disheveled wigs , smudged lipstick, stilted platforms, painfully tight lurex pants and crimpoline dresses they combined Iggy's anarchy, Lou Reeds brutality and street sense and invoked the three minute pop song with the excitement it was originally conceived. With this sort of attitude they raised hackles everywhere.
Formed in 1972 they quickly made an impact .They may have had a fat lipped jagger look-alike and a junked up guitarist and all the while the band looking like brickies in drag but nothing could compare to the mascara massacre of Bad Girl, Frankenstein and the spiteful Vietnamese Baby. The Dolls were outrageous. Thunders falling off stage, shooting up when shoved back on stage, Sylvain Sylvain toppling off his stack heels, Johanson gobbing at the audience before spit was taken as a complimentary greeting. Their first drummer died from an overdose in London in 72 after one too many night of excess leaving Jerry Nolan to step on drums and later punk history with The Heartbreakers. As like so many USA bands we took them to heart with them playing at Wembley Stadium with The Faces and appearing on the Old Grey Whistle Test music programme to the obvious distaste of it presenter Bob Harris.
