New York Dolls @ Mississippi Nights
Holy effin' crap! This was definitely the best rock and roll show I've been to in a long time.
First off, many thanks to Nancy Schultz for taking care of getting the tickets (a measly $23) and providing free pre-show beer. Second of all, many thanks to Nancy and her friend Miranda for squiring me about. Between Nancy, who was a real punk rocker back in the day, and Miranda, who is covered in tattoos, I was given instant street cred just by hanging out with them. Probably way more than I should have been granted. Nancy even gave me crap when I untucked my shirt before the show.
The crowd was pretty mixed, but mostly it consisted of people in Nancy's (and my) age group. The venue was not packed, but there were enough people there to make it a good crowd. No one was in full regalia, however there were a lot of people wearing black leather jackets. You could easily identify the people who saw the New York Dolls in their heyday and those like me that learned about this kind of music after the whole scene died off. I also saw one guy wearing a Blues jersey with the name J. Thunders on the back of it, which sort of seemed cool and then again sorta didn't.
This show was plenty loud. All bands used the same equipment, including drum kit, so it was a solid night of Les Paul's played through Marshall stacks. Even writing this almost 24 hours later I still can't hear very well. Between my sinus reactions to the cigarette smoke and the double stack of Marshall amps, my head is completely stopped up. I poked fun of the old people wearing earplugs when in fact it should have been them poking fun at me. I learned a long time ago that I'm both an ass and an idiot and this just reinforces it.
This tour is billed as Little Steven's Underground Garage and St. Louis happened to be the last stop on the tour. It seemed like all the bands were glad it was over, but they also seemed like they put a little extra into the final tour event performance.
The Bands
The Charms - This band is made up entirely of under-thirties. All of them are very good musicians, but they seemed a little too polished; way too polished for 'Underground Garage' if you ask me. I tired of them quickly. Front and center is their lead singer. Nancy's comment was 'someone's bedroom was covered with Runaways posters dreaming of being the next Lita Ford'. I tended to agree until I saw her guitar which was a custom red-glitter solid body Gretsch with a Bigsby tremolo. Very cool. The band's lead guitarist was an extremely good player, but he missed a couple of cues and you could see the others were a little ticked. They also had a keyboard player which was ... well ... odd. He did sling the keyboard around a lot which was kind of neat. Several times I thought it was going to fall over into the crowd. I don't know what kind of keyboard it was, but he'd never be able to do that with a 2-ton Hammond B-3.
The Chesterfield Kings - Geez. This band is a mess. I'm not sure how to describe what their lead singer was wearing; think Iggy Pop meets Steven Tyler meets a skinny Robert Smith. He came out into the audience during the second song dragging the mic cord through the audience. Everyone had to pass the cord over the top of their head. If you're going to do that I've got two words dude: wireless mic. I actually wondered how he could top coming out into the audience after just the second song. It didn't take me long to find out. He pounded the mic stand on the ceiling and lights. He played finger cymbals. He came out into the crowd later into the show and almost smacked me in the head with a tambourine. After the first song he spit into the crowd. I wasn't sure that he really spit so I asked Nancy if she saw it. She didn't, but later in the show he spit again and she caught that. The band had also had a really, really good drummer, but the bass and guitar guys were adequate at best. The guitarist played a couple of tunes on a very nice cream colored Rickenbacker. Just like that fancy Gretsch the Charms lead singer played, it seemed like a little too much of a guitar for a road show.
The Supersuckers - Wow!! These guys freakin' rock!! Plain and simple these guys are what rock and roll is all about; loud and in your face. I firmly believe that the best bands today come from Norway, Portland, Austin, or Seattle. Supersuckers hail from the latter. They were clearly the best band of the night. That's taking nothing away from The New York Dolls who were very good too, but Eddie Spaghetti did not disappoint. He was wearing aviator sunglasses, a black cowboy hat, and a black Gilley's t-shirt. I haven't seen one of those since the early eighties but I know the club still exists today in Pasadena, TX. Once they moved into 'Born With a Tail', the crowd was totally into it. Several older people actually slam danced. Did I mention the part that these guys freakin' rock? Man are they good! They also did a twist on the whole 'everyone take a solo thing'. Eddie passed his bass, a very worn Fender, to the rhythm guitarist who did a quick two minute solo. He then passed it to lead guitarist who wore it and his guitar at the same time. Eddie played Ron's guitar while Ron played the bass. Eddie then held and fingered the bass guitar while the drummer played on the drums and on the bass by hitting the strings with his stick. This is one fantastic band and I want to see them again next time they are in town.
The New York Dolls - David Johansen looked as if he'd been on tour for hundreds of years, but he still put on a great show. Several times he encouraged the crowd to sing along, which clearly separated the wannabees (me) from the non-posers (Nancy). Sylvain Sylvain was fantastic taking over the Johnny Thunders role and the new band members all looked and played the part. I'm sure it's nowhere even remotely close as the Dolls were back in the early seventies, but for those like me that don't know the difference it was plenty close enough. As it turns out, the drummer, who couldn't have been more than 30 years old, is from Saint Louis. I don't know why that fact surprised me. Saint Louis is hip deep in great music from all genres and this is yet another example of that. Even David Johansen made a point of that by spurring the crowd to get more raucous with shouts of 'C'mon Saint Louis ... the home of the blues'. He also railed on Christianity and Bush and Halliburton by asking the crowd to pretend there were no such things. Easy to do when your watching a former glam band. While it was a night of Les Paul's, (not a Fender 6-string in sight), Sylvain Sylvain did break out his black hollow body Gretsch mid-way through the set and proceeded to wail on it the rest of the show. Most likely this was the last show ever with this lineup, but I find it hard to believe it will be the final U.S. show for the New York Dolls. Why would you end it in Saint Louis even if it is one of the great music towns and one of your bandmates hails from there? CBGB's is closed so they won't play their last show there, but I suspect they'll end a subsequent tour in some equally deserving club in Manhattan. Maybe I'll get a chance to be there, but if not I certainly am glad I caught them now.
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