Garbage Days Revisited #17: New York Dolls - "One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This" (2005)

 

"You're gettin' a little impatient/Smokin' like a mental patient" - New York Dolls - Fishnets And Cigarettes

The New York Dolls need no introduction here of course, their story is pretty much legendary. However, similar to our recent column on their spiritual descendents Hanoi Rocks, the album we're here to talk about today is one from the 21st century incarnation of the group after they reformed in the early noughties. It could have been an absolute disaster but turned out to be a triumph and thoroughly deserves its inclusion in this column.

I think my first encounter with the Dolls was on a punk compilation during my student years which included Personality Crisis on it and feck me, what a song. I mean, c'mon, has there been any lyrics about the whole mess of conflicting emotions and impulses that every teenager/early twentysomething encounters than "And you're a prima ballerina on a spring afternoon/Then ya change on into the wolfman howlin' at the moon". The group's best of Rock 'n' Roll (essentially nearly all of their legendary debut, about two thirds of the much maligned follow up Too Much Too Soon and a few rarities) followed into my collection soon afterwards and...well, I don't think I need to say any more than if you're still unfamiliar with the likes of Trash, Babylon, Who Are The Mystery Girls?, Lonely Planet Boy, Subway Train, Jet Boy and the G'n'R-covered Human Being then you really need to put that right immediately.

By 2004 though, the band were pretty much a semi-forgotten legend. Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan had both passed on over a decade before and the other three members had all been decidedly quiet in the previous decade or two. However, it was on a request from uber fan Morrissey (arguably the last great thing he did before becoming the full-on pathetic far right apologist he is nowadays) who was curating the Meltdown festival in London that year that the band decided to reform for the gig with David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain and Arthur Kane being joined by guitarist Steve Conte and ex-Libertines drummer Gary Powell. The gig was a triumph but was instantly overshadowed with the passing of Kane from leukaemia just a month later.

Despite this, Johansen and Sylvain would persevere on with a full on reunion, keeping Conte on board and adding new members Sami Yaffa (ex-Hanoi Rocks) on bass, drummer Brian Delaney and keyboardist Brian Koonan. A year later, One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This surfaced and I remember buying it on the day of its release, getting home from work and hitting play with bated breath.

I needn't have worried - it was fantastic. Right from the opening power chords of We're All In Love and the gleefully straight-baiting lyrics ("We all sleep in one big bed/Everybody says that we're sick in the head!"), it was clear that this was the Dolls on top form and it didn't let up throughout. Songs like Gotta Get Away From Tommy and Dance Like A Monkey were an absolute riot and would have been surefire hits in the hands of a more "here and now" band while the sleazy Running Around and Rainbow Store were the sound of a band sounding like they were having the times of their lives.

It wasn't just the one side of the Dolls though - although Punishing World and the excellent Fishnets And Cigarettes provided the steel, there were also sadder more reflective moments similar to Subway Train on their debut. The lilting Maimed Happiness ("I went to the doctor/He said there wasn't much he could do/'You got the human condition, boy I feel sorry for you'"), the yearning Take A Good Look At My Good Looks and the heartbreaking harmonica-led blues of I Ain't Got Nothin' ("There was a time I could've cried but even my feelings have crawled up and died") were genuinely wrenching stuff similar to Thunders at his most vulnerable. With an impressive support cast backing them up including Iggy Pop (providing backing vocals on the storming Gimme Love And Turn On The Light), Michael Stipe (helping out with the delicate Dancing On The Lip Of A Volcano) and Against Me's Laura Jane Grace (back when she was still Tom Grabel) lending her vocals to a couple of numbers, One Day... was an absolute triumph, easily one of the best records of 2006 and seemed to suggest the Dolls were very much back as a force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately, again similar to the Hanoi Rocks 21st century story, this incarnation of the Dolls seemed to run out of steam after that first effort. The 2009 follow-up 'Cause I Sez So had a few decent moments (Exorcism of Despair especially) but there was a definite whiff of the band phoning it in in places and the departure of Koonin seemed to rob them of the extra dimension the keys and pianos gave to their sound. By the time of 2011's Dancing Backwards In High Heels, Conte and Yaffa had both moved on to Michael Monroe's reactivated solo band and even with Blondie's Frank Infante taking up the six-stringer position, the album was an absolute embarrassment with atrocious production (it sounded like it had been knocked up in someone's shed for about 50p) and sub-par tunes. A friend of mine went to see them on the subsequent tour and said his main memory was that it looked as though David Jo just didn't want to be there. Soon afterwards, the group slid into inactivity.

Syl Sylvain would continue touring following the Dolls dissolution until his tragic passing in January after a protracted battle with cancer and I guess this probably puts the final nail on a Dolls reunion with Johansen now the only surviving member. It's a real shame that the group's last couple of album were a bit disappointing but at least with One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This they got to make one last grand statement in proper style. It definitely deserves a place up there with their '70s output - in fact I'd say it even runs their much celebrated debut close as their finest hour and was living proof that groups from that era could bring their sound forward to the 21st century in supreme triumph when they had to. A sublime effort - go look it up pronto if you're unlucky enough not to have heard it already.