underneath one of my all-time favorite headlines:

Dredged from the subterranean scuzz-holes of Gotham, we now

confront you with a whole new generation of sleazodelic ratpacks 

In the article, Marsh states: "The several scenes which make up the New York rock circuit are interwoven. The most important finds its focus, as important scenes often do, at Max's Kansas City, the legendary dive that served as a hangout for Andy Warhol's bunch, the late '60s rock scene and more decadence than even its management cares to recall."

Flyer for the 1973 Memphis show where 

David Johansen was arrested for inciting a riot. 
(Kudos to Denim Delinquent's Jim Parrett 
for copying it from an eBay posting!)

In 1972, Max's was still the bastion for what was left of the Andy Warhol/ Velvet Underground crowd. Syl depicts its patrons as "arty and sophisticated and older — like in their 30s or more. It was an adult, arty crowd."

He emphasizes: "When we started playing at Max's, no kids were going there."

The Dolls and their younger, louder, trashier contingent ruffled some cultivated feathers and often infuriated Max's owner Mickey Ruskin who 86'd Syl and Billy for bad behavior. "He let us play," comments Syl, "but we were still 86'd!"

But the culture-clash was only superficial. "The art crowd did really like us personally," says Syl. "They'd been coming down to see us at the Mercer Arts Center anyway."

All during that summer, the Dolls were "kind of hot" (as Syl puts it) on the Manhattan music scene. In Phonograph Record, Alan Betrock reported: "By June or July of '72, the Dolls were the 'in' group to see. On various nights, just about every behind-the-scenes tastemaker in the business was down at the Mercer. Others, more visible, like John Cale, Alice Cooper, Todd Rundgren, Bette Midler, David Bowie, and Lou Reed, all made appearances."

"I remember David Bowie coming to New York," says Syl. "The first thing he wanted to see was the Dolls! And by then, even the bands that were watching us rehearse were beginning to copy us — like KISS."

Program for the Wembley Festival of Music,

October 1972. The Dolls played on Sunday,

between the Pink Fairies & the Faces.

The timeline on From the Archives suggests that former rock critic turned Mercury Records A&R man Paul Nelson first saw the New York Dolls at the Mercer in early August. He would spend the next several months trying to convince his bosses to sign them. Although Dave Marsh was almost certainly exaggerating when he wrote, "Nelson only had to watch the Dolls 80 unsigned times to do it."

The timeline also pinpoints a Mercer Arts Center show attended by British rock journalist Roy Hollingworth. As the New York-based correspondent for Melody Maker, Hollingworth penned a passionate two-page feature on the Dolls (with photos by Leee Black Childers) that was undoubtedly responsible for turning them into bona fide hometown stars — as well as introducing them to the UK. Printed in the magazine's July 22, 1972 issue, his article began with the affirmation: "They might just be the best rock 'n' roll band in the world. And whether you believe that or not, you're going to have to take notice of them."

"We were sensations after that!" gushes Sylvain.

However, reports that the Faces personally invited the Dolls to open for them at the Wembley Festival of Music — a huge two-day affair at London's Wembley Pool stadium — are not true (although it's a great story). "If they'd known that we were gonna play, I don't think they would've had us there," mutters Syl just loudly enough for my tape recorder to pick up.

In reality, and probably due in large part to the Melody Maker piece, Escape Studios in Kent offered to record some demos for the group and a handful of British gigs were arranged, including the Wembley show. Tragically, 21-year-old Billy Murcia died during the tour.

Too Much Too Soon - inside sleeve pic

(Photo from a Netherlands TV pop show appearance.) 

The band recorded four songs at Escape Studios in October 1972. All but one ("Subway Train," which was a re-worked version of an older Dolls' tune called "That's Poison"), had been demoed previously at Blue Rock Studios. But these renderings of "Personality Crisis," "Looking for a Kiss," and "Bad Girl" are somewhat tighter and more confident. (In 1978, Germany's Bellaphon label released all four tracks as two 45s.)

In Zigzag, Marty Thau stated that the intention of the trip "was to make a European deal and, if we could get it, a world-wide deal that was suitable." But the highlight was really the Wembley Pool Festival of Music, which took place over the weekend of 28-29 October. Slade headlined the Saturday show, while the Sunday lineup sandwiched the Dolls between the Pink Fairies and the Faces.

Advert for a Roxy Music/Dolls show at

the Manchester Hardrock. The Dolls

canceled due to Billy Murcia's death.

It should have been the Dolls' big break, but in a massive stadium with an unreceptive audience of 8,000 Faces' fans, the group's flamboyant look, unruly sound, and brash New York attitude was unappreciated by all but a select few.

"It was scary," admits Sylvain. "We had never played in front of more than 200 or 300 people at the Mercer Arts Center." He also remarks that the crowd "sat back and listened" to the Dolls' set.

They didn't go wild?

Syl: "No... Oh, no. They did not go wild. We didn't get booed off, but they didn't go wild either."

On the sladestory.blogspot page a fan simply identified as "Johnny" recollects: "The Dolls ... arrived on the stage in feather boas, high heels and lots & lots of make-up. They were amazing — or at least I thought so. My friends thought they were awful and actually left the auditorium during their set. I sat there and soaked it all in, not really knowing what was going on (the birth of punk?) but enjoying it greatly."

Adam Ant (who was 17 and most likely still called Stuart by his friends) told thequietus.com: "I was there to see the Faces, and when the Dolls came on you've never seen a room empty so fast. Everybody just headed for the bar. David Johansen had a top hat on, and Arthur Kane had some pink patent thigh-length boots and was being propped up at the back. They did a 15-minute version of 'Frankenstein,' and that was good enough for me. I hadn't seen anything like it before. I gather Steve Jones was there as well — a few people were there who would go on to form groups."

(From these two accounts, it seems the Dolls were dividing audiences long before Creem readers voted them the Best New Group and the Worst New Group of 1973.)

Flier for the Leicester University show
with Kevin Ayers - October 28, 1972

There were lots of high points during the UK tour.

"Did I tell you about the party where I met Sal Mineo and Liberace?" Syl asks eagerly. "It was so cool! This Sir-whatever-his-name-was sent a Rolls Royce to pick David up, but we all piled in and there was no room for David. He had to take a cab to the party. And once you got there, it was incredible!"

But sadly, there were more low points.

A scheduled support gig in Liverpool with Lou Reed didn't go to plan. "When we got there, he wouldn't let us play," recalls Syl. "He said, 'If those Dolls go on stage, I won't play.'"

Reed offered no explanation, although everyone would like to think he was afraid of being upstaged. "We were really disappointed because he was a New York guy," says Syl. "He really broke our hearts. Billy, man, he was so heartbroken."

On November 4th, the Dolls opened for Status Quo at the Imperial College London, where Mick Jagger was in attendance. Rolling Stone Records was one of several labels, including Track and Virgin, that were thinking about signing the band. "We were really nervous and didn't play so good," allows Syl. "You know, the Dolls would sound good one night and terrible another night. Anyway... he passed."

The tour started to wind down after the Status Quo gig. All that remained was a support slot with Roxy Music at the Manchester Hardrock on the 9th and a show at Sheffield University on the 10th. "We just had to do a few more things, and we were gonna go home," verifies Syl.

Advertisement for the Dolls at

the 82 Club - April 17, 1974

According to Sylvain, Billy had been spending time with "a couple of really sleazy girls" (one of whom has since been named as Marilyn Woolhead) during the tour. He was also taking Mandies (methaqualone) and drinking heavily. At one show, Billy vomited all over his drum kit and David very publicly vented his frustration with him. "I know Billy deserved a good shake," says Syl, "but it was more than that. Sometimes David gets in these moods... boy, you don't know. I never really appreciated that from him."

Sylvain recounts one of the last discussions he had with his friend: "I saw Billy one morning in the lobby, and he said, 'Sylvain I almost died last night.' I said, 'Whadda you mean?' He goes in his shirt pocket, and he shows me all these halves of Mandies. He said, 'I only took half of them.' But they're really strong those fucking things, especially if you take them every day. They react with the ones that you took yesterday. And sure enough..."

Billy died on November 6th. The official cause of death was listed as "drowning in a domestic bath while under the influence of alcohol and methaqualone."

Apparently, he'd been hanging out in a Kensington flat with Marilyn and some of her friends. During the night, they found Billy lying unconscious on the bed, so they put him into an icy bath and poured coffee down his throat. When the amateur attempts to revive him failed, an ambulance was finally called — but it was too late. None of the other Dolls were there, so what information there is comes from court testimony and speculation.

A year later, Syl spoke about the incident in Circus magazine: "It was really a shock... I knew Billy for a long time and it really was a shock. He passed out at a party and some people tried to force feed him coffee to revive him. I think he drowned."

Sylvain eating pizza like a true New Yorker.
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

"I don't think they murdered him," asserts Syl during this interview. "I think they got nervous and they tried to revive him, and when they couldn't... then they called the ambulance. It was an accident more than anything, you know."

The rest of the tour was canceled, and the group came home. "Billy was always like a free spirit," says Syl. "I never expected that was going to happen."

Using the adage that "death comes in threes," The Village Voice combined Billy's obituary with Allman Brothers' bassist Berry Oakley who died in a motorcycle accident on November 11th, and Miss Christine from the GTOs, who overdosed on November 5th.

In Phonograph Record, music journalist Ron Ross remembered Billy as a "crazy loveable pop boy" and said: "Billy had been wild with excitement about his Dolls' first English tour. No record contract, no money, just a communal wardrobe of transvestite forties flash ... and a band that got New Yorkers off their asses and on the floor."

The guys laid low for a few weeks and then held auditions for a new drummer. On December 19th, they returned to the Mercer with Jerry Nolan — an army brat and clubland veteran whose band Shaker had once opened for the Dolls at the Diplomat. Marty Thau boasted that "hundreds were turned away." And Trouser Press related that "faithful fans waited in the street afterwards to tell Jerry that he had been okay, that he was accepted."

"I can't believe all that happened in '72," muses Syl. "It must have been a very long year."

* * *

Q: Some accounts say that Billy's death raised the Dolls' profile and turned the group into even bigger stars. Do you think that's true?

Village Voice ad for the Dolls first show with Jerry Nolan

Syl: Yeah, it was incredible, but it was also horrible. I guess those are the terms.

Q: I understand you guys held auditions for a new drummer. Why do that when you already knew Jerry?

Syl: We had to. I mean, there were just too many people. And I think we just wanted to try people out — although we were certain that Jerry was the guy.

Q: Do you remember any of the other drummers who tried out?

Syl: The drummer from the Ramones tried out, what's his name... Marc Bell. He thought he really had it, but we thought he had bad teeth, so that was the end of him. And we thought Jerry was a real square. But we thought, maybe we can just dress him up. You don't know! He was still wearing bellbottoms and stuff. We were going, "What the fuck is this?" I tell you, he was a square! I mean, he never wore makeup until he actually joined the band. I can go as far as to say that.

You can buy the New

York Dolls debut album at 

Korvettes for $3.57

Q: What qualities did Jerry have that appealed to you guys?

Syl: He played good drums. 

Q: What was it like playing with Jerry? Was it different than with Billy?

Syl: It was really different. To me, it was like Woah! I'm not saying that it was better, but it was more professional. Jerry really professionalized our shows. It was tighter, that's for sure. It was slicker. I mean, the guy could really play and really keep it steady. And he was really inventive too! But Billy had more... I don't know what it was. Billy was really a New York Doll. I mean, nowadays, the whole world thinks of Jerry Nolan as a New York Doll.

Q: I've read several accounts about the difficulty the Dolls had getting signed to a major label. In Creem, Dave Marsh once remarked that "every record company in the country turned the Dolls down twice." What were they saying?

Syl: That we were just too outrageous, and "they don't know how to play." It was more that than the makeup, let me tell you.

Q: What happened on the night that reps from all the major labels came to see the Dolls? You had Clive Davis and Ahmet Ertegun amongst others in the audience. Someone said it looked like a record industry convention!

Red Patent Leather photo by Bob Gruen 

Syl: We were so big; our managers were getting calls from everybody. So, their big brainstorm was, "We'll get all the biggest guys in the business, sit 'em down in the big room at the Mercer Arts Center for one show, and after that we'll get a deal." But of course, we all know that sometimes the Dolls sound great, and sometimes they really stink. Well, this time... It was one of the first shows after we came back. If I'm not mistaken, it was our first show with Jerry. And it sucked. We really weren't very good. We were nervous and too speedy, and we didn't know what Jerry was gonna do. And of course, you never invite two presidents to the same show because they hate each other — "That's my competition!" That's the worst mistake you can make. And the next day, everybody... all the major labels, one after another called up and passed on us. This was Atlantic and Columbia and RCA and Warner Bros... all the big ones. Those were the companies you wanted to be with in those days.

Q: So, you ultimately signed with Mercury. I know Paul Nelson had been trying to get you signed to the label for months.

Syl: He was the guy we never wanted to go with. We didn't want to sign to Mercury, and they didn't even really want us. But they said, "Oh well, they're making a lot of noise. Let's take 'em." And that's how we ended up on Mercury. After everybody had passed on us; after we'd been the darlings of everything.

My "Trash" promo 45 - signed by Sylvain! 

Q: How did it feel to record your first album?

Syl: I loved it! I felt like, "Wow! We're really making an album!" This was a really important thing. I mean, we never really thought that anyone was gonna pick up on us and let us make records and stuff like that. It was just incredible to me. It was magic!

Q: I've always thought it was really sweet that you dedicated the album to Billy.

The Dolls on the cover of music

magazine Best - with a color outtake from

the photo session for the first album.

Syl: Oh, we had to. It's Billy's album. I mean, Jerry played on it but those songs... I even put "Trash" together for Billy. It's funny, I told his sister Heidi, "You know, I wrote 'Trash' for Billy." She said, "What!? You wrote 'Trash' for Billy?" I said, "No... no... just the music." Because David wrote the lyrics.

Q: There's that rather wonderful spoken line in "Trash"... "How do you call your lover boy?" I'm sure someone else did that originally.

Syl: It was Mickey and Sylvia ["Love is Strange"]. "Sylvia... Yes, Mickey... How do you call your lover boy?" I really don't know why they didn't sue us for that!

Q: How did Todd Rundgren become involved with the first Dolls' album? Was he a friend of the band?

Syl: We didn't know him personally. He was brought in from the management as one of the people to think about. We'd tried it out with this other guy... I forget who it was; it wasn't anybody big. And it was mainly to put down our demos. Which I think came out as Seven Day Weekend — those were our demos.

Q: Were you happy with the choice of Todd Rundgren as the producer for the first album?

Syl: I thought it was great. I thought Todd Rundgren was a wonderful choice!

Full-page advertisement for
 the Dolls first UK single & British tour dates

including two shows at Biba!

Q: Really? A lot of people seem to think he ruined the mix.

Syl: Ach! They don't know what the hell they're talking about! I mean, with us... It was like, get in there and do it and get out. So, sometimes yeah, something might have gotten muffled here and there. But when those masters got transferred to CD... Wow! I can't believe the way they sound. They sound so great! Maybe they went back and remixed it, but I don't think so. I think they're the exact same mixes that Todd did.

Q: I've read that Leiber & Stoller, David Bowie, and Phil Spector were all under consideration for producing the first album.

Syl: Phil Spector? No, that's not true. He would've been so wrong. There was nobody else that could've done it. Todd was perfect because he was really a musician. I love the way he took my guitar and kind of made it clean, and he took Johnny's and made that dirty — sort of like a Keith Richards and Brian Jones kind of thing. I'm not trying to compare us to them, but he gave us a distinction. On the second album, there really isn't any of that. It's bland, and there are so many mistakes — especially on my parts. That guy [producer Shadow Morton] never really let me work on it.

Q: So, you weren't happy with Shadow Morton's production on Too Much Too Soon?

Syl: I think it was a big mistake to get Shadow Morton. He was yesterday's big guy. He was a has-been. He didn't know how to make modern records. I mean, black girls are wonderful, but I don't think we really needed them. Or trombones. I don't think the Dolls needed any of that.

An invitation to the Dolls Ball
 at the Hotel Diplomat 

August 25, 1972

Q: Why did you use him?

Syl: David Johansen loved him; he loved the Shangri-Las! As a matter of fact, we recorded that Shangri-Las' song for the first album with Todd. It came out years later.

Q: You're talking about "Give Him a Great Big Kiss"?

Syl: Yeah. I taught Johnny how to play that song and it kind of became his anthem, but the Dolls did it first.

Q: I know there were problems with getting your songs on the second LP...

Syl: I'd already written "Teenage News" and "The Kids Are Back," and I was beginning to write "Girls" — none of those songs came out. As a matter of fact, my song "Too Much Too Soon," didn't even come out on that album. Johnny put it on one of his solo albums [Hurt Me released in 1983].

Q: Is that why you released the Red Patent Leather album?

Syl: The reason I even wanted to put out the third album was because I was trying to show people — "Look see, I was always writing songs." I mean, everybody was begging me to put it out anyway.

Q: You've been known to take issue with the Dolls' songwriting credits...

Advert for an afternoon personal appearance
and show at the Moore Theatre - Seattle, WA.

March 14, 1974

Syl: It's not fair. We wrote all that stuff in the first two years, and we were all together. When you read the credits, and it says Johnny wrote this song and David wrote that song... I mean, c'mon. There would never have been a song like "Jet Boy" if I wasn't there. There would never have been a song like "Human Being" if Arthur wasn't there. Little pieces came out of here and here and here... I don't feel like I wrote "Trash" all by myself. Or "Frankenstein" for that matter; I wrote that back when Billy was around. That's another thing, even Billy should get credit because he was there helping to write "Personality Crisis" and "Looking for a Kiss." Even the cover songs that we brought in...

Q: The girl-group covers and blues covers weren't just David's influence...

Syl: No, it was all of us together.

Q: You mentioned "Frankenstein," which has been called "the monumental Dolls' song." How did it come about?

Syl: I'd written those chords back in the Pox, but nobody wanted to do that song because — "It has too many chords, Sylvain." It was like the Dee Dee Ramone-syndrome. They never wanted to get off the first chord! Anyway... One day we played this street festival, we were playing with all these groups on top of this truck. And we all took THC. We would put it in a cigarette paper and roll it up and eat it. It would give you this marijuana high, but more trippy. I remember we did that at this festival, then we went to the loft and we finally started playing that song — and it was like, "Man, it's great! We gotta keep it." Like a bunch of stoned-out hippies! "It sounds great, doesn't it?" "Yeah, Johnny... it sounds great." And, of course, Johansen had those wonderful lyrics that he was dying to throw into a song. And that one... it just sat perfectly.

The New York Dolls opening for Mott the Hoople

Madison Square Garden/The Felt Forum - August 3, 1973

Village Voice advertisement

Q: Did you sometimes feel overshadowed by Johnny?

Syl: Johnny was always very aggressive. When he went on stage, it was his stage, and he'd kick your ass for it. I should have fought back, and maybe I should have walked out of the band. Maybe I should have quit earlier than 1975. Maybe then people would have understood what my contribution was. I was reading this article, and it pissed me off. Basically, it said: "I don't understand what Sylvain was doing there." I mean, the name... the songs... "Trash" alone is an influential song. Just give me credit for that, please! This article was like: "Well, Johnny... and of course, Arthur... but Sylvain, what the hell was he doing there?" And it was always like that.

Q: The first album is so iconic, and it's been credited with influencing just about everything that came after it. Do you know how many copies have been sold over the years? Reports at the time say the figure was 110,000.

Another very cool advert using Dolls-era
photos for Syl's solo shows at the Hotel Vegas.

Syl: Really? They never paid me, so this is what I'm still trying to find out! I mean, I can't believe... If you consider all the different countries that it came out in, and all the different printings... Who's to say how many copies the Dolls sold? I can't tell. And that's what they're trying to keep away from me, so they don't have to pay me. They keep telling me, "Nah... they didn't sell." And I keep saying, "Just show it to me. Just show us an account that they didn't sell." I'm pretty sure that it's done a lot better than they claim.

Q: 110,000 copies at the time seems pretty good.

Syl: God... Especially for an album that everybody put down, that never got radio play. In America, it was not an accepted thing. When we came out, they said, "WHAT?" You couldn't say things like, "I don't wanna shoot up in your room." And the Vietnam stuff — they didn't wanna hear it. And the lipstick... I mean today, gays are still being bashed. So, what do you think it was like back then? And we weren't even gay! It was that first album cover. When they saw that first album cover, they went nuts! That was it. Just that alone. They said, "That's it. Forget it."

Q: Do you ever wish you'd avoided all the kerfuffle and used the photo on the back for the front cover?

Syl: No. Never. That front picture — that's the Dolls. That's really the Dolls! The back photo is wonderful too. That's part of the Dolls. But that's not the Dolls. I mean, if you saw that picture first and the back would've been something else... That wouldn't have lived forever. That would've never shocked anyone. That would've never done anything.

The New York Dolls & KISS

at the I.M.A. Auditorium - Flint, MI
June 12, 1974

Q: You said that your extent wasn't really that extensive until the first album cover. Tell me about that infamous photo.

Syl: The first album cover was basically my fault. What happened was, Mercury had taken pictures of us inside this antique shop on Third Avenue in New York. We were supposed to be like "Dolls in a dollhouse." But it was stupid. It looked like shit. I remember when they were showing us the pictures, I made a big stink. I started calling up all the people I knew in the clothing business, all my friends. I said, "Listen, you gotta help me out." I knew these girls, Pinky and Diane, they were these two designers in New York at the time, and they knew everybody. They set me up with [photographer] Toshi, and this other Japanese guy [Shin] who did our hair, and this sort of Jewish drag queen [Dave O'Grady] who did the makeup. These guys were getting like $3000 or $4000 for a Vogue cover. We went to Toshi's loft, and they put some white satin on the couch. I remember that couch was like a piece of junk! And Shin was putting fake hair onto us and really bouffing us up...

Q: Wait, it isn't all your own hair?

Syl: Oh yeah, he put some hair in! We've all got some fake hair on that, definitely. And the makeup... The guy was from that theatre crowd, and he really went overboard. But I love it! We all loved it. Johnny was the only one who kind of regretted it later on. When he got into heroin, all his prejudices came out, and he said some pretty nasty things about gays.

Q: I thought Arthur might have hated it.

Syl: Arthur loved it, and David was in heaven. I mean, c'mon, he really plays it. Jerry was more trying to make fun of it.

Mercury Records advert for Too Much Too Soon

Q: Jerry's beautiful in this picture.

Syl: Yeah... but he's trying to go, "Oh, hello boys." I remember Marty coming down to Max's Kansas City to show us the print. He was saying, "Look how great it's gonna be!" I said, "I told you, man."

Q: What happened to the clothes that you're wearing on the cover?

Syl: I still have that sweater! The jacket that Johnny's wearing was mine. And the jacket that Jerry's wearing, that was mine. And our girlfriends were making those lamé pants.

Q: What are your thoughts about the band's involvement with Malcolm McLaren and the Red Patent Leather era?

Syl: The communist stuff was really the worse mistake we could ever do. Political stuff is always kind of a mixed bag, no matter what music you throw into it.

Q: You spent some time with Malcolm after the final Dolls' shows in Florida...

Syl: Me and Malcolm, we drove all through the South and New Orleans, and we drove back to New York. I gave him that white Les Paul that he gave to the guy in the Sex Pistols [Steve Jones]. Have you seen the Don Kirshner's Rock Concert footage? I play that white guitar. Look at the Sex Pistols — he's got the same white guitar with the girl on it. It's a decal; I put it on there. That's my guitar! 

Q: Speaking of the Sex Pistols, I know Malcolm originally wanted to form the band around you. Do you ever regret not taking him up on the offer?

Sylvain & my friend Michelle
 ordering pizza - NYC 1984
Photo: Devorah Ostrov

Syl: When Malcolm wanted me to go to England and do the Sex Pistols thing, I didn't wanna do it — and maybe I missed my spot in the limelight. He wrote to my mother, it's like a seven-page letter. It says: "Mrs. Mizrahi give this letter to your son." This was in '75, after the Dolls broke up. "Tell him not to go to Japan!" And he tells me: "I don't trust David." He was always very jealous of David. And he sent all these photo booth pictures... "This is Johnny Rotten; he could be the lead singer. And this is the other guy; he could be the drummer. They hang around my store. You could influence them. You can do anything you want." I read the letter, and I left it there. I went to Japan with David.

Q: Did it bother you when people assumed the Dolls were not only gay but also accused the group of being debauched and depraved? 

Syl: It was all shit. We were probably the most misunderstood and greatest rock 'n' roll band that America had ever produced. And obviously, we must have done something right because it still means something today.

Q: Something I've always wondered... Why are you holding a 16 magazine in the Gem Spa photo?

Syl: I just wanted to be bubblegum! Anything to be tacky!

"The world was not ready for the Dolls at the time and probably never will be."

Michael Reed, in a letter to the editor — Trouser Press, February 1980.

* * *

Many thanks to Sylvain Sylvain for all the hours he spent answering my questions. ❤ And look for Syl's book on the history of the Dolls due in 2018!!!

Also, a big Thank You to my friend Loren Dobson who helped transcribe the interview tapes. It was an overwhelming task, and the assistance was much appreciated!

* You can read my interview with Sylvain about his post-Dolls band, the Teardrops, here: devorahostrov.blogspot.com/2017/04/syl-sylvain-teardrops

* For a fabulous New York Dolls' chronology, go to: www.fromthearchives.com/nyd

* For even more of the New York Dolls' story, check out Nina Antonia's book Too Much Too Soon, which covers the band's full history.

* If you're a Dolls' fan, Stranded in the Jungle, the soon-to-be-published biography of Jerry Nolan written by Curt Weiss, should also be on your reading list!