Johnny Thunders

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v200/themindsconstruction/heroin.jpg

I'm talking post-NYD cos there's threads for them already.

Is Que Sera Sera any good?

Is the mix of LAMF really that bad?

Blimey that's a big picture

Nah, mate, THAT'S a big picture!

You definitely want So Alone.

There's a thread where various issues of L.A.M.F. are discussed.

i just listened to So Alone for the first time in eons, actually sounds pretty good. way better than LAMF (IMO) is the brief Heartbreakers bootleg Live at Mothers 1975 w/Richard Hell, for once shitty boot audio is appropriate. definitive "Chinese Rocks" "Love Comes In Spurts' "So Alone"

The rest of his stuff is terrible, once he became a professional junkie. I actually met JT when he spent some time in Ann Arbor putting together a band w/Wayne Kramer, he would come around parties and hang out with "the kids" -- sort of a nice guy and a loser/scumbag at the same time.

does anybody know that song w/ the chorus "I tell the truth even when I'm lying" and the verse where he goes "an open letter to the music press..." --- saw him do that live in 1990 & haven't heard it since ---
this was solo acoustic like that album hurt me which is my fav johnny record

hurt me is definitely one of my fave albums of the 80's.

http://www.thunders.ca/discs/hurtme.jpg

i like que sera sera too, but it's not essential. i still have my copy of copy cats, the album he made with patti palladin, and it's a lot of fun even now.

THIS is also one of my favorite live albums of all time:

http://www.thunders.ca/discs/latlb.jpg

"cool the fuckin' gobbing. don't gob on me, go gob on your mother."

i love the whole thing from beginning to end. just beautiful.

"Whaddaya have here in Virginia? Pork brains? Yeah, I'll be eatin' those after the show."

20 yrs since he shuffled off this mortal coil.here's a midnight video from the early 80s, JT covering Marc Bolan w/Eliot Kidd of "Please Kill Me" fame. He seems coked-up and Eliot is heavy-lidded but their performance's sorta captivating in a creepy vampire way. Johnny looks half/dead already - check his teeth. how did he survive another decade?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbnHxgd91iE

RIP

I got to interview him in '87 or '88. He was a musical hero of mine--no, not a "This is how you should lead your life" hero--so that was near the top of my list of favorite interviews. He talked about baseball and girl groups, and all in all was perfectly gracious. A few years before that, at a club show, he signed my copy of So Alone. Surprised it's been 20 years.

Remembered Peter Perrett's presence on So Alone but not the guest vocalists on "Daddy Rollin' Stone."

Forgot about Cook and Jones too.

L.A.M.F. - Take the Taste Test

Saw that just now. Thanks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=88W0d2jfjgI

Some pretty amazing rants on this FYI.

Has anyone seen this doc?

the long-awaited DC premiere of "Looking For Johnny, The Legend of Johnny Thunders!"

"Looking For Johnny" is the definitive documentary on New York legendary guitar player Johnny Thunders. In 90 minutes, this film covers Johnny Thunders career from his beginning in the early 70's to his demise in New Orleans, where he died under mysterious circumstances in 1991.

Directed by Danny Garcia ("The Rise & Fall of The Clash") who will be present for post-film Q&A

3:30-5:30pm, Saturday, May 17th
Gala Theatre, 3333 14th Street NW
(1 1/2 blocks from Columbia Heights metro)

It played here last night (Garcia again in attendance). I thought about going, but I didn't feel like fighting construction on the drive in, and the trailer makes it look like two hours of "he really lived on the edge" stories. I'm sure it's better than that, so hopefully it'll turn up again.

Guitarist player/hilarious monologist Adam Roth had a bit about somebody saying "did you hear Johnny Thunders died? Must have been a conspiracy" "Conspiracy? It's a conspiracy that he stayed alive as long as he did!"

A friend saw "Looking For Johnny" in Chicago and said it was disappointing. Did not flow well and it found a way to make Johnny boring. My friend said he had seen an earlier movie doc on Johnny which was better (and that this one used some of the footage from that one)

Lech Kowalski's 1998 Johnny Thunders film Born To Lose (
The Last Rock and Roll Movie)

x-post-- Ha. I do like that Thunders conspiracy line

http://www.smokebox.net/archives/music/thunders201.html

re the Kowalski doc on Thunders

I now wish I'd gone to see it. If you look at these two trailers, the first one (the one I'd seen) makes it look much worse than the second (which I just found now).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGgYHME_-1U

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5QDh1o_huY

Just realized I'm gonna be out of town when the newer doc, "Looking for Johnny" comes to my hood

One Track Mind is such great tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMgYD5BgP9k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMgYD5BgP9k

RIP Billy Rath (apparently)

RIP.

Watched the documentary last night. Not bad, not as good as the Arthur Kane documentary. Not surprised about Billy Rath--he's interviewed, and he looks to be 90. In general, the people in this film do not look good.

Syl Sylvain quotes Bob Dylan at the end as saying he wished he'd written "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory." Nice end-note, if true, and I can't see someone making that up.

(Actually, Walter Lure looks very healthy.)

the thunders doc is dragged down by (apparently) not having rights to official dolls/heartbreakers recordings and videos. also, jt's story is such a downward trajectory that it's hard to sustain a compelling story arc. this guy was such a unique and influential guitarist they probably should have taken a different approach than just a chronological career survey.

That was one of the things that made the Arthur Kane documentary so interesting: the Mormon and Dolls-reunion tangents. And yes, the music was generally muffled and scattershot--and they should've used the Replacements' brilliant "Johnny's Gonna Die" somewhere.

David Johansen interviewing Johnny Thunders outside CBGBS in 1976

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQlTzpsck2s

Walter Lure, the last Heartbreaker standing, has passed away from liver cancer.

Ugh, RIP

R.I.P. :(

https://mongolcult.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/wl2.jpg

Was there a greater band that only made one album (which wasn’t even mixed right)? Those guys will be in the pantheon forever, they were untouchable.

The only one that comes to mind is the original Modern Lovers (Richman, Harrison, Brooks and Robinson), and that only works if you don't count the ostensible follow-ups with Richman changing course and fronting a new band. (Only Robinson stuck around and just for one more album.) Even then some may take issue with the fact that it's really a compilation demos. GREAT demos that sound a hell of a lot more than fine as finished recordings, so a negligible technicality in my book.

But why debate over two masterpieces? L.A.M.F. is glorious, and thanks to all of the myriad mixes and masterings, I've probably owned more versions of that album than any other.

Yeah, the Lovers album is great (and my rhetorical question was awkwardly phrased).

But my intention was more to honor the band itself — those four guys, the way they played together...

If I could go back in time and see any band on their best night, the Heartbreakers would be high on the list.

From MVD Entertainment:

Johnny Thunders - Que Sera Sera: Resurrected

35th Anniversary 3CD Box Set featuring a remixed version with extra tracks, the live version, the original album plus a 36-page booklet

Coming September 11th
In 1985 Johnny Thunders went into the studio in London, to record his third and final solo album. He gathered friends Mike Monroe, Patti Palladin, John Perry, Wilko Johnson, Henri-Paul Tortosa, Nasty Suicide, JC Carroll,Stiv Bators, Glen Matlock and others, and the resulting album was christened Que Sera, Sera.

It wasn't all plain sailing - with Johnny it rarely was. Johnny had spent the previous two years in relative stability. He'd been gigging around the world, and between tours he was filming in France. Life was a series of nice apartments and hotels shared with his constant companions - his girlfriend Susanne and his manager Christopher.

Now circumstances meant he had neither. Without a new release, touring slowed, and his high-maintenance lifestyle led him to seek friend favors for somewhere to live. The major labels that Christopher hoped would provide financial support hadn't materialized.
In a row with Susanne, she complained that Johnny had never written a song for her. Johnny obliged, and along with new songs from his live set, he recorded "I Only Wrote This Song for You." Before the album was finished, as soon as he had a rough monitor mix of the song, he flew to Sweden to attempt a reconciliation.

Those remaining at the studio were left to put the pieces together. Patti Palladin oversaw the mixing with the engineer, and found there wasn't really enough for an album. Patti added "Tie Me Up" from the b-side of her Crawfish project, and "Blame It On Mom" was found from an earlier session. The title-track was actually an afterthought; recorded as a single 16 months later.

The album was well-received, and it got Johnny touring again, but there was always a sense that it could have been better, and that the guitar was restrained - in '85 many artists were seeking mainstream crossover. Two tracks were left off - Jerry Nolan's "Countdown Love" song was unused as he hadn't yet recorded it; and "Talk About You," a lengthy blues workout that didn't seem to fit.

With those two tracks in mind as bonus tracks for a reissue, Pat Collier, former Vibrators' guitarist, was asked to mix them. When the results came through, it became obvious that Pat should remix the whole album using today's technology and viewpoint.
n the multi-track tapes a few outtakes were discovered, and last year the Resurrected version was released as a Record Store Day double-vinyl with 5 bonus live tracks. After interruptions, the CD version was reappraised and expanded to a three-disc box set. The original album is included, reinstating "Tie Me Up" and the old, familiar mixes. Three live gigs were uncovered, and they became the live version of the album as a bonus CD.

Johnny Thunders' biographer, Nina Antonia, has written new notes with interviews for the 36-page booklet. It also includes lyrics and unseen photos from the recording sessions, the cover session and from one of the featured live gigs.

TRACKLISTS:

DISC 1: Resurrected: Alone In A Crowd, Countdown Love, Blame It On Mom, Talk About You, M.I.A., Little Bit Of Whore, Short Lives, I Only Wrote This Song For You, Cool Operator, Billy Boy, Endless Party, Que Sera Sera. Extras: Copy Cat, Blame It On Mom (outtake),Taking You Up Avenue D, Short Lives (outtake), I Only Wrote This Song For You (outtake), Cool Operator (first version)

DISC 2: Live in Europe: Geneva: Blame It On Mom, M.I.A., Cool Operator, Personality Crisis, Countdown Love, Little Bit of Whore, Amsterdam: Short Lives, So Alone, Sad Vacation, Too Much Junkie Business, Little Bit of Whore, Born To Lose, Chinese Rocks, Lyon: Countdown Love, Just Another Girl, Talk About You, Alone In A Crowd, It’s Alright (Blame It On Mom)

DISC 3: The original album: Short Lives, M.I.A., I Only Wrote This Song For You, Little Bit of Whore, Cool Operator, Blame It On Mom, Tie Me Up, Alone In A Crowd, Billy Boy, Endless Party, Cool Operator (Black Cat mix), Short Lives (Heavenly ver.), Short Lives (Johnny’s remix), Que Sera Sera

More info, audio, pre-order:
https://mvdshop.com/products/que-sera-sera

I wonder where my Gang Wars is? Think it's all studio jams/song demos--an EP--but the CD/MP3 on Amazon is live (most customer reviewers pretty pleased, though one says the great show is followed by a horrible one, after Thunders' wife left him). National Record Day 9/22 will incl. vinyl debut of that:
https://recordstoreday.com/SpecialRelease/12329

Paul Tschinkel's cable access show broadcast one of their shows at Max's in 1979. Here's Lure singing his own composition "Too Much Junkie Business," but there are others on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=qUmnv0eP2Z4

So Alone seems like something that would lend itself to an expanded reissue much more than Que Sera Sera (maybe there is one, I don't know).