New York Dolls - Cause I Sez So

  by John Clarkson

published: 25 / 4 / 2009

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Billy Connolly once darkly described The Pretenders as being “the band no one ever leaves”, and much the same could be said about The New York Dolls. Even against the mean of other 70s rock band excess, The New York Dolls have had a remarkably high list of casualties. Original drummer Billy Murcia died of a drink and drugs overdose before the band even recorded their 1973 self-titled debut LP, and in a curious mixture of drug-related problems and bad fortune the years since then have seen the deaths too of guitarist Johnny Thunders, Murcia’s replacement Jerry Nolan and bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane. When The New York Dolls reformed in 2004, almost thirty years after the group collapsed on an ill-fated tour of Florida in 1975, at the bequest of Morrissey during his spell as director of the Meltdown Festival, few people expected much. A show at the Royal Festival Hall in London, featuring surviving members David Johansen (vocals), Sylvian Sylvian (guitars) and in what would be his last hurrah with the band Kane (who would die just three weeks later unexpectedly from leukaemia), however, provided surprisingly successful. An album of new material, ‘One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This’, which featured new members Steve Conte (guitar), Sami Yaffa (bass) and Brian Delaney (drums) and which was released in 2006 32 years after their second and last album ‘Too Much Too Soon’, also attracted decent sales and reviews. Fans are perhaps more used now to The New York Dolls being back. ‘Cause I Sez So’, their fourth album, has been recorded without quite same fanfare as ‘One Day It Will Please Us to Remember This’ or the aid of celebrities such as Michael Stipe and Iggy Pop who both made guest appearances on the last CD. Todd Rundgren, who produced their debut album, is, however, back in the producer’s chair. ‘Cause I Sez So’ for all this is, however, another strikingly solid collection of songs. At one level on it Johansen and Sylvain have done what they have always done with The New York Dolls, and on tracks such as torch song ‘Better Than You’, the Dion-influenced ‘Lonely So Long’ and the Eastern-inspired ‘Drowning’, have come up with a set of slick boy-meets-girl glam rock anthems. At another level, always a more diverse act than they have often been credited for, they, however, offer a lot more. Opener and title track ‘Cause I Sez So’, all slashed riffs and thunderous rock ‘n’ roll chords, is an anti-paparazzi rant set to get even the most leaden of feet up on the dance floor. “I ain’t no model/I am a regular guy”, sings Johansen, his voice its usual slurred swagger, and showing four decades on that he has lost none of his ability for a good one-liner. Elsewhere they reveal increasing political concern and activism. The discordant punk of ‘Muddy Bones’ condones the world for being “a bloody mess”, while ‘My World’, which merges together wall-of-sound vocal harmonies and a clattering twin guitar line, is a plea for mankind to stop tampering with nature. ‘Temptation to Exist’, in contrast, however, is a syrupy ,deliberately hammy 50’s-style crooner’s ballad. Toward the end of the album they also take the glam-rock stomp of ‘Trash’ from their debut album and rework it as a cod calypso reggae number. “If we don’t come back us, just call us on the Ouija Board”, smirks Johansen at the end of the blustering ‘Nobody Got No Bizness’, the track that precedes it, and a self-mocking tribute to the band by themselves. Both he and Sylvian, are, however, a long way off that. Now each in their late fifites, they have perhaps got old as much disgracefully as gracefully, but ‘Cause I Sez So’, both hilarious and humane, is an album of life-affirming majesty and dignity.

Track Listing:-

1 'Cause I Sez So
2 Muddy Bones
3 Better Than You
4 Lonely So Long
5 My World
6 This Is Ridiculous
7 Temptation To Exist
8 Making Rain
9 Drowning
10 Nobody Got No Bizness
11 Trash
12 Exorcism Of Despair

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/nydolls
https://twitter.com/lesnewyorkdolls

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