Off the record: New York Dolls come out to play

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Glamtastic: The New York Dolls on BBC2’s Old Grey Whistle Test during their brief heyday in the early Seventies

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The Dolls come out to play again
In the early Seventies, the New York Dolls formed because of their appreciation of each other's outfits, recorded two filthy, far-out albums and promptly imploded in a flurry of feather boas and smeared lipstick.

Now, 38 years later, the band's belated second phase is about to equal that tally. Cause I Sez So, released through Atco on Monday, follows on from their 2006 comeback record, and confirms the current quintet as a rare group who won't embarrass us in their old age.

Then again, David Johansen, 59, who along with guitarist Sylvain Sylvain is one of just two original Dolls still breathing, is way too cool for dad-at-the-disco status. He speaks with a low, insouciant drawl and still possesses the kind of pouting, Jagger-esque face that means it's rock 'n' roll singer or nothing for him. “Why call it quits when we're young?” he says. “I always dug the old cats, like Muddy Waters.”

His band already had a credibility surplus when they agreed to reform for one night only as a personal favour to Morrissey, the former president of their UK fan club and curator of 2004's Meltdown festival on the South Bank. Like The Velvet Underground and the MC5, they burned bright and briefly, so ahead of their time that they only found a really enthusiastic audience after they had fallen apart. With a scuzzy, angry rock sound that would only really make sense when punk arrived a few years later, and a look that an inexpensive prostitute might judge a touch low-rent, they made a virtue of not fitting in.

“The way we were would be much more acceptable today, but then people were so distracted by certain aspects that they didn't really hear how musical we were,” says Johansen. Two albums, a self-titled debut (1973) and Too Much Too Soon (1974) didn't sell enough to make an impact and the band collapsed into influential but penniless status. “We didn't have any guidance, we were doing it on our own and it got to a point where we had no money and there was dope involved and it didn't work.”

The comeback worked because there were no expectations — few people saw theDolls live the first time around. Having lost drummer Jerry Nolan and semi-legendary guitarist Johnny Thunders to the sky they won more sympathy when bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane died of leukaemia just three weeks after the London reunion show. But more important was the fact that they still sounded great.

For Johansen, performing old favourites such as Personality Crisis and Trash was like “falling off a bicycle”.

That one gig became a handful, then a few dozen, and before he knew it there was a third Dolls album, the aptly titled One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This in 2006. “Nothing was pre-conceived. It just fell into place.”

The new one sounds messier than its immediate predecessor, written and recorded swiftly — seemingly as an excuse to get back to the real business of heavy gigging (the band have sold out their live debut at punk's old stomping ground, the 100 Club, on 14 May). But it is not without its charm. The title track is a typical brutal boogie, Exorcism of Despair is simply deafening, while Lonely So Long has a retro Fifties swing and they even throw in a sweet reggae reworking of Trash.

Most impressively for a band of this vintage, the Dolls sound as though they are enjoying themselves. Without the cynicism that cloaks some reunions, they're free to play for the hell of it. As Johanson says, “This has nothing to do with the expectations of the marketplace, it's just what we want to do. That's what makes it different.”

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