I caught many of those 979 Max's shows....some were fantastic, some not so great, always entertaining and a great night out...

I'm from Worcester.

As a child I used to get travel sick on long car journey's, but I grew out of it...

Nice comment, Anders. Maybe you can edit this and change where you put "smashing gay" to "smashing guy." As it should've been written. We all know Johnny was no gay.

@@klausrain111 and the "baseplayer"...

@@rollinstoned9816 Whut?

@@klausrain111 he write baseplayer. Its bassplayer.

@@rollinstoned9816 So? Who cares? I only commented to say Johnny Thunders was not ghey. None of the NY Dolls were ghey. Billy Rath was not ghey, just a junkie, like Johnny.

Agree -Cheryl

Didn't know that about Elvis Costello. He was my hero as a teenager

You obviously know very little about him and even less about addiction. What a load of detritus...

Too much heroin, not enough practicing. By order of comparison, Johansen went on to learn how to sing and arguably has a successful career.

Hopeless junkies too unfortunately or iconically

@@jonb7934 Ironically

@@JESCO58 there was no heroin in the beginning and lots of rehearsing contrary to popular myth. the dolls really weren’t the drug band that their myth made them out to be. what went wrong is peoples homophobia and the record companies lack of support among other things. they sold out stadiums and sold hundreds of thousands of albums they did have commercial viability.

No way man the dolls...........were......where it was man,,,where was you??? Jive ass Turkey can't speak no jive nohow no ireee

Yeah I knew Johnny too. If anyone wants to hear stories about my good friend Johnny.... My address is 432 Grandview Ave Piscataway NJ. I take cash, checks or money orders.

Did U know him in New Orleans?

That last one was 4 Marie.

I’m going to be doing a KZfaq video on his life so could you send me as much information as possible please 🙏🏼 many thanks 😊 peace ☮️

Lol.

Hear hear

Look to the right on your monitor,and you'll find all the rare footage of lost Johnny you will ever need...God forbid people having a conversation for a few minutes.

God forbid people having an opinion about it on their own own page

Elaine Shandro Good Point!

@@shanelevene4864 and a fucking pick in his arm. "how bout a song johnny?"

Half of New York wrote it! There are about 337 versions all with different verses. Why would Dee Dee write a verse about phoning himself?

Dee Dee got a random person calling his place, he picked up the phone and said hello. The person who rang asked hey is dee dee home? How hard is that to understand ?

The guy calling Dee Dee is Jerry Nolan, cause Jerry used to call Dee Dee all the time to go score, not exactly a secret. Dee dee let Jerry bring the song to the Heartbreakers cuz Johnny Ramone didn’t like it

They both wrote the first version together in a a skag drenched apartment

@@shanelevene4864 "Somebody called me on the phone They said hey, is Dee Dee home"

Aeroshmith is last of great ones.

Hahahah! Well, let's say he was one of them. One of the others was Nabokov, and he wasn't even American. Their greatest works were considered borderline porn. Leave it to the good ol' USA to produce artists like this.

The only great song he wrote before 19, which you are obviously referring too, is “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory”, his showpiece ballad. He wrote many of his greatest rock and roll songs later on in his early to mid-twenties like “Pirate Love”, “Born to Lose”, “Let Go”, and “I Wanna Be Loved”. “So Alone” on live at max is another fantastic ballad that is nearly as good as memory. And well into his late twenties he penned songs as good as anything he ever wrote like “In Cold Blood” and “Sad Vacation”. The problem wasn’t a lack of great songs, it was a falling out with major record labels. He didn’t have much of a reason to continue writing (though he still did occasionally like with “sad society” another great blues ballad) because major record labels no longer would give him much of a chance even though he sold much more than any indie artist that were his peers on the indie labels he was on after 1977. Indie labels after a big advance would rip him off and would never pay him royalties which he was trying to get at the time. And he did live up to his potential for the most part. Look at Guns N’ Roses, Jane’s addiction, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains. How many great albums did they have? None of them had more than 2 or 3. Johnny thunders had 3 great albums (New York Dolls, LAMF, So Alone) and 2 good albums (Live at Max v.1&2, In Cold Blood double EP) worth of material. That’s about as much as many great rock artists that are more famous than him. It’s very rare that musicians are more prolific, Beatles and stones were exceptions.

@@smkxodnwbwkdns8369 yes I'm sure that's all correct. Like I said he left behind some cool music but that's in spite of his heroin addiction not because of it. Everything takes a back seat to heroin when you're an addict. As good as you think he was, he would have been alot better without heroin. He admits this himself in interviews

@@edwilliamson956 Where does he say he would of been “better” without heroin? I’m not familiar with him ever saying that and in fact even denying that. I think he said once in a documentary that he would of been rich and more successful without drugs, which is definitely true. After about 73” it’s clear that he didn’t do anything without shooting up. Walter Lure describes where being in the Heartbreakers, before band meetings/rehearsals/songwriting sessions/photo shoots/etc. they would shoot up first. Everything you do and are comes out in the music (and any art) when creating music. If he hadn’t done heroin, who knows if he would of wrote the same songs? Maybe they would of been the same just sound a little different. He might of wrote more songs but again, would they have been any good? They certainly wouldn’t of sounded the same as by LAMF and So Alone (including his performance of “You Can’t Out Your Arms Around a Memory”) heroin was a part of his performance and like any drug albums like “Dirt” by Alice In Chains and “Rocks” by Aerosmith, it adds a certain languid edge to it as well as greater emphasis on angst among other things. People tend to exaggerate how much music was made on heroin, though there are some, and if you play them successively there definitely is some aesthetic and sonic qualities in common that I believe is attributed to heroin. But for every Dirt there’s a million awful songs everyone forgets that were made on heroin. I don’t think drugs had much effect on his artistic output; Perhaps later. Sober he might of felt compelled to improve and expand as a guitarist instead of playing the same punk chuck berry licks. He did become a better singer late in life.

@@smkxodnwbwkdns8369 " I dont think drugs had much effect on his artistic output " ..... okay

@@edwilliamson956 what about Sylvian sylvian, the other doll rhythm guitarist? He was never a junkie yet after writing a few interesting originals his best being “Trash” he would go on to write a lot of crap and then not so much at all. However hard to compare because it was evident that Johnny was so much more talented. And there’s many artists who have one good album and then do nothing that comes close to it. Johnny had 6 quality, good to great, albums in a row. That’s a lot of music for anyone sober or not.

Saw that documentary too

I realize this was written a year ago, but I had to comment because, there is more to the story, & you can't blame friends or family for wanting to know what happened, especially if there are issues with his death. There were other things missing such as his passport & around $20,000. Why would they have taken the drugs when they had the money to get literally, anything they wanted. Especially if what was left behind, was something they may not have had interest in taking. My uncle was a friend to Johnny & a roadie for The Dolls, I grew up with their music. Not to mention, I had a cousin who kinda died in the same manner. There are & will always be questions unanswered in situations such as this. -Cheryl

Late to the party here but the Autopsy findings are in the video Looking For Johnny (2014), towards the end.

lol

I dunno man I’d say Kiss were easier to digest for the masses than the dolls were simply because Kiss wore costumes yet the Dolls went onstage with the clothes they wore 24/7. Same with Aerosmith .

paul evans not t9 mention Kiss started in the 60s 😂

Jay S who mention kiss started in 60s?

paul evans my mistake, 73

Dolls started in 71

Wrong band.

@@rollinstoned9816 Johnny was a big MC5 fan.

Tyler Mod maybe. But could you call him redundant when he still influences artists today especialy if you in this instance, compare him to Johnny Thunders?

hurley tim MC5 is the spark

Just because you turned into a procrastinating wreck who couldn't do anything don't start trying to put it out there that everyone was like you. If you got fucked up and did nothing that';s because that is who you are. Many heroin addicts are prolific in their art, not at all like the sad shit you say you became. X

drugs *are * cool. believing that didn't kill johnny; smack addiction did. most great artists of the last century used one drug or another, whether it was heroin, LSD, weed and/or alcohol. that's not necessarily a coincidence. music and drugs have had synergy for generations of music culture.

@@mj.l I dont think JT''s junk habit had anything to do with his death . Leukemia probably killed him.

Sylvian said he noticed Johnny always having a bunch of girls around him when he hardly had any. So R&R is sex drugs and r&r, well Sylvain wanted some more choices, more is better when your that age. He asked Johnny into the band, Johnny didn't want to , he said, maybe in a few weeks. Few weeks gone, Syvain said Johnny what about the Band thing, Johnny said , answer me this How many strings on a bass Sylvain says 4, Johnny said how many strings on a guitar, Sylvain said 6, Johnny said, settled, 4 strings are better. Because he hadn't even played with them yet, although he had the fundamentals down. So Johnny started his R&R schooling on Bass. So Johnny the good kid finally found a mate and had 4 good kids himself, uh with a wife before he died at 38.

You never seen an interview of a writer before?

The water was to cook up a fix. We do that or draw it straight out the cistern.

Mickey Kravitz Yes,Facts are Based on Truth,Bias,and One's Personal Opinions!

TRex #1

The Spiders of Mars

Alan Lloyd Brilliant observation porkwaxer.

Alan Lloyd Ive always been the other way around, its the combination that always gets me. Like Cradle of Filth brilliant lyrics powerful music

Fucking dreadful then you know

It was in a different package not in line with expectations. Like a Warhol painting. They formed a sound not in a typical rock sense. It is always the outcasts that blaze a differing path that become the Pilgrims to a new land, the first to conquer then others see the merit, they fit, they follow. The Dolls and Johnny, they had no fans, they have fanatics.

mark so he was set up and murdered

Nobody is just one dimensional- Thunders could be both shy and quiet and then obnoxious other times .

Don't kid yourself, booster. Aerosmith would not have become who they are if not for the New York Dolls. You can say that about countless bands

Agree -Cheryl

This has the feel of a deposition

@@AlmostReady504 And all the excitement of one too. 😀

maybe u can play the same riffs as him but you will never sound like him.

Jetboy, yeah baby, but my fav. is Frankenstein. geesh, this song has stuck with me and I'll never dislike it from over play. If I need energy or am needing motivated, FRANKENSTEIN. JOHNNY WAS A TORMENTED PERSON, he had so much pain from his situations he fomented. He was the destructive force unto himself. Being so bombed he'd let his mouth just fly sometimes, he did not care. Confrontational, racial, it did not matter. So if there was someone involved with him dying it was him being ripped off but I bet his mouth didn't help. Being in ill health and bombed his mouth was stronger than his ability to fight his way through as he was no athlete.

Alan Lloyd WRONG!!!

Aerosmith was more talented

honestly, The Dolls built their set predominately from cover tunes.

fuck off, aerosmith are shit

We must remember Todd Rundgren formulated and designed the sound directives on the first album as producer. Also a one off the cuff isn't smart. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

+Glowing Red Brain I have their first album. Unfortunately their music never clicked with me.

listen closely to the tone of the guitar....it will click....there is nothing now that compares to the raw tone of those guitars

u got that right