The New York Dolls

The New York Dolls formed in New York in December 1971. After a promising start supporting The Faces on a British tour, the band suffered their first casualty when drummer Billy Murcia died on 6 November 1972 after suffocating on black coffee poured down his throat by a girlfriend attempting to keep him awake after a drink and drugs binge (and not, as widely believed, from a drug overdose). 

With Jerry Nolan as a replacement they signed to Mercury in March 1973 and promptly began work on their debut album with Todd Rundgren producing. 

Released in the summer of 73, The New York Dolls was a proto-punk revelation, a way cool schlock of visceral rock & roll which combined the more essential moments of The MC5, The Pretty Things and The Shangri-Las. The Rolling Stones were another obvious reference point, with Johansen a dead-ringer for Mick Jagger both in vocal style and mascara'd looks - Inevitably, Johnny Thunders was the glam-punk Keith Richards. 

The Dolls trashy transvestite attire also borrowed heavily from The Stones circa 1966, although being American they had taken it to almost cartoon-ish proportions. The likes of Personality Crisis, Trash and Jet Boy were seminal squalls of guitar abuse, making up in attitude what they lacked in musical ability. Although the record had critics salivating, commercial success was not forthcoming and, unhappy with the record's production, the band opted for Shangri-Las producer George Morton to work on Too Much Too Soon (1974). Though the album had it's moments, again the band had been paired with the wrong producer and the music press were emphatically unimpressed. The lukewarm reviews heightened band tension and the Dolls demise was swift and inevitable.

Early the following year, British entrepreneur Malcolm McLaren made a last-ditch attempt to save the band, revamping their image to no avail. Thunders was the first to leave, departing in 1975 to form The Heartbreakers, while Johansen and Sylvain subsequently sacked Kane before finally calling it a day the following Christmas.

While Thunders went on to most acclaim with The Heartbreakers (eventually dying from an overdose on 23 April 1991), Johansen recorded a number of solo albums, David Johansen (1978), In Style (1979) and Here Comes The Night (1981), as well as releasing a 1988 set under the pseudonym of Buster Poindexter. Johansen also pursued a film career of sorts, appearing in Married To The Mob, Scrooged and The Fisher King. Jerry Nolan also met an untimely death almost a year on from Thunders, suffering a fatal stroke while undergoing treatment for meningitis and pneumonia on 14 January 1992.

A pivotal reference point not only for Punk, but also for the US glam metal movement of the mid 80s, The New York Dolls' influence remains hugely disproportionate to their relatively slim legacy.