The Last Bass Outpost

Man, I loved the Dolls and if I may immodestly add: long before they were viewed as Punk progenitors, but still as a glammy Yank hard rock band that didn’t play so great. No one - even those same scribes that would later fawn over the Punk revolution - took them seriously at the time, they were dismissed as a vaudeville novelty act like Alice Cooper (but  minus the latter’s single hits). At our school in 1975/76, I was the only guy who had their albums and dug them. But within a year or two the former pariah act morphed (along with Iggy & The Stooges and the MC5) into proto-Punks - still, no one I knew (except me) owned their albums (which I rescued from the bargain and cu-out bin).

What the NYD would have needed was Bob Ezrin (or Tony Visconti) at the production helm, funny no one thought of that at the time. Neither Todd Rundgren for the debut nor Shadow Morton for the sophomore effort (which I prefer in sound) were smart choices.

I did see them decades later, in their reunion phase. And I saw Buster Poindexter in 1988 in NYC, doing a polonaise with the audience to ‘Hot Hot Hot’ towards the end of the gig plus one or two NYD classics strewn into the set (one was Lonely Planet Boy I believe to remember). It was hilarious fun.

🤣 Oh, so you did find a pic of a couple of Heinkel 111s in flying in formation rather than shot-down state? That was rare during the Battle of Britain.

The He 111 was a good-looking plane and also the reliable and robust backbone bomber of the Luftwaffe (all other available German bomber types were more fickle and fidgety), but nothing you could build a strategic bomber force with. As Mark once said, “flying artillery”, that sums it up.

I soooo want to overdub the bass part with a Ric at full clank, 1972 Glover style. 

Hey Miss T-bird! Don't even think about quitting! Forty years ago I had to stop playing with a pic, because of arthritis in my thumbs. So, you go with the flow. I re-learnt to play with my fingers, and in a short while I never thought about playing with a pic again. So, do not worry. It's all gonna change for the better. And, concerning age, forget it. In three years time I'll turn into the next-next phase before it's time for the big one - one hundred! Rehearsed with my rock band tonite. Our drummer is only sixty, so he can still shuffle out the shuffle without problems. Stuff like Junior's wailing suits me just fine. Pinball wizard goes down well. Keep on keeping on! Don't look back!

I'm more than a little surprised Duane was still alive! Though he pegged out in the 1980s.