There are no living members of the original MC5.
And now, there are no living members of the original New
York Dolls either.
That’s the joke, isn’t it? Birth leads to death. It’s the
rule of the universe. You can’t escape it. It ends this way for all of us - a short ride from womb to tomb. And now, as I write this, just like the last of his Dolls
bandmates, David Jo is gone.
But what they created? That’s something else entirely. The
birth of those bands, those wild-eyed sons of thunder, is the living proof of
that old truth about the sum of parts. The MC5, the Dolls—they weren’t just bands,
they were revolutionary acts of destruction. They’re part of the same rope that
ties Little Richard to the Sex Pistols, Chuck Berry to the Ramones, Link Wray
to the Stooges, the Velvet Underground to the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and so
on, ad infinitum. A line that’s been dragging us forward, dragging us through
the madness, until it snaps.
David Johansen? That man took a lot of shots early on.
Called a Mick Jagger rip-off. They said he was just a cheap copycat, a phony.
And that’s bullshit. If anything, David Jo was just as much a copy of a Chicago
bluesman as he was anything else—everyone drinks from whatever well they like.
Johansen had the look, the swagger, the attitude—but calling the Dolls a Stones
knockoff? Not a chance. The New York Dolls were the kids from the tough
streets, wisecracking outer borough sons raised on the Shangri-La’s, with a
freakshow dollop of the Coasters, Alice Cooper and Bo Diddley stirred into the
mess.
And their music? Jesus Christ, that debut album—that record
is the purest shot of rock ‘n’ roll ever recorded. It’s not music, it’s a
bloodshot, brutal cry from the gut, an atomic explosion that still makes the
earth tremble. You put that on, and 52 years later, it still feels like you
just got punched in the stomach. The sound of something raw, something
true—untamed, unpolished, and unrepentant. That’s why it’s still perfect. Why
it hasn’t aged.
But here’s the rub—their push for fame, their hunger to be stars,
kept them from ever truly being the songwriters they could’ve been. The
follow-up album? Let’s not kid ourselves. It was the B-side to their genius,
leftovers from a fire that couldn’t reignite. But even those scraps—hell, even their
leftovers—crushed everyone else’s so-called “best.” "Human Being"?
You put that against the pre-punk, post-glam rubble of the ’70s, and it still
knocks everything else flat. Every time.
But that was just one chapter of Johansen’s odyssey. His
solo stuff, with a little less of that reckless heat from his Doll days, was
still incredible. Then came Buster Poindexter—the smart-ass, lounge-singer
alter ego who gave us that damn “Hot Hot Hot” hit, and God, how he hated that
song. DJ’s one and only mainstream hit—the bane of his existence, he’d joke.
But he was right, in a way. It was his curse.
Film and TV came next—little bit parts, always with that
sneer, always with that self-aware wit. He reunited with the Dolls too, though
it was a shadow of what once was. Morrissey called, and he came—humble, amused
by the whole damn thing. But the truth is, as we all know, time doesn’t wait
for anyone. Cancer and a bad fall pulled him from this world. The world didn’t
even have the decency to let him go quietly.
But damn, those lyrics. No one else wrote like David. He
carved through every cliche and pretension, turning it into something real,
something alive. He wore humor like a badge, cutting through the weight of
self-importance with a wink. His love songs never fell into the sappy shit
we’re all used to—they were raw and real. His rockers were
full-throttle—nothing polished, nothing sweet. His voice? It wasn’t the
smoothest, but it had soul. It was the sound of truth. It was the voice of
someone who didn’t give a damn about being pretty. And in that? He was the odd
soul brother to Ronnie Van Zant—another guy who made the truth sound ugly, beautiful,
and, goddamn, unforgettable. No one ever sang to me like David did. No one.
Ever.
And so, to David Jo and his four brothers in arms that preceded
him in death—those wild, reckless, beautiful bastards—I love you all. You gave us everything. Hell, you gave ME everything. So from one Lonely Planet Boy to Another, Rest Forever in love, in admiration,
in gratitude; in that glorious wreckage we call rock ‘n’ roll.
