New York Dolls and Communism...
Hey guys, just a short blirb I found about that band I was talking about last week.
excerpt from http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayreview/story/0,,1225832,00.html:
As soon as the new store was complete, I decided to set sail for the US, to engage, belong, harness, dominate and ultimately, I thought, control the New York Dolls. I decided to make them look not like girls, but worse, like Communist dolls. Red, patent leather Communist dolls. I had a fondness for all that Chinese stuff. Drugs and alcohol had seeped into their lifestyle and they were already past their shelf life. The music industry paid no attention to anyone who liked the New York Dolls, dismissing them mistakenly as homosexuals. It now continued to deteriorate even further.
The Vietnam war was just about to end and for me, red was the colour and I thought it needed to be their colour. Their lyrics, I felt, should have the word "red" in them at least six times. I wanted a chance to have just one affair, one moment, and persuaded them to let me make a show. I found a venue, hung a lipstick logo'd flag outside, and designed a backdrop - a banner with a hammer and sickle on stage. I wrote a press release - a manifesto of sorts that declared the politics of boredom: "Better red than dead". The Dolls came on stage soaked in a ray of red light. David waved Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. Everyone drank red-coloured cocktails and sat on red upholstered chairs.
The critics railed against me: "He's a communist! I know, the NME in London told me." To David Johansen: "What is all this communist shit?" David laughed but got scared and disappeared into the toilets. Backstage, Lenny Kaye - another journalist - and later a member of Patti Smith's group went to Johnny Thunders and asked him the same question. Much to my delight, Thunders said, "What's it to ya?" Johnny had the attitude. Now it was just a question of getting everybody into the same boat. I convinced the group to leave for Florida.
In the article, Malcolm Mclaren (former manager of the band) briefly talks about why symbols such as sex, music, celebrity, and; most relevantly, communism become "fetishsized" by youth. In the case of communist commodification, it is essentially part of consumerism executed with the intent to shock and confront. In the above excerpt, Mclaren says that he made the band, who were originally controversial because they dressed like girls, worse. He made them communists. There's that confrontation and shock that comes along with the commodification of communism. Although quite creepy and not really useable as any real source of information, this site has a similar idea regarding consumerism:
http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=159
I'm not sure how i'm going to approach this idea yet. I do know that I want to do something about Mclaren's ideas regarding why he turned the New York Dolls into communist images. However, I'm not sure if I want to go into that further or try to blend that story with the commodification of communism itself. However, I have found an email address that I could hopefully use to get in contact with Malcolm Mclaren in England and plan to email it soon with relevant questions. If I do get a response and am able to get answers from him, then I will hopefully be able to determine where I could go with the idea. Ok that's all for now.
-Jeggi
excerpt from http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayreview/story/0,,1225832,00.html:
As soon as the new store was complete, I decided to set sail for the US, to engage, belong, harness, dominate and ultimately, I thought, control the New York Dolls. I decided to make them look not like girls, but worse, like Communist dolls. Red, patent leather Communist dolls. I had a fondness for all that Chinese stuff. Drugs and alcohol had seeped into their lifestyle and they were already past their shelf life. The music industry paid no attention to anyone who liked the New York Dolls, dismissing them mistakenly as homosexuals. It now continued to deteriorate even further.
The Vietnam war was just about to end and for me, red was the colour and I thought it needed to be their colour. Their lyrics, I felt, should have the word "red" in them at least six times. I wanted a chance to have just one affair, one moment, and persuaded them to let me make a show. I found a venue, hung a lipstick logo'd flag outside, and designed a backdrop - a banner with a hammer and sickle on stage. I wrote a press release - a manifesto of sorts that declared the politics of boredom: "Better red than dead". The Dolls came on stage soaked in a ray of red light. David waved Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. Everyone drank red-coloured cocktails and sat on red upholstered chairs.
The critics railed against me: "He's a communist! I know, the NME in London told me." To David Johansen: "What is all this communist shit?" David laughed but got scared and disappeared into the toilets. Backstage, Lenny Kaye - another journalist - and later a member of Patti Smith's group went to Johnny Thunders and asked him the same question. Much to my delight, Thunders said, "What's it to ya?" Johnny had the attitude. Now it was just a question of getting everybody into the same boat. I convinced the group to leave for Florida.
In the article, Malcolm Mclaren (former manager of the band) briefly talks about why symbols such as sex, music, celebrity, and; most relevantly, communism become "fetishsized" by youth. In the case of communist commodification, it is essentially part of consumerism executed with the intent to shock and confront. In the above excerpt, Mclaren says that he made the band, who were originally controversial because they dressed like girls, worse. He made them communists. There's that confrontation and shock that comes along with the commodification of communism. Although quite creepy and not really useable as any real source of information, this site has a similar idea regarding consumerism:
http://www.che-lives.com/home/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=159
I'm not sure how i'm going to approach this idea yet. I do know that I want to do something about Mclaren's ideas regarding why he turned the New York Dolls into communist images. However, I'm not sure if I want to go into that further or try to blend that story with the commodification of communism itself. However, I have found an email address that I could hopefully use to get in contact with Malcolm Mclaren in England and plan to email it soon with relevant questions. If I do get a response and am able to get answers from him, then I will hopefully be able to determine where I could go with the idea. Ok that's all for now.
-Jeggi
posted by tarandfeather at 1:04 AM
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