Who was that band at the start of the first episode of Vinyl?
In reality, the band had an alibi.
The New York Dolls didnt always get away with things so easily.
Vinylseason 1 is set in New York City in 1973.
Rock was getting bloated and rollers thought it was getting a little pretentious.
Genesis brought art and elaborate staging.
Pink Floyd was teaching pigs to fly.
Yes was electrifying chamber music.
Keith Emerson and Greg Lake took mini tours during Carl Palmers drum solos.
Jethro Tull made full albums out of single songs.
The Rolling Stones pranced in front of an inflatable erection.
The Dolls single handedly lowered the standards of an entire industry.
The band had a glammed up look and pared down sound.
The New York Dolls won Best New BandandWorst New Band inCreem Magazines Readers Poll in 1973.
Music aficionados complained that the New York Dolls couldnt play.
Whoever said Bob Dylan could sing?
Robert Christgau called them the best hard-rock band since the Rolling Stones.
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The New York Dolls predated punk and glam metal.
When the Dolls started, Patti Smith did poetry readings before their shows.
Richard Hell and Tom Verlaine caught the Dolls right before they formed the Neon Boys, which became Television.
They met Johnny Genzale at New Town High.
Arthur Kane came down from the Bronx with a thick Irish accent.
The Pox were recorded by Harry Lookofsky, the same guy who produced Walk Away Rene.
When the Pox broke up, the two friends got into fashion, opening Truth and Soul.
They also sold keef, which was really good hash.
By the early seventies they were playing with Rick Rivets.
Thunder rechristened himself after the hero of DC ComicsAll-Star Westernafter he turned down the Volume.
He was a stud on Main Street and maybe some other porn movies.
David Jo looked 16 and bored shitless.
Frustration and heartache is all you got.
They caught the eye of Andy Warhol who helped them get a gig on Broadway, lower Broadway.
Bands did New York City residencies at theaters in the early seventies.
Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention played Wednesday afternoons at the Garrick Theater on Bleecker St.
The Fugs played seven nights a week at the Players Theater on MacDougal Street.
The Velvet Underground played around the block twice a night, five days a week at Maxs Kansas City.
The New York Dolls had a regular Tuesday-night gig in the Oscar Wilde Room of the Mercer Arts Center.
Who was gonna sit through the madness and still act quaint?
They mixed drag queens with glam rock to lead an assault on what was happening on the radio.
Is it a crime for you to fall in love with Frankenstein?
Johansen only wore a dress one time onstage at Club 82, though he rocked the Capri pant.
The center came crawling back after they saw the diminished bar tabs.
The Centers Blue Room theater also hosted the Modern Lovers and Suicide.
Rod Stewart invited the Dolls to open for him at a London concert.
The Dolls were signed by Mercury Records A&R man Paul Nelson.
Their debut album was produced by Todd Rundgren.
The New York Dolls second album,Too Much Too Soon, was produced by George Shadow Morton.
Future Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren managed to split the band up by 1975.
He put the band in front of a communist flag for a 5-concert-five-borough tour of New York.
Television opened for them.
Their last show in New York State was at The Shoram, in Quogue, New York.
Thunders and Nolan left while on tour in Florida in 1975.
Blackie Lawless sat in on guitar for the rest of the Florida tour.
The group played its final shows in 1977.
Sylvain formed The Criminals.
Thunders and Nolan formed The Heartbreakers with bassist Richard Hell.
A rock n roll nurse went into my head.In 1991, Johnny Thunders died in New Orleans.
Nolan died in 1992 following a stroke brought about by bacterial meningitis.
Early New York Dolls demo tapes were released on cassette asLipstick Killerson ROIR Records in 1981.
Sylvain formed The Criminals, cut a solo album for RCA and drove a cab.
He recorded the albumSleep Baby Dollfor Fishhead Records in the early 1990s.
The Smiths Morrissey reunited Johansen, Sylvain and Kane for the Meltdown Festival in London in 2004.
Morrisseys Attack label released a live album.
A film calledNew York Dollcame out and it looked like the Dolls would be back.
But Arthur Kane died of leukemia on July 13, 2004.
All dressed up, I got nowhere to go.
HBOsVinylseason 1 happens every Sunday at 9.
