New York Dolls - Jet Boy
I first got into the dolls when I was in high school, There was an older kid who used to hang out while I was waiting for my mum to pick me up after class and he was was in a pop/punk band. In my eyes this dude could do no wrong, he was a soft-spoken guy with chipped black nail polish who wore sweatbands made out of gym socks, dyed his hair black and was constantly surrounded by a small army of babes. I thought he was the coolest person in the world.
One afternoon, he actually approached me and asked what I was listening to. This was my big moment. I played it cool and replied, "Oh just a bunch of old school metal. You know... Priest, Maiden, stuff like that." and I thought I did a pretty good job. "Oh", he sighed. "I thought you were gonna say old school punk... That's cool man".
Just slightly crushed, I headed home and downloaded as much 70's punk from Kazaa as i could. The Clash, The Pistols, Ramones and anything else I could remember briefly seeing in guitar magazines. It took 10 years to download (Remember, this would have been 2000 or 2001) but my coolness was at stake and nothing could be more important.
My pursuits were successful and we ended up being really good friends (Today he lives two streets away and we often hang out). I'm babbling. point of the story is... eventually, he leant me The Filth and The Fury, a Sex Pistols documentary. I dug the pistols but what stuck out to me more than anything was a 15 second snippet of a heroin-addicted group of transvestites from New York. They were mean, aggressive and kind of sexy in this weird way and they were playing a song which i eventually found out was called Jet Boy.
This little speel is much longer than I anticipated but if you haven't, check out the Dolls. This is one of my favourite records ever, they were a gigantic influence on punk's existence and they unintentionally created the entire aesthetic of the 1980's. Also, Johnny Thunders is the raddest dude in life.
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