Search - New York Dolls :: Private World

A One Stop Collection of All The New York Dolls Early Demos

A. Woodley | 09/10/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These tracks are nothing new. They have been around for a while and put on various incarnations of albums, including The Mercy Street Sessions, A Hard Days Night, rA Great Big Kiss. So no dobut, this is a great collection of tracks. They are almost all tracks that are off their offical two releases but these are demos and bare bones versions. There are many people, myself included, that believe these tracks are even better than the orignal album versions. So what't the upside to this collection? All the demos are collected here, for the first time. It means you get all of the material you want on one two disc sets. Thus, you won't have to search around for various incarnations of this material that are getting harder and harder to find."

Not the Holy Grail after all

A. Crandall | California | 08/13/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Before I take any flak, please note that I am a big fan of the Dolls.

These demos (particularly the "Planet Studio" demos collected here have long been claimed by fans to be superior to the two studio albums the band cut for Mercury. Unfortunately, this Dolls fan does not concur.



The Planet Studios demos, produced by Paul Nelson shortly before the recording of their first album, contain very little not found on the official releases (Covers of Gary US Bonds' "Seven Day Weekend," Chuck Berry's "Back in the USA," "Give Him A Great Big Kiss" and "Hoochie Coochie Man). The rest are good run-throughs of songs found on the Mercury albums. They are rougher, being basically live-in-the-studio. However, the Rundgren and Shadow Morton-produced recordings, while more "produced" could hardly be called slick. And they have more volume, energy, passion and richer sound than what's found here. The arrangements of the songs are, for the most part, nearly identical (even down to Johansen's asides), and the harmony vocals are much stronger on the official versions.



Aside from the Planet Studio demos, there are also nine early demos from 1972, featuring original member Billy Murcia on drums. Again, all but one of these songs (a cover of "Don't Mess With Cupid") appeared on the Mercury albums. These versions are interesting, having a much slower tempo, giving them a rather menacing, more "punky" sound than the familiar Dolls raunch. But Johnny Thunder's guitar is reigned in to the point of inaudibility, and these are hardly essential listening. Like I said, interesting. Rounding out the set are four tracks recorded in England in 1972, of the same quality as everything else here.



Is this a bad album? Not at all. If you're a hardcore Dolls fan, it may be worth owning as alternate, rougher versions of the songs from the Mercury albums. Or just to round out your collection. But is it the definitive Dolls statement? Nope, not to these ears. I'll stick with the Mercury albums.

"