The Arthur Kane documentary: "New York Doll"

[swag]

Very much looking forward to seeing this film (smallness, tenderness, and Morrissey notwithstanding):

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/movies/28doll.html

(via Metafilter)

Greg Whiteley's small, tender documentary portrait "New York Doll" looks at life after rock 'n' roll as experienced by Arthur (Killer) Kane, the original bassist for the legendary glam-punk band the New York Dolls. After the Dolls broke up in 1975 amid the standard rock madness of drink, drugs and excess, Mr. Kane labored in miserable obscurity on the West Coast, living from hand to mouth, battling drugs, alcohol, depression and poverty, until he went into recovery and found religion.

As "New York Doll" sweetly reveals, Mr. Kane belatedly found a kind a peace that culminated with a sweet moment of recognition. Filmed last year, the bassist, in his mid-50's, comes across as a soft-spoken, damaged soul who has found refuge and hope in the Mormon Church, in whose Family History Center library he works.

Since his days as a New York Doll, the band's legend has only grown. To hear musicians like Chrissie Hynde, Bob Geldof and Morrissey tell it in the movie, the Dolls were a beacon of light pumping adrenaline, sass and originality into a scene bogged down in the pretensions and formulas of progressive rock and heavy metal. Unleashing their assault while wearing platform heels, skin-tight pants, towering hair, smeared lipstick and mascara, the Dolls affected the defiant stance of sloppy transvestite hookers.

Last year, Morrissey, the morose, misanthropic singer-songwriter who first heard the Dolls when he was 13, invited Mr. Kane to participate in a concert reunion of the three surviving Dolls at the 2004 Meltdown Festival in London. The movie follows his cautious re-entry into the rock 'n' roll life. He redeems his guitars from a pawnshop, meets his former band mates David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain, and travels to London for an event that he describes in the film as literally an answered prayer. The bad feelings he has harbored toward Mr. Johansen, after he went on to have success as Buster Poindexter, evaporate. And Mr. Kane, who died of leukemia shortly after the concert, drinks in every delicious second of his last hurrah.

Film site:

http://www.newyorkdollmovie.com/

[bridgit]

1. TRASH! don't try to take my life away...

Trash, wont pick it up
Take them lights away
Trash, wont pick it up
Don't take your life away
Trash, don't try to take my life away

And please dontcha ask me if I love you
If you don't know what I'm doin (whatcha know is)

—those are all the lines, some repeated more, sometimes different wording—

Cus I dont know if I do
Cus the way that I feel with you
And take a lovers leap with you
And go to fairyland with you
Go to heaven blue with you
I just dont know if I do
I just don't know if I do

—break—

Uh, how do call your lover boy?

[swag]

2. Two West Coasters up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday, discussing the

New York Dolls.

"Oh, the irony of life!" as Mary Granier once wrote in red ink in my high school sophomore journal.

[bridgit]

3. let them wonder, swag dearest, as to great minds & all the rest...

:hi:

[tigereye]

4. another record I wore out while

screaming the lyrics of Personality Crisis over and over. Sigh. The good old days!


;)

[jpgray]

5. Did they do Lonely Planet Boy, I wonder?

Sounds interesting.

[no name no slogan]

6. Sounds very cool

hard to believe there's only two original Dolls left, though. Well, not that hard to believe, actually.