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‘They were inventing a new definition of sexy’: stars and scenesters on the New York Dolls’ riotous rock
Fifty years on from their dissolution, admirers from Joan Jett to Dave Vanian explain the appeal of a band who ripped up rock’n’roll in high heels – and pointed towards punk
The New York Dolls, the androgynous-but-tough band who mixed the Rolling Stones, girl groups and garage rock, were imploding under the weight of their own addictions and failures. But 1975 was the end for Johnny Thunders, Arthur Kane and Jerry Nolan, and the Dolls stopped being the Lower East Side’s rock’n’roll street gang. What Paul was most taken with was the songwriting, and what they were able to do in terms of taking genres – girl group, the Stones, the New York demimonde – and turning it into something coherent and expressive and funny and poignant.
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