“Boy, did they bomb in L.A.,” said one musicbiz veteran about the New York Dolls. “I mean the lines were all the way around the block and everything, everyone was really for them and they bombed. Everyone I talked to felt the same way...”

Did you talk to any kids?

“Kids?,” he responded with a Strange, blank stare.

Wednesday. David Johansen is walking out of the Continental Hyatt House with an attitude. The tourists in the ban-ion aquamarine travel dresses waiting for a taxi outside the hotel may think he’s Alice Cooper, but David knows exactly who he is. “I’m the good humor man for these kids,” he grins as he looks around at the entourage of groupies, hangers-on, underground press representatives, and assorted whoevers. The New York Dolls have come to L.A. with an incredible reputation for rock and roll outrage, and the L.A. sleeze scene is out to meet them in full force.

Tuesday night. When the Dolls arrived, Rodney Bingenheimer was waiting for them. Things are usually slow at Rodney’s English Disco (on the Strip) on Tuesdays. No one dancing cheek to cheek. No one sidling around the floor to get the best view of themselves in the mirrors. If a visitor comes, especially anyone vaguely resembling a rock celeb, Rodney becomes instant Wizard of Oz and the club is transformed. Light shows, loud imported British singles, and slides presented on the screen (mostly pix of Rodney posing with various celebrities) for your enjoyment. Ringo, the Faces, Led Zep. One is ushered into the special little booth reserved for special rock people, and English beer immediately appears in front of your face.

But tonight it’s slow on the Strip. Photographer and rock yenta Richard Creamer says that all the girls went to the Hyatt to meet the Dolls.

Hollywood. Someone actually has a D.BOWIE license plate on his gray Jaguar. Everyone in the television industry is always talking about how they’re making a pilot. Somebody’s always making some kind of pilot; they discuss their deals around tables at the Beverly Hills Hotel pool. With the people in the record industry — especially the groups — the namedropping is one the level of who they’re gonna get a recording contract with, or who from Disc or Melody Maker or CREEM is going to interview them, or — on another level — it’s who did you make it with last week.

It’s always last week, because those who hang around the bands, well, their lives revolve around which band comes to town on any given week. In New York ’it’s different, you see, because there really are other things to do. Not that too many of the Max’s Kansas City regulars spend their days wandering around the corridors of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but the difference is that the option is there. In New York there are lots of scenes. In L.A., if you like rock and roll and are passionately committed to that lifestyle, there is but one scene. Little girls stay up all night when bands come to town and they tell their moms that they’re staying at their girlfriend’s house. In New York, people are up all night anyway. The people who go to Max’s go there because they are all going to be there, not because Rod Stewart or Jimmy Page will turn up. When the Faces, or Bowie, or Slade or the New York Dolls come to L.A., it’s high action central at the Hyatt or at Rodney’s. If there’s no band in, the Strip dies a quiet death.

It’s so transient. New York — no matter what it is not — is permanent. No one ever has to worry about how to spend time, the problem is in finding enough time to do everything. People who may not understand the city think that it’s ugly, horrible, that it is there to be escaped and that the music of the New York Dolls is a very integral part of that revulsion. Wrong. The music of the Dolls — as well as the constant, frenetic pace of Gotham living — is an intense celebration; a joyous hysterical acting out of one’s own personal glamour drama in a setting where energy is the only constant.

Los Angeles is plastique fantastique. Little girls worshipping the Great God of Tack. They were probably better off before they left Mommy, except that Mommy herself came to Hollywood because she wanted to be a STAR. After all, Mommy is perhaps only 33 (unless those girls aren’t really 14) and she’s shlepping drinks in some cocktail bar on Hollywood Boulevard all day in a pair of high heeled wedgies.

Wednesday night. You’re a prima ballerina on a California afternoon. The Dolls are making up in one of their bedrooms. (It’s difficult to know which bedroom belongs to which Doll, with the exception of David who is sharing his with manager Marty Thau. “I ain’t lettin’ those bitches near me,” he sneers, “I don’t mind them hanging around as long as they don’t want anything. And...” he pauses dramatically, “as long as they don’t get traumatic. Pull scenes, throw themselves in front of subwav trains, I don’t like that but it’s when they stop coming around that I’ll worry.”) The room already looks lived in. The usual accoutrements of rock and roll road living: suitcases opened with a multitude of shiny outfits spilling out, unmade beds, huge beaded necklaces and bangle bracelets and bottles of cheap perfume lining the dresser tops, empty bottles of beer filled with cigarette butts, room service tables with the morning’s decaying leftover food, and teenage girls. Teenage boys too; hustling. For one thing or another.

David Johansen: “ I’m the good humor or these kids.”

“Whenever I go on the road I feel like Fidel Castro in the Hotel Theresa,” David laughs. “Remember when they were plucking the chickens?”

Arthur Kane, Jr. is there, although his left hand is in a cast because he was the victim of a bizarre accident involving his thumb and a knife, and it’s caused him to be incapacitated for awhile. Instead roadie Peter Jordan plays bass for this gig. “Just say that someone tried to kill me,” Arthur mumbles in his usual deadpan delivery.

“You know — there are kids lined up all the way up the block,” David tells super roadie Christian (alias “Frenchie”). “Really — they’ve been camping there for hours."

“Isn’t that nice,” smiles Frenchie, “just like Woodstock.”

The line at the Whiskey A Go Go is, indeed, up the block.'Kids who can’t be more than twelve years old, boys with lipstick smeared on their faces, girls with all those kitschy, clutzy shoes, hot pants, and feathers. Like some kind of fungus, it’s slowly creeping across the country, but it’s at its best in L.A. I’m talking about sleeeeeze. Sable Starr is there of course, the undisputed Queen of the Strip having been just mentioned in Time's story on the Hyatt, and she’s holding on tightly to Johnny Thunders.

The dressing room is just what you might expect. Four seedy black couches facing each other in the middle of a bare room decorated only by mirrors, amplifiers, graffiti, and a lot of people trying to push their way past Frenchie. “C’mon, just let me in,” wailed one girl. “I just wanna see Daaaayvweeeeeee! I know he would let me in if he could only see me... but he’s probably unconscious. He usually is, you know,” she adds, turning to the unnaturally young and unnaturally blond boy accompanying her. Frenchie snorts. David is by no means unconscious. He is in the middle of an interview with a local TV personality, and the rest of the Dolls and Sable are around him, contributing.

“I saw sonie pictures of you in a magazine,” a girl says to David when the interview is over. “It looked like you were at the top of the Empire State building...”

“Yeah,” says David. “That’s the tower that overlooks my kingdom.”

David Robinson of the Modern Lovers is there.* “This is the dullest town,” he tells me. “This is absolutely the biggest thing to hit this town... little kids have been waiting all their lives to see the New York Dolls.”

It’s showtime and the Whiskey is packed with kids, glitzy glitter fans, and of course the Bon Bons. In addition to the original Bobbi and Jerri Bon Bon, there are now more of them, and they are wearing — get this — shaved heads for a start. Then, they’ve got on these long white robes... you know, the effect is sort of effete Hare Krishna. But topping it all off are these enormous curly five-and-dime eyelashes that go all the way up to the eyebrows and button earrings! Cute?

The musicbiz folk are really the most interesting though. The same kind of people who came down to the Mercer Arts to dislike in advance what they saw are in evidence. (“I guess they expected us to come out in our mother’s clothing!,” David laughed later when talking about how some people didn’t think they were “outrageous” enough. “Some guy actually asked me why we didn’t wear feather boas!! Can you imagine? Feather boas!”)

The reaction to the Dolls’ set is strangely mixed and perhaps strangely misunderstood. One manager said it was a dud. One girl who goes there a lot said that the Whiskey hasn’t been like that in awhile — people just didn’t get in the front or in the aisles except maybe for Iggy or Rory Gallagher. (Rory Gallagher?)

“When I’m out on that stage I just want to kick ass,” David tells me.

Do you ever wonder about your audience?

‘That would be my downfall.”

Thursday. Across town at the Beverly Hills Hotel Steve Paul — manager of Johnny & Edgar Winter and Rick Derringer — is residing in palatial splendor in Bungalow No. 5. “All my life I’ve wanted to be able to say Bungalow No. 5,” and now he’s having a few friends in for chocolate souffle and champagne, to celebrate the achievement. Rick Springfield shows up with CBS Records’ Charlie Koppleman. Liz and Rick Derringer are there. Dave and Loraine Mason. Danny Fields. David Johansen comes with Bob and Nadya, Gruen, who are busily documenting the Dolls’ week for videotape and photographic history. Jonathan Richman and all the Modern Lovers are there. As is their producer, the legendary John Cale himself, with his wife Cyndy, a former GTO and great beauty.

And what’s this? The legendary Lance Loud and part of his American Family breeze, in, and they look like... glitter queens. Tap dancing Delilah’s got sparkly blue on her eyelids and a filmy see-thru chiffon scarf tied around her all-American bust. They look like.. .no, well they seem to be moving as if they want to be stars. Having grown up a bit on TV, perhaps they do qualify as the David and Ricky Nelsons of the ’70s.

Lance, in a sequinned-studded shirt talks excitedly about his new band. “I wanted to feel like God and bring them into the New Land. One of them carries the distinction of being thrown out of his school for long hair in Santa Bar-

"Little kids hove been waiting all their lives to see the New York Dolls.”

bara. And another one wore his mother’s 1950’s strapless formal in 1968 to play drums. ”

“Arthur used to buy pizza from Joe D’Allessandro in Astoria,” David J. offers...

Lance Loud is endearing. He’s not the melancholy miserable misunderstood faggot that the sociologists would have us believe. He is fun, and he seems to know what he wants: fame. “Grant went and became very James Taylor,” he says in response to questions about his charismatic brother. Brother Kevin stands by. looking comparitively calm in a bowtie. “But darling,” Lance yents, — “we must talk about Lou Reed. You know, I really think that he’s like this middle aged shlub_you know, with the big stomach and all, the house in the suburbs and the barbecue... But you can’t forget that he once was... Lou Reed...” \

Thursday night. “Are you okay?,” Jerry Nolan asks Syl in the car going to the Whiskey. “Yeah sure,” Syl replies, “I’m from New York.”

The Whiskey — Night Two. This time the musicbiz people, having come and seen and been satisfied that they weren’t interested, were gone. Instead, the place was full of writhing, wriggling little glitter kids, full of enthusiasm. Boys in lurex tops and bronzed eyelids. Looking for a kiss.

David’s having fhis problem with his onstage raps. His humor just isn’t getting through to them. I mean here he’s introducing a song like “Give Her A Great Big Kiss” and announcing that it’s from the neighborhood where Kitty Genovese grew up, and no one is laughing. Kitty Genovese: the one who was stabbed thirty-seven times or something in Queens and all the neighbors heard the screams and did nothing. In New York do you know what kind of a reaction that would get?

“At the celebrity table over in the corner there,” David screams, “LINDA KASABIAN!!” A few scattered snickers. “Your enthusiasm is overwhelming,” he sneers. “I don’t know how you L.A. queens get it up.”

Iggy Pop comes up to David in the dressing room after the show,.. “Heel like a living thing,” he smiles. “I’ve been re-born.” Jonathan Richman and David Robinson are there again too. “I have no regrets,” David says. When asked what he thinks about the L.A. style, David laughs and says, “Yeah, they have a definite style... low camp. I guess it’s when you’re in New York, everything you get from L.A. is filtered so it sounds much more glam-' orous. Altnough I must say this is lovely,” he says looking around at the cabanas at the Beverly Hills pool... “This is very nice.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 76.

Dolls in L.A.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 45.

“I expected to meet all the stars when I came out here, and I’ve been here four days and haven’t met a star yet. You know, Ann-Margaret, Raquel Welch. But I really didn’t have any expectations about Hollywood,” he admits. “I think at one time I had this fantasy about Hollywood, but I haven’t had it lately. Not since Marilyn died.”

Continuing about the Hollywood kids, David said, “It was amazing. I didn’t think they let children like that out at night. If you could have seen it from where I was standing, little kids grabbing at me; literally they couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. Little boys with lipstick — thirteen years old, and they would touch my legs and my hands. I loved it. Those kids just wanted to be a part of the pandemonium.

“It’s really different than New York, you know. Even with makeup. When we first started at the Mercer we used a lot of blush-on, and more garish around the eyes. But I don’t really think that makes anybody look very good. At the time we did it we were a reflection of the audience. I mean the audience at the Oscar Wilde Room was so fabulous. That dancefloor... well, all my favorite people were out there. So we had to be incredible. All of those people — I could just watch them and reflect them, just become them. I could do all their little things while we were on, and it was great. Here — I’m still doing them. It’s like I’ve taken them on the road.”

(Joe Simon, or maybe it was Otis Redding, 'said once that when you performed at the Apollo Theater in Harlem you had better be damn good, because those people knew; and lots of them could do it just as good as you...)

We talked a bit about the raps between the songs; “Here I’ll say something fantastically funny — like I can’t believe that I’ve said it, and I’ll get a 1 snicker from the fifteenth row. Right now I’m experimenting, between the songs. The interplay with the audience is very important to show them that you’re a human being and not just a robot that jumps around. But the level out here — I can’t seem to find the level, I can’t get the level together... the humor is just beyond them. I think the ones who would get the jokes are too stoned, and the rest of them are tourists. I guess I’ll have to go to a Grand Funk concert and see how they relate to the masses.”

Hollywood Boulevard. This isn’t the Hollywood of Giorgio’s boutique in Beverly Hills or The Bistro or the private discotheques like Pips or The Candy Store. At those places you’re likely to see Diana Ross playing backgammon or George Hamilton cruising the dancers or Fred Williamson (fresh from his latest blaxploitation film) on the dancefloor.

Here you’ll see hookers and Jesus freaks and all species of hustlers. David feels fight at home; it’s sort of like walking down Second Avenue and stopping in the B & H for some fresh orange juice, except that there it’s all Orange Julius. And it’s all cheaper; parking is 50 cents an hour, pizza is still 25 cents a slice, and a large rootbeer costs 25 cents. It’s like that.

David walks down Hollywood Boulevard and the teenagers on line for Bruce Lee’s Enter The Dragon at Grauman’s stare; perhaps it’s the high heel pumps. “I would be a sex murderer if I didn’t wear these pumps,” David says solemnly. “You know you could be in fatigues, and put on pumps, and you’d look totally queer.”

On Hollywood Boulevard a man is playing an electric guitar through a small amp and is attracting a crowd. What’s he doing? “Look, they’ll do anything. Didn’t you see Grapes of Wrath?”

After the final show at the Whiskey, a blond girl clutches David’s arm as he leaves the dressing room. “Take me with you, please. Listen, really — take me with you, with all of you — wherever you’re going.”

The New York Dolls came to Los Angeles and they were noticed. Taping two Midnight Specials and the Real Don Steele show wasn’t the important thing that happened that week, nor were the interviews, not even the crowds at the Whiskey. New York Trash had met L.A. Sleaze and the confrontation was formidable. Which one won? Well, the New York Dolls are perhaps the only rock group in creation to be banned from both the Continental Hyatt House and the Ramada Inn. That tells you a little; the rest is speculation.

David and'I had been talking earlier in the week about those people who claimed that the Dolls weren’t “musically proficient.” “I think they’re crazy,” said David. “I mean I just saw Monterey Pop, and if you look at The Who, or Janis Joplin at that stage of their careers, well, we’re just as musically proficient as they were then. If people think that — and they’re still raving about me... they’re crazy, but I love it.”

“Don’t talk to me about music,” said Danny Fields as we boarded a plane to leave Los Angeles. “It’s too absurd. Anyone connected with this industry who talks about music, well, it’s just astonishing. Play music indeed — thank god they don’t have to.” 9