BEFORE: Nearly one week into the Doc Block, and if I look back I see the pattern, which I didn't even realize I was making - I alternated between female and male subjects, also between living and non-living ones. Well, the pattern continues tonight but then I'm shaking things up - as dictated by the linking. Ben Vereen carries over from "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story" and in two days I'll be done with the actor/filmmaker profiles, we've got a lot of other topics to get to before this Doc Block is done.
I haven't even started on the main music chain, but I fear there will be more of the same - all the great rockers are in their 70s or 80s now, so this could easily become just a litany of the fallen, or the ones who fall and can't get up. Debbie Harry from "Blondie" has a big birthday coming up in a few days, I'd say the number but a gentleman doesn't do such things, you can look it up though. Yeah, we're all getting older but I don't have to be reminded every day about it, it's hard though when every major band from back then is down to just two or three original members.
David Johansen passed away about four months ago - but I saw him in person just about two years ago, a late night screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. I'm pretty good at spotting the celebs usually, but of course he was not going to just blend in with the crowd. It was a screening of the John Early film "Now More than Ever", which I just found out was directed by Johansen's step-daughter. OK, that explains a few things.
Last year I programmed a couple of concert films - Elton John's farewell concert from Dodger Stadium, and (essentially) Bowie's "Moonage Daydream". Those seemed to work well, so I've programmed maybe five more for this year's Doc (and Rock) Block. That little mini-chain kicks off tonight, and I'll work the other ones into July. That's why I won't have room for Barbara Walters this time around.
THE PLOT: David Johansen's luminous set at Cafe Carlyle from January 2020 - a concert that was wonderfully intimate and a testament to both a lost New York and an artist who was as fresh and exciting as ever.
AFTER: If you don't know who David Johansen was, you may know him by his other name - for a few years he called himself Buster Poindexter and had some hit records, most notably "Hot Hot Hot" which is now played by every terrible DJ at weddings and on every cruise ship or at every vacation resort to "get the party started". It could be the worst song ever, only there's no way to prove that, but it's an uptempo party song so it's on that playlist with "Who Let the Dogs Out" and "Macarena" and "YMCA". If you're a popular recording artist or band, you don't know what's going to connect with the public, so you may find yourself performing your worst or least favorite song in your line-up for the rest of your career. Suck it up, buttercup.
Johansen/Poindexter got hired to front the house band on "SNL" at some point, talk about getting stuck in a character, he had to maintain that act for like a full season, but before long he quit or got fired, leaving G.E. Smith in charge of that band, and that lasted until Hall & Oates decided they wanted to go out on tour again. Johansen moved on to acting in films, but it seemed like he was intentionally picking the most TERRIBLE movies to appear in. "Scrooged" with Bill Murray was fine, but come on, "Let it Ride"? "Car 54, Where Are You?" "Mr. Nanny"? Either he had a terrible agent or his heart just wasn't in it.
Before all that, he fronted one of the earliest punk bands, the New York Dolls, which only put out two albums, and their gimmick was they were a bunch of dudes wearing women's clothing - and this was back in the early 1970's before that was even fashionable or acceptable - a full decade before Twisted Sister did it, and they spent time on the NY scene hanging out with Warhol's Factory people and the Ridiculous Theater Company, among the other hippies, weirdos, freaks and drug addicts of the day. Forget Studio 54, they had CBGB's and Max's Kansas City and the Mudd club, who needs to go uptown anyway?
Then came the David Johansen Band, then for a while he fronted a blues band called the Harry Smiths, which was named after a NYC-based infamous animator who lived in the Chelsea Hotel but also had an extensive record collection and seemed to know a lot about a great many things, but never really broke through as an animator or eccentric genius or anything else. Johansen said he could visit people at the Chelsea Hotel and not leave the building for a week, and yeah, that tracks, considering the eclectic bunch of gypsies, tramps and thieves who maintained apartments there. I work right near there, I think it's all co-op apartments now, but I miss the Doughnut Plant that was on the ground floor before COVID.
Speaking of that, this concert was recorded at the Carlyle Hotel bar - which I've seen in a number of films, including "Always at the Carlyle" - in January of 2020, which was RIGHT before the whole world shut down in March of that year. Most film production came to a halt, too, so that may explain why it took a couple years to get this film edited and released. That was the month my wife and I went to see "Hamilton" (I won the ticket lottery) and that was the last thing we did in public before we became shut-ins for six months. It's funny how that changed people's lives, I mean those lucky enough to live or get vaccinated when the time came found themselves with different habits, or maybe a new career after, hopefully a different outlook on life too. Everything is so fragile and impermanent, which is why we all have to hang on to the aspects of life that we enjoy and try to not waste any time on frivolous things. Maybe many of us are still in recovery mode, who can say?
Anyway, I didn't really know the songs here, never really listened to the Dolls or anything from Buster Poindexter beyond the song that everyone hates but plays anyway. There's little Buster material here, except footage of Ben Vereen introducing him during a televised New Year's Eve Party at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1988. Did that really happen? The internet was unable to confirm this, because there was no internet until 10 years later, and I guess record-keeping was darn near impossible before that. Well, sure, there's video but you can fake all that these days so we'll never know for sure. This concert is Buster Poindexter covering the songs of David Johansen - but wait, aren't they the same person? Well, yes, but also no. It's complicated. We all walk down several different roads as we pass through this life, and you can change your name or your look or your gender identity and maybe you forget about the first few roads when all is sung and done. That's the Personality Crisis, I guess.
I used to be a P.A. on music videos, and that life exists only in my memory now, like I remember holding camera cables while surrounded by Rick James and four barely-dressed female dancers. Did that really happen? I remember watching Leon Redbone and Dr. John lip-synch to "Frosty the Snowman" for a Christmas album, but it seems just as likely that was a weird dream I had one winter night. And don't get me started on the Sesame Street projects, one of which had En Vogue, the Count and Super Grover in it - there's no way that really happened. But that's MY life.
Directed by Martin Scorsese (director of "Killers of the Flower Moon") & David Tedeschi (editor of "Shine a Light" and "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan")
Also starring David Johansen (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything"), Penny Arcade, Debbie Harry (last seen in "Tales from the Darkside: The Movie"), Leah Hennessey, Mara Hennessey, Morrissey, Keith Cotton, Ray Grappone, Richard Hammond, Brian Koonin,
with archive footage of John Cage (last seen in "The Velvet Underground"), Maria Callas (last seen in "Faye"), Alan Cumming (also carrying over from "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Jacqueline Kennedy (ditto), Abbie Hoffman (last seen in "LennoNYC"), Arthur Kane, Kurt Loder (last seen in "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2"), Charlotte Moorman, Billy Murcia, Charlie Musselwhite, Conan O'Brien (last seen in "Money Shot: The Pornhub Story"), Al Roker (last seen in "Wolfgang"), Jonathan Ross (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Harry Smith, Hubert Sumlin, Ingrid Superstar, Sylvain Sylvain, Johnny Thunders, Max Weinberg (last seen in "20 Feet from Stardom")
RATING: 5 out of 10 cover songs
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