← DISGRACELAND
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- [00:05]
Jake Brennan
Double Elvis.
- [00:07]
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- [01:08]
Jake Brennan
Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The story is about the New York Dolls are insane. They came to life when their hometown of New York City was coming apart at the seams in the midst of rising murder, rape and burglary rates. The Dolls dressed like women, fucked with men, and made the antics of the Rolling Stones look like innocent schoolboy shenanigans. Their drummer drowned, their bassist was nearly murdered, their guitar players despised their singer, and the only thing that their singer loved more than Archie Bell was himself. This of course was all part of the act. The self destruction, the violence, the intra band squabbling. But it was of course also part of the band's reality. A reality that in early 70s New York, in that weird moment between downtown avant garde music and the coming punk explosion between the Velvets and the Ramones, a transitional New York City reality that the New York Dolls embodied. They were a band that at the time, just like the city they were from, seemed born to lose. They were also a band that made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my melotron called Kansas City Flapjack MK2. I played you that loop cause I can't afford the rights to Family Affair by Sly and the Family Stone. And why would I play you that specific slice of Thicker Than the Mud Funk. Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on Christmas Eve 1971. And that was the day the New York Dolls played their first show and forever changed the trajectory of rock and roll. On this episode, lipstick A city in Transition in the New York Dolls. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Dis. The bandido lived a life that was envied, separate and apart from the daily life of his fellow Colombians who struggled under the constant threat of violence, from political unrest, or alternately, under the thumb of political oppression via the National Front. The bandido was immune to such social stressors. He took what he wanted, when he wanted, and if he couldn't get with that, then he wouldn't live to see the next Bogota sunset. This particular outlaw, with his skin tight American jeans, cowboy boots too tight, cowboy shirt snug around his bulging belly, a belly that everyone knew was just bound to send those mother of pearl snaps bursting open one day, had a particular type of confidence, a no good type of confidence that was plain as the black on his Stetson. His confidence sprung from the fierceness he knew and everyone else knew he was capable of the violence he demonstrated time and time again when faced with any conflict. When it came to his trade, smuggling tax free goods from America into Colombia and increasingly marijuana from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Monica mountains to America, the bandido was to sent savage in protecting his livelihood and reputation. Cross him once and you'd be lucky to get a warning twice and he'd deploy his favorite form of justice, the Colombian necktie, A neat little trick where he'd slit you ear to ear under your jaw with his switchblade and then yank your tongue through the fresh hole in your neck. And if you really upset him, before killing you, he'd detail all the horrible ways he was going to rape and murder your surviving family members. SAVAGE BANDITO. In Colombia, even In the late 50s, early 60s, it was widely known that the banditos, a loose group of smugglers, were not to be crossed. Especially in Bogota, where the drug trade was just beginning to take shape and centralized power. If you found yourself in opposition to the pantitos, it meant one thing, certain violent death. It didn't matter if you were a fellow smuggler, a government official, a member of a parliamentary group, some high ranking rival crime syndicate associate, or even a lowly ice skating rink owner like Mr. Mercia. Cross the bandidos and you, my friend, were dead as disco. Except disco hadn't happened yet. Not yet. Not by the time Mr. Mercia and his family arrived in Queens, New York from Bogota to start their new life free of antito hostility. Disco would come much later, but its celebration of blended gender identity and hedonism would be made possible in part by one of the youngest Mercias, Billy, who didn't know it then, upon arriving as an immigrant in Jamaica, Queens, that he would one day go on to massively influence American culture with his future band, the New York Dolls. 1970 New York City. Crime, grime, unrest. The city was fast becoming a startling ex example of urban decay a decade prior of social upheaval. Cuts in law enforcement, disappearing blue collar job opportunities had led to a new wave of rampant crime. A hundred percent increase in arrests, a tripling of the rape and burglary rates, and a murder rate that was quickly skyrocketing from 681 murders a year in 1969 to 1,690 murders by 1970. That's more than a thousand more murders per year. Middle class residents fled to the suburbs. Landlords torched their apartment buildings for insurance dollars. The desperate did what they had to do to survive and the criminal minded thrived. The New York City subway became known as the Muggers Express. Times Square, once the crown jewel of Manhattan with its landmark theaters and golden cinemas, became overrun by peep show joints, pimps, streetwalkers, prostitution parlors and skin flick movie houses. A seedy symbol of the city's decline. Downtown, the Bowery was overrun with homeless. The Westside Pier served as the city's unofficial gay hookup spot. A darkened bacchanal filled with not only men desperate to connect in a thoroughly repressed society, but also with gay bashers, wallet snatchers and rough trade slashers. He approached the piers in the 70s with the thrill of your life in your chest, but also by taking your life in your hands. These and many other factors all combined to give 1970s New York City a new moniker. Fear City. It was in this city that Colombian export Billy Mercia and his Egyptian immigrant pal from Jamaica, Queen Sylvain Mizrahi, fed their twin obsessions, fashion and rock and roll. They played drums and guitar respectively, and started their own fashion label, Truth and Soul. Then they applied their immigrant grit and sense of entrepreneurship to create their own opportunity in a city that was fast approaching a 10% unemployment rate. Billy's mom Mercedes imported a master loomer from Colombia and the clothes they created garnered a write up in the influential Women's Wear Daily. And Truth in Soul quickly sold their inspiration inspired designs to a bigger company the results of which were a windfall of cash for young Billy Mercia and his friend Sylvain. They quickly got the fuck out of Fear City, headed to Europe and they went their separate ways. Partied, drank, chased Euro skirts, sniffed glue, brawled, took in some new fashion ideas and eventually linked back up in London to fill their travel chests with Ludwig drums, Marshall amplifiers and dozens of hard to find Mickey Mouse ringer tees. They shipped it all home along with the new Jaguar they'd purchased. And when they themselves finally made their way back to Manhattan, they discovered their future roaming the streets of New York City right under their glue sniffing noses. Right alongside the pimps and the pros, the hustlers cruising Christopher street and the bums on the Bowery. He was only 5 foot 7, but still he cut an impressive figure. You'd think it was the 4 inch platform shoes he was wearing, a la T. Rex's Mark Bolin, or the impressive Italian tailored suits he was rocking while still just a teenager. But it was so much more than that. It was the way he carried himself like a with a rock star's confidence and outlaw's confidence. Even at such a tender age. He learned from getting up close and personal with rock and roll's most infamous famous bandido at the time, Keith Richards. He'd heard about this bar on 5th around 13th Street. Supposedly John Lennon hung out there, members of the MC5 too. So of course he began frequenting the bar. And sure enough, one night he found Keith Richards sitting by his lonesome, just drinking and smoking. He and his friends joined Keith, who was more than happy to share his smokes with these fast talking American street kids. He couldn't believe it. He was in love with the Stones. He made sure he was right up front near the stage when they played Madison Square Garden in 69. And there he was, sure enough, in the Maisel Brothers Gimme Shelter documentary on the Rolling Stones, he can be seen four or five rows back opposite Mick Jagger, looking so cool in the audience that you wonder why he's not on stage with the band. John Gonzalez of Queens, New York. He'd later give himself the rock and roll name Johnny Thunders. It was part DC comic hero reference, part homage to the Kinks and part harbinger of doom. A nod to the Born to Lose attitude he would bring to his band that was destined to do just that. But before burning out, he'd need to get his start. And that start happened with Billy Mercia and Sylvain Mizrahi, who is now calling himself Sylvain. Sylvain. They joined forces and were now in need of a bass player and another guitar player for the new band they were putting together. Johnny kept his head on a swivel, not knowing where in New York he might find opportunity. It came to a one night on Bleecker street. While holding up a lamppost with the lean of his effortless cool, Johnny nonchalantly took in the action, which at the moment meant two dudes, one short, one massively tall, trying to steal a motorcycle. They'd secured it and were now comically trying to lift the massive bike into the back of their van. Johnny watched and they noticed they did not look happy. They abandoned their new bike mid theft and walked straight toward Johnny. Johnny saw them coming but was helpless. Running away in 4 inch platform boots wasn't an option. He resigned to look tough, get into it on his terms if he had to at all. There under the lamp post when the two got up on him, he noticed their threads inspired rock and roll. Not as bespoke as his, but cool nonetheless. Their faces betrayed their intentions. Not to whoop his ass, but to instead gather intel. The tall one, long haired rock and roll Frankenstein that he was, spoke up. Aren't you the guy who plays guitar or something from that Stones movie? Johnny nodded. They played too. Their names were Arthur Killer Kane and Rick Rivets. Rock and roll. As a jam session was planned with Billy and Sylvain as well. It all jive now. They only needed a singer. Billy knew about this guy who dated a chick from the Warhol scene. She was much older and a model, so that was cool. Supposedly he was some sort of poet who vibed on Cuban music, could shout like Otis Redding, tighten up like Archie Bell, and looked like a more masculine version of Mick Jagger. And that all sounded great to Billy and the rest of the band. Like Billy Mercia, this guy's given name was so cool that he didn't need a stage name to join as their singer, David Johansson hooked on after one rehearsal and the New York Dolls were born. Their first show was a beggar's banquet for welfare recipients at Manhattan's Endicott Hotel, a rat trap on 81st street where four women were mysteriously slain in the early 70s. They were billed as a dance band. No one danced. One of their next shows was in Brooklyn at Man's Country, a gay bathhouse that advertised with the following. Just a 15 minute ride on the iron horse puts you in our corral. No one cared about the band. Those who were there were more interested in the sex being had in the bathhouse changing cubicles. But the indifference didn't matter. It was now 1972, Lou Reed had long since split the Velvet Underground and the torch of downtown cool was about to be formally passed to the New York Dolls.
- [14:53]
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- [15:54]
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- [16:25]
Jake Brennan
The New York Dolls were officially a thing in New York City, the grimy, crime strewn city that spawned them. You'd best believe was in love luv. There's no way the band could have just been called the dolls. They were 100% New York all the way through to someone from anywhere else. Conceptually, they made little sense. The New York Dolls played sacred R B music spawned from the south and Midwest, jumped up blues and soul written by black American master traditionalists like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Men and artists who were larger than life. But the New York Dolls were five skinny white kids from the outer boroughs. Like the city they came from, they were a meld of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Colombian and Egyptian immigrants, a second generation Italian American, a Norwegian Irish kid from Staten island, and an Irish American kid from the Bronx. That all came together in a way that was distinctly American. An America that generations of Immigrants from New York City, Ellis island put their stamp on their attitude on and off stage, exuded a pronounced outer borough masculinity, a sort of what you talking to me? Toughness. Yet their fashion sense was the total opposite. Straight up. In 1972, just three years after Stonewall, five years before Harvey Milk, 43 years before the Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land in a fucking eternity, before mainstream America even began to consider equality for trans, non, binary and gender fluid sexuality, the five dudes in the New York Dolls dressed on stage in all seriousness as chicks. In no way does this sound today as revolutionary as it was in 1972, but it was completely groundbreaking at the time. The key was that what the Dolls were doing wasn't drag. They wore platform heels, skin tight pants and tutus, heavy eye makeup and lipstick. But the overall effect was not to transform them into quote unquote fags as they were often referred to by jealous, less enlightened scenesters. The New York Dolls were far from it. They dressed as women, but they played hard. Crunched up power chords, shrieking solos and fellow methetamine jungle beats, Driving rhythm, scorched overtly sexual vocals and a higher than the Empire State Building too fucked up to care type energy. When the New York Dolls applied this approach to 3 minute r and B songs, they were inadvertently building the foundation for punk rock. Years before Johnny Ramone or Johnny Rotten would ever even enter a recording studio. It was utterly confounding. And to make things more confusing, despite the way they dressed like women, or perhaps because of it, women, hot women wanted to fuck them. Men were afraid of them, of course, but that all went out the window as soon as beautiful girls started flocking to see the Dolls. Because wherever hot women go, men follow. The band was gorgeous and fun and totally unique. And of course, a little bit dangerous. Actually, scratch that, they were a lot dangerous. They continued their penchant for playing shows wherever the hell they could and set up shop at a decaying Mercer arts Center at 673 Broadway. There was no real stage. The band played basically in the middle of the audience and thrashed around in their makeup and four inch heels. The crowd was wild. Models, rock kids, artists, drag queens, bikers, thugs, whores, stars in the making who would steal and refine the doll's actual Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of Kiss. And even bona fide rock stars like Elton John and David Bowie came through to see what was up. Attendees didn't know if they were going to get maimed by a guitar head, stabbed in the bathroom or cast in Andy's new film or impregnated by the band. Early New York doll shows had the down home danger and violence of the chitlin circuit and the high arc glamour and sex appeal of the Warhol Factory. Their Mercer center shows are legendary. Nearly every quote I can find from anyone who is there is roughly some version of the same thing put best by rock photographer Bob Gruen, who said that seeing the New York Dolls at the Mercer center was quote, just the most exciting thing I had ever seen in my life. End quote. Gruen wasn't the only one who thought this way. The band quickly became the toast of the town, rubbing elbows with Bette Midler and Mick Jagger and attending parties uptown with the likes of Gloria Vanderbilt. It was low art meets high society. After conquering their hometown, London beckoned. And in London it was more of the same. Paul McCartney came snooping around one of their early shows, members of the who as well, with their managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, the lead dogs in the race to sign the New York Dolls to a record deal. Mick Jagger came around again to see them play on his home turf, but officially passed on signing the band to the newly formed Rolling Stones Records. And Stones guitarist Mick Taylor quipped to the press that the Dolls were the worst high school band I ever saw. David Johansson quickly shot back, no, we're the best high school band you ever saw, buddy. The kids will love us. So awesome. So New York. But the rejection didn't matter. The Dolls were a sincere sensation in London. And as was the custom of most young male rockers throughout the history of time, they partied their faces off. Booze, sex, drugs. More booze, more sex and more drugs were everywhere for them. And on November 6, 1972, it proved dark for the young band with the bright future. Billy Mercia was the life of the party. The Cromwell Road flat was stacked with second generation Chelsea set actors, fashion designers and international call girls. A scene if there ever was one. And all of them in the throes of the American rock and roller, keeping them entertained with his undeniable New Yorkness. Sharp, funny, handsome, Billy Mercier lived up to his band's height. A band who had recently blown the locals away with their opening set and Wembley pool in support of Rod Stewart. Billy knew no one, really. Indeed, he ended up there by mistake. But it didn't matter. A good time is a good time. So champagne was guzzled and Quaaludes were ingested. And sooner or later, someone noticed, possibly fashion designer Malcolm Rains, that Billy Mercia wasn't moving. He was passed out, unresponsive. One of the more experienced revelers called it immediately od. Most everyone split. The few who didn't, rather than call an ambulance and risk getting busted by authorities, put what limited experience they had towards solving the problem. They called out his name, he didn't respond. They slapped his face, he didn't respond. They ran a cold bath, dumped ice in it, and then dumped Billy's prone body into it. He didn't respond to that either. They pulled his head up and poured hot black coffee down his throat. And this likely did more harm than good. They slapped him some more and nothing. They pressed ice cubes to his cold flesh. Again, nothing. They drug him out of the tub and tried walking him around the flat, his wet shoes dragging all over the plush carpet. No response. Eventually, they put him back in the tub where he drowned. By the time authorities were on the scene, there was nothing they could do. The coroner, who just two years earlier had overseen the inquest into the death of Jimi Hendrix, said that by far the best thing to have done would have been to get an ambulance straight away and certainly not put a person in a bath of water. Billy Mercia, drummer of the New York Dolls, was dead at the age of 21, and his band was on the fast track to self destruction, the only track available to a true rock and roll band.
- [24:29]
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- [25:05]
Jake Brennan
After Billy Mercia's death, the band returned to the States to regroup, unsure of their future. Eventually, the band was brought back to life by Billy's replacement on drums, Jerry Nolan. Again intact. There was only one thing for the band to do. Hit the road. The New York Doll's first US Tour was a waiting whirlwind that almost never started. Disaster struck before the band even left New York. And it came in the form of Connie. Connie. All 6 foot 10 inches of her, or whatever her actual height was. She was huge and Amazon. Like most of the women who got with New York Doll's bass player, Arthur Kane. She had a body straight out in our crumb comic. Arthur himself stood over 6ft tall and liked his women big. Where exactly he found them? His bandmates didn't really know, but they were pretty sure he found Connie wandering Times Square at night, either looking for a john or dodging her pimp with her blade in her boot for protection. Arthur was a sucker from the first time he laid eyes on her. She was hot, but hot tempered too. And on this night her mercury was way up the tube. Connie was furious that Arthur was going to LA without her to begin the Doll's tour in Los Angeles. There was nothing he could do about it, he explained. The band was broke. True. And girlfriends therefore weren't able to accompany them on the road because there simply wasn't enough money. Kind of true. Connie waited until Arthur fell asleep in their apartment. He was exhausted. The Dolls had just finished a 10 show run at Max's Kansas City. He was crashing, trying to grab some rest before departing for the west coast in two days. He slept face down on his stomach and awoke to weight bearing on him. Connie with her massive body naked, straddling him, holding him down. Was she trying to kill him? Worse. She was trying to saw his fingers off with a knife so he could no longer play bass. Can't bring me to LA with your fucking band, you fucking dickhead.
- [27:01]
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Fuck.
- [27:01]
Jake Brennan
Well fuck you. Try playing bass without a thumb. Arthur threw her off and in the process she got his hand good with the knife. Blood gushed. Arthur stood Connie naked, mid for the window in order to hit the fire escape. Arthur tried going after her but quickly fell on his face. Connie had tied his shoes together and now she was gone with no clothes on into the New York City night. Arthur's wound was bad enough that bass playing was out of the question for at least two months. He was so depressed the band ended up taking him on tour anyway. To ensure that he didn't commit suicide while they were gone, they enlisted their friend Peter Jordan to fill in. When they hit la, LA flipped out. It was groupie mania and Johnny lasted all of five minutes before infamous kid group E Sable Star scooped him up. She was 15 and Johnny was smitten. Immediately he was calling home, telling his family he was going to marry this girl. Her age, it seemed, didn't matter. Nothing mattered. It was gross. As was the behavior of most rock stars who made their way through the LA groupie scene in the 70s. But it didn't stop a lot of them. And it didn't stop Johnny Thunders or the New York Dolls who were in constant motion. Play, Shock, repeat. They slayed during their five show run at the Whiskey A Go Go. By the time they left LA, 14 year old boys were walking down Sunset Strip and lipstick. Which was exactly what authorities feared. The tour rolled on to Memphis, home of the king of RA rock and roll Elvis Presley, who by 1973 was starting to look more like a Kung Fu Liberace with his Vegas rhinestones and hip huggers than his former heteronormative rock and roll avatar Cell. The fact that Elvis may have somehow owed some of his newfound glam fashion to a movement the Dolls had birthed was lost on the King's hometown police who were chomping at the bit to bust the Dolls. Memphis finest got their chance on September 21, 1973 when the band hit the stage at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, Tennessee. Prior to their show, word spread of the band's cross dressing, debauchery and general challenges to authority. Local papers covered the out of town exploits of the band in great detail prior to their arrival. As a result, tickets to their show sold out in a matter of minutes. With the big crowd came a heavy good old boy police presence to keep everybody, especially the New York Dolls, in line. Iggy Pop opened up, no one cared. But when the infamous New York Dolls took the stage and kids started to bop around to get into it, that was all the cops needed for an excuse. Out came the billy clubs. The pigs swung them mercilessly. One kid busted through the crowd and after he leapt up onto the stage, charged singer David Johansson and planted a big fat white pig kiss on his lips. That's when the cops really lost it. The beating commenced. A full scale riot was in effect. The band kept playing. David cracked wise into the mic. Hey, how do you know he's not the mayor's son you're beating on? And the melee continued until one cop grabbed David and pulled him off stage. They quickly cuffed him, yanked him out of the venue and stuck him in the back of the cruiser. They arrested him for lewd behavior because he dressed in women's clothing and for inciting a riot because, well, he kind of did. But not before the cops kicked it off. David Johansson spent the night in an open cell with three other prisoners in Norma Camellia pants and women's shoes. He made bail in the morning and remarkably made it out of jail without further notice. But violence and destruction when it came to the New York Dolls was just a kiss away. Real rock and roll bands, real rock stars don't last. They exist for brief moments of time and either die or break up. It is impossible for a rock band, a rock star, for real rock stars to make it in any long lasting sort of way. Because time corrupts. Either through the natural process of aging. Rock and roll is, after all, a young person's game. Or through the corruption of the music industry that demands some sort of mainstream compromise in order to survive. Or because the pressures and distractions of stardom cause them to take their eyes off the creative ball. Whatever the reason, it happens real rock stars don't last. This is not an opinion, this is fact. How many truly great long lasting bands or musical artists have zero bad records? I can think of only one. The Beatles. The key phrase here being long lasting. Plenty of short lived artists put out only great music artists who never lasted long enough to misstep creatively. The Sex Pistols and Nirvana immediately come to mind. But believe me, after In Utero, given the pressure the ban was under, Nirvana was due for a dud. And there's no way in hell that the Sex Pistols had they survived their first and only US tour, were going to go into the studio and play nice in focus and create a great second Sex Pistols record. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt it. Eventually, one way or another, an artist's success will open the door to some sort of compromise or distraction. And before you know it, we the fans are given crap like Dirty Work by the Rolling Stones or Saint Anger by Metallica or Saved by Bob Dylan. All of these artists recovered from their many missteps. Most do, because most artists, the good ones anyway, are survivalists, self preservationists. The New York Dolls were anything but. They were not merely good, they were great. And they were not survivalists. They were born to lose. Born to lose because they were one of the purest expressions of rock and roll and anyone had ever seen. The New York Dolls, like many bands of the time or at any time really lived as excessively offstage as they played on stage. While the Bandit, without caring about anything that wasn't either fun, exciting, cool or some combination of the three. The drugs, coke, speed, lsd, pills, heroin, the sex with groupies, models, socialites and wanted by women and now men alike. It was textbook rock and roll hedonism, sure, but what separated the Dolls from any other artist before was the subversiveness they brought to the music industry. Namely in the way they presented themselves as women. But not in the Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis comical way with Fake breasts and dresses, but instead in tied off silk blouses that showed off their hairy chests and skin tight spandex that showed off their cocks. The makeup, the hair, the skin, glamour from the gutter. It was literally, literally unlike anything that had been seen in pop music before. And it was all on display on the COVID of their Todd Rundgren produced debut on Mercury Records. The rumors that all of the members of the band were gay were there from the start, but the album cover only reinforced those rumors, something that the band thought ridiculous, never missing an opportunity to play up their rumored homosexuality in public. For shock value, David Johansson claimed he was trisexual, explaining that he'd try anything. It was all silly. It was all a way to stand out, a way to grab a laugh. From the band's perspective. The way they dressed or what they did with their dicks was all secondary. Because when it came down to it, they could bring it on stage like no one else. And ultimately that's all that should have mattered. But that's not how the game is played. What should should matter has nothing to do with it. What does matter matters most. And what mattered in terms of making it in the music business in 1973 was what influential radio programmers and promo men thought. These were the men who held the success of artists in the palms of their thick, greasy little hands. They decided which artist records got spun on the radio and thus which artists sold and advanced their careers. And to most of these men, many of whom were from the Midwest or from a previous, previous generation with less relaxed views on gender, a band that looked like this, a band that openly flaunted cross dressing and homosexuality, was out of the question. So no radio play. And so the New York Doll's debut album, despite being a rave up classic of proto punk, post rock and roll glory day greatness, was dead on arrival. There was only one thing to do. Shoot their way out of the business. When Mafia families used to go to war in New York City, they called it going to the mattresses. Small crews of mob soldiers while at war would disrupt their normal living routines, rent out tiny Manhattan apartments, stuff them with 10 or so mattresses to scatter on the floor and sleep on in a group for protection, away from their families, to protect them as well. Should anything happen and they'd all be together, they'd all go down together. The New York Dolls were going down, but not without going to war first. They were at war with the music business. They didn't know it, but it was a war they could not win Valentine's Day, 1974, East 14th Street. A holiday massacre not unlike like the Halloween hit on Albert anastasia back in 57. The Lord High executioner of Murder Incorporated. Leader of one of the deadliest crews of gangland contract killers ever assembled. But there was now a deadlier crew of assassins on the block. And Anastasia saw his end in chair number four of the Sheridan Hotel lobby barbershop. Rival mob boss Vito Genovese gave the order. Crazy Joe Gallo organized the hit. Push anastasia's button. With 10 bullets fired in front of 11 witnesses. No one saw a thing. Only in New York, but now 1974, another crew of killers. Lipstick killers. Lipstick Killers Elude dead in metro manhunt. That Legs Alias the dancer known to be a tough custom Pretty Boy Mole alias Scarbace Giovanni Ginsali alias Johnny Thunder Rocky Joe Hank Threaten his dust killer Kane alias under Harold Kane Juice. There was no telling who the Lipstick Killers were going to strike again. But even money was on the boss. The big man with the pinky ring on his thick, greasy little hand. The hit was planned for the Academy of Music, Billy Fox's old movie palace. Lipstick Killers sped up their German gangster sleds, slid into the spot out front of the marquee dressed to kill. Three piece suits, pinstripes, fedoras, wide knot ties, carnations and patent leather shoes, their guns by their sides. They raced in, blazing down the aisles of the theater, firing off rounds from their hardware indiscriminately. Messy ass was their style. Just looking for one bullet to kiss the boss. Pierce his greasy skin, shoot him down. But the shots backfired. The plan was a bust. The Lipstick Killers had run out of track. They were now on stage in the theater, playing it cool, nonchalant. They picked up the band's instruments, shed their pinstripes, donned their spandex and did what came natural. Rock the house in a way that only the New York Dolls could. Unbridled, unhinged, impassioned, inspired. Rough, real, raw, sexy, chic. Pure rock and roll. And they kept it up as long as they could. After the show, through the promotion of their glorious second album, Too Much, Too Soon. They continued to scorch audiences with their unique pre punk brand of rock and roll. They drank, fucked, dressed outrageously, challenged any and all doubters. Killed like the killers they were. Until it came time to compromise, to grow up, to play nice. They went the opposite direction. Drank more, more, drugged more. Nearly killed themselves in the process. Until breaking up a few years later. They had scars just like the city they spawned from, but the boss went unscathed. The boss always wins, and the New York Dolls were always born to lose a disgrace. You be the judge. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening to Listening As a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com Membership members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free. Plus you'll get one brand new exclusive episode every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com membership for details, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man.
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