Trash! The Complete New York Dolls [Paperback]

Kris Needs (Author), Dick Porter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 10, 2005

The New York Dolls played an integral role in laying the foundations of punk rock. By taking the flamboyant sass of Jagger and Richards to outrageous extremes and combining it with down-and-dirty rock ‘n’ roll, the Dolls — fronted by icons David Johansen and Sylvan Sylvain — brought the punk scene to a fever pitch and inspired both fans and musicians like the Sex Pistols and Marilyn Manson. From their origins in the street gangs of New York’s outer boroughs, through their recent rebirth and the untimely death of bassist Arthur Kane, Trash! offers a comprehensive look at these gender-bending scenesters.
Featuring first-hand reminiscences, interviews with band members, revealing tour anecdotes, archival material, and 75 black-and-white photos, Trash! covers every leopard-clad inch of these glamsters' heyday. Set mostly in the chaotic and creative maelstrom of the mid-‘70s New York scene, the book also profiles the individual band members’ post-Dolls careers.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Plexus Publishing (December 10, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0859653692
• ISBN-13: 978-0859653695
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #392,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Review of the Above Review, June 16, 2007

By 

lex cordis "lexcordis" (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trash! The Complete New York Dolls (Paperback)

Nina Antonia's book on Johnny Thunders is excellent, she had first hand access to him, he recognized her as his only biographer. Anyone who has to put her book down to recommend another one makes this book - Trash - seem highly suspect to me by association. You do no honor to the excellent memory of Arthur Kane either. No one took the time to write biographies of Johnny or the Dolls for years but Antonia, and your remarks are catty and embarrassing.

Nevertheless, this book is recommended by all fans also with the warning that it contains inaccuracies, and lacks the emotion and affection for its subject that Nina Antonia's books have.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The best NYD Biography so far, January 9, 2007

By 

Photondoc (Panama City, Florida USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Trash! The Complete New York Dolls (Paperback)

This is a dense and thorough yet very readable history of the group. It is more substatial than Nina Antonia's also excellent book "Too Much Too Soon." If you have the time and the desire to learn about the history of the NYD, "Trash" is probably the better choice.

Of course, why should any of us care about the history of the New York Dolls? My answer to this retorical question has to do with my "adult" 46 year old recognition that New York was a fascinating place to be growing up in in the 1970s. Reading either of these histories will almost bring you back to the days when Times Square was not a safe place to visit and there was no sense that anything was going to get better. While risking a knifing to walk from the subway to CBGBs at Bleeker and Bowery had it's downside, remembering the Dolls and the other bands that defined the New York Scene in the 1970s gives me a warm feeling inside. Enjoy the book.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE definitive bio on The New York Dolls, August 19, 2006

By 

Shirley Pena (Central California, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Trash! The Complete New York Dolls (Paperback)

For anyone who has read Nina Antonia's bios on The New York Dolls and Johnny Thunders, and felt there was alot MISSING, do yourself a favour and pick up this book;you WON'T be disappointed. The author has really done his homework here, and the result is a far more balanced, authoritative and ACCURATE history of the band.

Unlike previous bios I'd read, this one goes to a more COMPREHENSIVE array of RELIABLE sources, a primary ingredient sorely lacking in previous bios I'd read on the band. One of the BEST sources it taps into-which other bios almost completely IGNORE-is RICK RIVETS. As one of the band's original founders(the other being my late friend Arthur "Killer" Kane)it has always mystified me as to why other writers did not attempt to draw more deeply from RICK'S vast and wholly reliable source of info on this band. As a friend of both Arthur's and Rick's, I can assure you that without THEIR FULL stories you will(at best)get an ABRIDGED version of this important band's history.

This "abridged" effect can be seen in all it's "glory" in Antonia's much lauded book. For folks who actually KNOW any of the principal characters, this is very discouraging(at it's best)to DAMN AGGRAVATING(at it's worse)! The discrepancies in HER bio on the band are indeed so RIFE that one hardly knows where to START(everything from Arthur's ethnic heritage, personality interplays between band members, the REAL reason Rivets left the band, etc.).

In sharp contrast, THIS bio comes the closest to telling it like it REALLY was. It DOES NOT smack of a half-effort written by a FAN, but rather by a keen-eyed journalist who has spared no effort to go to every available source that is TRULY reliable, leaving no stone unturned to get at the heart of a fascinating story that-until now-was only HALF told.

On a scale of 1 to 5 stars, I give this a resounding FIVE!

EXCELLENT investigative journalism. Well done, Kris!