Well-executed buffet

Friday, October 26, 2007

Gruen's Dolls

Okay. Now I get it. The New York Dolls are an essential and important link in the history of Rock 'n Roll. They are Lou Reed's love children. Joe Siegel, in a vintage tv news clip likens them as a cross between Rolling Stones and Alice Cooper. That clip came from Bob Gruen's All Dolled Up, a compilation of 40 hours or so of video footage that he did of the Dolls back in the seventies. Greatness in rock 'n roll is as much a visceral response of the nervous system as anything else. This is why low fidelity bootlegs are just fine documents of the great bands quite often and murky black and white half inch serves the subject well here in Gruen's film.

I once saw Johnny Thunders back in the early eighties at Club Noize on Union Avenue in Portland. I remember the show as loud and that I had a kind of teeth-grinding response. NY Dolls, MC5, Iggy and the Stooges. Bands I don't listen too very often, but I am oh so glad they existed and kicked out the jams.

posted by well-executed buffet at 11:08 PM

Comments:

Hi,

Can you tell me where Club Noize was, on Union, if you remember?

Thanks so much,
Alan
alan@cs.pdx.edu

# posted by

alan : April 20, 2009 2:59 PM