Rock Bottom: Dark Moments In Music Babylon

by Des Barres, Pamela

  Nancy, his ex-wife, says, “There has never been anyone I’ve ever known who had such archangelic charisma.” “When Gram was fully present and in his full power, you would have walked off a cliff for him. Early in our relationship, he told me, ‘Do you understand what a fallen angel is? It’s an angel from the divine realms who comes to earth, loves a mortal woman, is wronged by her, and sullies his grace—thereby falling from grace.’” It sounds like what happened in real life, doesn’t it? I ask gently. “Mickey was just a pawn in the game,” she insists. It’s a shame about the depth of Gram’s pain, I say. “You’ve heard Gram say this: ‘How can you write a country song unless you go through pain?’ You say Gram was in such horrible pain, but that’s all part of it. He was loyal and true in his younger years, would come to the aid of his friends, had the most pristine, clear vision—he knew there could be heaven on earth, that we could all be in harmony and love one another—and when he saw his visions, one by one, crumbling, he wasn’t strong enough. The great, heavy Southern sorrow was part of the act and then it became a reality. When you play Jesus Christ, you walk across swimming pools. You act the part! For Gram it became the real thing. It caught him.” When I tell Nancy that I’m calling Gram’s chapter “Fallen Angel,” she says, “Good. He called it. He became it. He lived it. He did his mission and he left.”

  G.P.’s amazingly long fingers—“Sometimes I wonder,” Gram told me, “where these hands came from.” (ANDEE COHEN)

  JOHNNY THUNDERS

  Too Much Junkie Business

  “Okay. You got it. I’m gonna die tonight,” Johnny Thunders would announce from the stage. “I’m gonna die up here.” But Johnny’s fans wouldn’t get that twisted privilege. On April 23, 1991, the New York Doll / Heartbreaker guitarist died alone in a New Orleans hotel room under bizarre circumstances that are still being investigated.

  Johnny’s older sister, Marion, tells me there is a lot of mystery surrounding her brother’s death. “I spoke to him that evening and he sounded fantastic,” she recalls. “I believe there was foul play. I’ve been to New Orleans and nobody wants to talk to me. I went to the police department and the coroner’s office and when I mentioned Johnny’s name, everybody shut up. Nothing corresponds—the time on the death certificate, the time we were called.” With obvious frustration she said that by the time she went to New Orleans, there was a different coroner. I ask Marion if she got a look at the police report. “Conveniently enough, there’s only half the police report; the other half they can’t seem to find.”

  Born in Queens, New York, in July 1952, John Anthony Genzale was raised by his mother, who was a supermarket cashier, and older sister, Marion, to be an altar boy, but at eight years old Johnny was following his earliest dream—to become a baseball player like his hero, Mickey Mantle. An average student, Johnny excelled in his favorite sport until his high-school teacher demanded he cut his thick mop of hair to get on the team. Johnny impolitely refused.

  His second salvation was music. Seven years older than Johnny, Marion was into the sixties girl groups, turning young Johnny on to the Shangri-Las and the Crystals, which inspired his own musical discoveries—Howlin’ Wolf, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, the Stones, MC5. “He started when he was three,” Marion tells me. “He was already imitating Elvis Presley!” At sixteen he formed his own band, Johnny and the Jaywalkers. At seventeen he spent months prowling the streets of London, seeing a different band every night for inspiration.

  Back in New York, Johnny quickly fell into the tumultuous 1969 rock scene, hanging in bars like Max’s Kansas City and Nobody’s, where he met the cocky David Johansen, an expelled Catholic school student from Staten Island who was busy forming a band called “Actress” with Arthur Kane, Sylvain Sylvain, and drummer Billy Murcia. Johnny joined the foursome, briefly becoming Johnny Volume before settling on Johnny Thunders. Actress soon became the fabulous New York Dolls.

  A junkie in the bathtub—Johnny’s big dreams were always on hold. (MARCIA RESNICK)

  They rehearsed in Rusty Beanie’s Cycle Shop, playing seedy joints before landing a regular Tuesday-night gig at the Mercer Oscar Wilde Room and finally becoming the semipermanent house band at Max’s Kansas City. Velvet Underground’s Lou Reed proclaimed the Dolls “cute,” and Max’s was soon chockablock with fawning rock stars and decked-out Dolls devotees, who imitated the band’s fishnet-stocking androgyny, wearing plastic pop beads, teetering on eight-inch platforms, their mascara thick and lip gloss gooey. “Before going onstage,” claimed Rolling Stone magazine, “the Dolls pass around a Max Factor lipstick the way some bands pass around a joint.” Jerry Nolan, who joined the Dolls a bit later, told the Village Voice that you could spot Johnny Thunders and his girlfriend Janis “from ten miles away.” “Janis got Johnny into his look. He was wearing high heels, and you remember that teased hair look? That Rod Stewart look? Johnny’s was like that, but even more dimensionalized and exaggerated, teased all the way up like in a crown. It was so long. He would have a platinum blond streak down the back … a girl’s blouse on, and on top of that, a sparkling girl’s vest. And then maybe a cowboy scarf. Mixing in cowboy stuff with glamorous forties girl stuff was something the Dolls liked to do. And he wore makeup, which really set him off.”

  Former promotions man Marty Thau pulled in Steve Lieber and David Krebs as financial managers and took on the formidable task of trying to get the Dolls a record deal. He set up some gigs in London and demo recording time at Escape Studios in Kent, but after only a couple of sessions and before the Dolls’ first scheduled date at Manchester’s Hardrock club, Billy Murcia became a tragic rock statistic. The drummer had gone to a party in Chelsea, soon found himself in the usual state of alcoholic obliteration, and passed out cold. It seems that Billy’s new companions feared for his life and tossed him into a full bathtub, hoping to bring him around. The verdict: misadventure—death by drowning. Johnny and the rest of the band were shook up, but Dolls momentum was building, and Billy Murcia was quickly replaced with a well-respected New York drummer, Jerry Nolan. Jerry believes that “real abuse” caused Billy’s death. “He went to a party with a lot of highbrow, stuck-up, rich teenage kids. They had these pills called Mandys. They were a heavy barbiturate down. All day long kids kept giving him these pills … . When Billy fell asleep everybody fucking panics … . They throw him in the goddamn fuckin’ bathtub to try to shake him out of it. They fucking drowned him! They drowned the kid! These fucking rich kids freaked out and ran away. They all split on the guy. What a fucking waste.”

  Jerry slotted right into the Dolls lineup and almost no time was lost. Record companies came in droves to gigs but were too afraid to sign the “obscene” band until rock critic Paul Nelson convinced Mercury to give them a deal. But there was internal conflict right away in the choice of producer. Despite fevered protests from Johnny and Jerry, David Johansen chose Todd Rundgren to helm the first record, and he didn’t really do the band justice. Said Johnny, “He fucked up the mix really bad. Every time we go on the radio to do interviews, we always dedicate ‘Your Mama Don’t Dance and Your Daddy Don’t Rock and Roll’—know that song?—to Todd.” Although some of the Dolls’ trashy magic was muffled in the mix, their 1973 debut album still managed to sell 110,000 copies. Mercury’s clever catchphrase—”The New York Dolls: a band you’re gonna like whether you like it or not!“—helped propel the first single, “Trash,” onto the Cash Box charts and secure a tour with Iggy Pop. The tour was a raging success, ending with all the Dolls being arrested in Memphis for “profane language.” Johnny was handcuffed right onstage. Said Jerry Nolan, “We once got off a plane in Paris or someplace, and we were walking through the lobby, and there was some press there, cameras and reporters. Johnny had been really sick on the plane, just not feeling well, and when he got off he really barfed out, right in front of the press.” It got to where people expected the Dolls to do something disruptive and/or disgusting. And Johnny was more than willing to accommodate. That night at the Paris gig, he didn�
��t appreciate being spit on and bashed his guitar over the offending fan’s head.

  The New York Dolls, in the band’s trashy transvestite drag, “passing around a Max Factor lipstick the way some bands pass around a joint.” (MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/VENICE, CALIF.)

  Notorious British journalist Nick Kent, writing for New Musical Express, said:

  Johnny Thunders, for one, looks about as well as his guitar is in tune. He staggers around the stage in obvious discomfort, attempting to motivate himself and the band simultaneously and succeeding only in beating his instrument into an ever-more horrendous state of tune-lessness. The sound reaches its nadir on “Vietnamese Baby,” when the guitar interplay is so drastically off-balanced that it becomes quite grotesque to listen to. On the next number Thunders stops half-way through, puts down his guitar and moves behind the amplifiers to throw up for five minutes. “Y’know, in some ways Johnny is just a child,” Marty Thau will state later, with a dewy-eyed paternal concern.

  There was another disagreement about who would produce the Dolls’ second album. David wanted nostalgia and won out with the legendary George “Shadow” Morton, who had written “Leader of the Pack” and produced the Shangri-Las. But Morton had given up teen-girl angst for the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The album, Too Much Too Soon, was critically panned. It sold enough for another U.S. tour, however, and since the Dolls were always broke back home, the road was full of excess. “While we were touring, at least we were going to live it up,” said Jerry. “Musicians always get chicks, but not like the Dolls. The Dolls took chicks from any other musician, any other band, anybody! If the Dolls were in town, we owned it! I mean we owned it!! Many times there were violent scenes, and I’ll tell you why. The way the women felt about us, the men felt the opposite. We totally offended them. We totally put their sexuality at risk. They hated our guts. You see, we threatened guys in two different ways. To lose your girlfriend to a musician was one thing. But to lose your girlfriend to a faggot musician was another thing entirely”

  “The Dolls were the most obnoxious creatures ever to enter this country,” stated a news editor in Germany after a particularly appalling interview.

  PRESS: Did you do much sightseeing?

  JOHNNY: Naw.

  PRESS: What did you think of our famous beer?

  JOHNNY: Tasted like … eh … it’s like junkie’s piss or something … .

  PRESS: I don’t have to listen to these pathetic, childish insults.

  JERRY: Sure you don’t. Fuck off.

  SYLVAIN: Why are all Krauts so fuckin’ fat?

  JOHNNY: It’s all them Jew-meat sausages.

  Shock value aside, the Dolls’ gloss and glam was fading. Arthur Kane had become such a severe alcoholic that one of the roadies hid behind an amp, playing his bass lines, and Jerry and Johnny were dabbling dangerously with hard-core drugs. Marty Thau was desperate and hooked up with Malcolm McLaren (pre–Sex Pistols), who deposited two of the Dolls in rehab before dressing them up in red leather suits and putting them onstage with a communist flag. Johnny and Jerry hated Malcolm and his absurd interference, so when David said, “Anyone in this band can be replaced,” the disgruntled musicians got on the first plane back to New York.

  True to his threat, David replaced Johnny and Jerry and headed to Japan for a bogus Dolls tour. When the realization hit, Johnny was devastated. “At first Johnny couldn’t comprehend the Dolls ending,” said Jerry. “I accepted it, though I took it hard. Real fuckin’ hard. Johnny just couldn’t believe it.”

  The fake Dolls fell apart while Johnny and Jerry were busy putting together a new band, the Heartbreakers, with Walter Lure and Richard Hell from Television. Gigs came easy with two ex-Dolls in the group, despite some early friction between Johnny and Richard Hell, who wanted to be the front man. Billy Rath soon replaced him.

  Posters showed the Heartbreakers covered in blood, clutching bullet-holed chests: “The Heartbreakers—Catch Them While They’re Still Alive!” Johnny cut his mad mane into a doo-wop do, trading his Dolls’ cross-dressing for West Side Story’s leader-of-the-Sharks look. They hired the flamboyant Leee Black Childers as their manager and drew capacity crowds, but record companies balked. When the offer came from Malcolm McLaren to open for the notorious Sex Pistols, the Heartbreakers couldn’t resist going to London smack in the middle of Britain’s punkmania rage.

  “When we hit London we turned it inside out and upside down,” said Jerry. “Not only did we bring a lot of excitement, we brought a lot of danger, and well, some tragedy, too. We brought drugs with us—heroin. The groups there didn’t know that from nothing. When Johnny and I got to England, everybody became junkies, almost overnight. We partied hard and tough and rough.”

  The Pistols had more gigs canceled than they played, and by January 1977 the entire tour was off. The Heartbreakers decided to stay, quickly becoming regulars at the Roxy club and the darlings of the speed-freak leather-and-chain set. One reviewer called Johnny “a junk-sick transvestite Eddie Cochran.” It’s true that Johnny was deep into his addiction by this time, and despite the arrival of his wife and kids from New York, he continued to proudly wage war with the needle. Johnny had broken the “no girlfriends or wives on the road” rule, and Jerry refused to live with Johnny’s wife, Julie, and the kids, leaving Walter and Billy to trip over toys. Said Leee, “They all fought constantly … threw things around and broke things … . Walter and Billy weren’t allowed to have girlfriends in because it would make Julie crazy to have groupies around … .” Leee finally conned the Heartbreakers a deal with Kit Lambert’s new label, Track Records, and the Heartbreakers’ L.A.M.F. (Like a Mother Fucker) album—including Johnny’s junkie lament centerpiece and first single, “Chinese Rocks”—was recorded all over England. The single reached number one on the alternative chart and at one point outsold the Pistols’ “God Save the Queen.” The European tour, though fraught with the usual madness, garnered rave reviews.

  When Tom Petty dared to call his new band the Heartbreakers, Johnny had this to say: “I think we should change our name to the Junkies.” Jerry Nolan claims that he turned the Pistols on to heroin: “One time I shot Sid up backwards, pointing the needle down the vein rather than up, and he didn’t know you could do that. Scared the shit out of him, but he didn’t want to say nothing. That was the whole trip about the Pistols. Everything was a fuckin’ act … . They were kids. We were a lot older. When it came down to the real nitty-gritty shit, throwing works on the table and cooking up some junk, they got scared.”

  The Heartbreakers were deported due to trouble with their visas, and when the problem was finally worked out, Jerry went back to London ahead of the others to remix the L.A.M.F. album. When Johnny arrived at Heathrow Airport with two passports, Leee had to cry real tears to convince the immigration people not to throw his bad boy in jail. Gigs were well received, reviews were mixed. Sounds, October: “The Heartbreakers are great, hot and anybody’s. All you need is a pair of ears and an open mind.” Sounds, December: “Why is Johnny Thunders the most arrogant slob ever to stumble across a stage? Sure, we love the New York Dolls, but …” Jerry had already threatened to quit the band several times, and had actually been replaced twice, but he knew it was over when Johnny told Melody Maker that Jerry “started screwing up all the mixes.” Jerry retaliated in Record Mirror: “There’s one guy in this band I don’t like. I’ve discovered he’s a coward, and I can’t work with cowards. He’s done things behind my back … . He gave in to allow the album to be released. He’s only interested about reading about himself in the papers … . The whole thing’s a joke and I want out.” Years later Jerry had this to say: “Johnny and I still got together for the odd gig, but he could still be such a pain … . He’d get cocky and try to push people around, but if he could push you around, he’d hate you. If you pushed him back, he’d love you for it. If you could smack him down, he’d be your best friend. He needed me for that. He was a little bit of a masochist.”

  At twenty-four, Johnny had
two kids to feed. He formed a short-lived band called the Living Dead, playing a few nights at the Speakeasy before landing a solo deal on Dave Hill’s (the Pretenders’ manager) Real Records. The single “Dead or Alive” was released in May 1978 and died a quick death. Johnny briefly played with the Pistols’ Steve Jones and Paul Cook, calling the venture “Johnny Thunders’ Rebels,” while he continued recording his solo album, So Alone, backed by Jones and Cook as well as a long list of other punk “knowns.” Released in October to grudgingly good reviews, it reached number seven on the alternative charts. Johnny was feeling optimistic and told Sounds that his dream was about to come true. “I’ve got someone to finance me to go to New Orleans and I’m gonna try and find a bunch of old black musicians and start a band with them.” But it would be over a decade before Johnny made it to Louisiana.

  His big heroin habit putting all big dreams on hold, Johnny put the Heartbreakers back together more than once and played some solo gigs, dubbed the “So Alone Revue.” Once the rock press’s darling, Johnny was now crucified in print whenever he staggered onto a stage. February 1979 found the Pistols’ Sid Vicious dead from an overdose, which encouraged Johnny to write one of his most poignant odes, “Sad Vacation.” But Sid’s OD didn’t do a thing for Johnny’s deep-down junkie soul. He was starting to resemble a propped-up, blue-hued skeleton with spiky black hair. In July a small label released a live Heartbreakers set recorded at Max’s Kansas City. Sounds: “As people these guys are odious creeps … but plugged in they are MAGIC.” Nick Kent at the N.M.E. disagreed: “The whole enterprise stinks and there is absolutely no reason for even the most rabid Heartbreakers fan to purchase this piece of shit.”