Trash! the Complete New York Dolls

By Kris Needs and Dick Porter

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0859653692
• ISBN13: 9780859653695
• Release Date: December 2005
• Publisher: Plexus Publishing
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Review of the Above Review

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.

ONE MANS TRASH IS ANOTHER MANS TREASURE!!!!

BY FAR THE BEST BOOK ON SYLVAIN SYLVAIN AND CREW.A GREAT LOOK UP THE DRESS OF THE DOLLS.

TRASH! The Complete New York Dolls BOOK

Great overview and accurate account of this great band. Highly recommended for the Dolls fanatic or novice. Greg Prevost/Outasite

A saga of a flamboyant group

Exclusive interviews with the New York Dolls accompanies a saga of a flamboyant group which set the agenda and sound of 1970s rock. Their gender-bending quintet changed the rock world, fostered punk, and flaunted outrageous extremes. Interviews with the New York Dolls are accompanied by firsthand reminiscences by guitarists and those who knew them well. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

THE definitive bio on The New York Dolls

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!