JOHNNY THUNDERS

"Junk is the mold of monopoly and possession. The addict stands by while his junk legs carry him straight in on the junk beam to relapse. Junk is quantitative and accurately measurable. The more junk you use the less you have and the more you have the more you use."

- William Burroughs, Naked Lunch

The role of drugs in music is a traditional and prevalent one. Chances are that any musical artwork you come across (particularly within the field of rock'n'roll, although jazz is not far behind) will have been influenced in some way, either negatively or positively, by the consumption of narcotic substances. Of course, it is not hard to see why the link develops. Musicians have a lot of time, a lot of money, and not much to do with it. There is also a strong cultural pressure on the artist to indulge in said activities. Even if we disregard the outdated "acid expands your mind" philosophy that made so many sixties bands turn to chemical enhancements the bare fact is, if you want to sound like the Stooges or the Velvet Underground how can you not take drugs? You'd be laughed out of the NME's offices if you claimed you were the new Iggy Pop or Jim Morrison but nights in front of the telly with mugs of hot milk was your preferred past-time. History suggests that the best artists are the ones that are most off their heads at the most available opportunities. It doesn't really matter if you are pro- or anti-drugs, at the end of the day, the list of great artists who wilfully remained sober-as-monks throughout their entire career is not a very long one. There will always be certain artists associated with certain drugs. For instance, Bob Marley and marijuana, David Bowie and cocaine, Syd Barrett and LSD. And, finally, at the bottom of the drugs hierarchy - Johnny Thunders and heroin.

As is often pointed out, heroin addiction is a disease. Looking over the career of Johnny Thunders is like looking over that of a terminally ill man, showing glimpses of salvation but ultimately seeing his life and his talent frustratingly slip away into nothing. You could tell from the off-set that Thunders was doomed, the only surprise was the fact that he lasted so long. Of course, tragically doomed anti-heroes are often subject to unwarranted romanticism and Thunders is no exception (the catchphrase to his Greatest Hits inappropriately reads "Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die"). Johnny Thunders WAS a hero to some extent but not because he wasted his life away on junk but because, for a brief time, he was one of the greatest pioneers of rock'n'roll of his generation. He was behind not one, but two, defining albums of the punk era - setting if off with the New York Dolls' debut in 1973 and creating the masterpiece of the movement with the help of his Heartbreakers in the form of 1977's peerless Like a Mother-Fucker (although it needed a '94 remix to bring out the true genius of it). Johnny without the smack would not have been Johnny Thunders and there's no doubt that the reason L.A.M.F. truly succeeds as it does is because it is driven by the relentless down-and-out desperation that junk brings with it. It isn't the work of a man who enjoys the odd pint down his local - it is a greasy, grimy, gruelling tour de force capturing the intense paranoia of where the next hit is coming from. Equally, though, the fact that L.A.M.F. needed the smack addiction to make it great is reflected by the way Johnny's career trundled off the rails soon after. By the time the eighties came along Johnny had lost his heroin-determined drive and replaced it with a determined drive only for heroin. The remaining releases of his career were influenced solely by whether Johnny had got low enough on junk-money to necessitate recording a new album. In the end, and to quote Neil Young (who had seen this all before), "the very thing that makes you live can kill you in the end". As it happens, Johnny did briefly clean himself up just before his death and it is interesting to ponder what a sober Johnny would have put out in the nineties had his tragic self-destructiveness not drawn him back to his last ever hit.

After the Dolls disintegrated in the mid-seventies Johnny Thunders felt the time was right for him to branch out as a frontman in his own right. He got together with Richard Hell and along with guitarist Walter Lure and ex-NY Doll's drummer Jerry Nolan formed the Heartbreakers. As with Television, though, Hell left before things started getting serious and Billy Rath was drafted in as his replacement. The band accepted an invitation from Malcolm McClaren to join the Anarchy in the UK tour, headlined by the Sex Pistols and also including the Clash in its line-up. Famously, after the Bill Grundy fiasco, the whole tour was harassed off the road as fearful venues cancelled the performances. (More the pity, as just imagine seeing THAT line-up in one night.) The Heartbreakers stuck around in England long enough to get some free methadone off the NHS, introduce Nancy Spungen to Sid Vicious and record an album. Sadly, due to the general incompetence of both the band themselves and their producers and engineers the mix for the album was inexplicably ruined and when the album eventually came out in 1977 it proved unlistenable and, instead of being hailed as the greatest album of a great year for music, it signalled the premature break-up of the band, equal parts furious and gutted that the reputation they'd made for themselves on the basis of their live pedigree and rock'n'roll legacy amounted to nothing on vinyl. In the mid-eighties Johnny went back to the tapes to try and remix it but the resulting LAMF Revisited failed to remedy the problem or enhance his reputation. Thankfully and eventually, three years after Johnny's predictable death, Jungle Records dug out the tapes and discovered and fixed the mastering error that had ruined the original release. With the problem sorted the songs could be appropriately remixed and remastered and in 1994 this version of the album was released, finally sounding like it should. And how does it sound? Like the best fucking album ever. Similar to Iggy Pop's brain-blowing remix of Raw Power everything is pushed into the red with the guitars grinding together like greasy cogs and with the rhythm section thumping away in the background. As I said earlier, the remix perfectly captures the very essence of the Heartbreakers with a grimy undertow of dirty drugs powering the whole thing along. This release actually raises some interesting points about what stage an album can actually said to exist in that it is a little strange calling this the best album of the punk movement (which it is now) given it sounded like shit when it actually came out. Given it is the '94 remix that has finally revealed just how great this album is, is it fair to even call it an original artefact of the '77 punk scene? Anyway, despite breaking up the same year the Heartbreakers did sporadically reform afterwards and reinforce their position as arguably one of the greatest punk bands ever. The guitar and vocal trade-offs between Thunders and Lure (Walter being one of the less appropriate punk names in the business) is absolutely compelling and it is not hard to note and appreciate their superior technique over the other punk rockers of the time. Not that they show-off much but the interplay is fantastic throughout and one can easily see why Thunders was so pissed off about the other punk bands completely ripping off his style. There's no way in the world that, say, Steve Jones should receive a shred of credit before Thunders completely gets his due as one of the true-forefathers of punk. And, as I've said before, the fact that Thunders did massively influence the punk scene is essentially based on the fact that what he really did was to just create pure rock'n'roll. Even forgetting the fact that Thunders did walk like he talked what basically makes this album "real" (as opposed to the style over substance of Never Mind the Bollocks) is the fact that the whole thing is saturated by the very essence of rock'n'roll. Not only is it the greatest punk album ever, it is also one of the very best rock'n'roll albums ever. Everything that constitutes rock'n'roll is prevalent on this release. Over fourteen songs the consistency is admirable as the whole album overpowers you throughout, a rush of grim and grimy intensity and a smack-ridden tour de force of exhilaration and intoxication. As a result, picking out highlights seems beside the point but it would be negligent not to single out Johnny's junk-driven anthems "Born to Lose" and the Ramones' autobiographical but amoral "Chinese Rocks". The Lure-sung "One Track Mind" is self-explanatory genius and "It's Not Enough" the sole acoustic effort that sees Johnny dwelling on his tragically-inevitable doom. The album ends with a cover of the classic "Do You Love Me" with Johnny reinforcing his love of rock'n'roll and, ultimately, the whole point of the album as it is, quite simply, none-more-rock'n'roll. It also exemplifies exactly why the Heartbreakers were superior to their English counterparts. Frankly, nothing rocks harder than this album and hopefully it is only a matter of time before it secures its legacy, albeit belatedly, as the greatest punk album of all-time. The highpoint of punk as an art-form and the holy bible of rock'n'roll. Like a mother-fucker, indeed.

From: BackroomOtto@aol.com

I dig your love of Johnny Thunders. You mentioned the '84 LAMF Revisited album. Stay away from it if you ever see it. Thunders went in with a drum machine and a guy from The Sisters Of Mercy and they re-recorded the entire album...and quite poorly. The Lost '77 Mixes you have is the best version of LAMF.

After Thunders' second group had disbanded so abruptly he took the hint and decided the time was right to try his hand at a solo career. In truth, it is a little arbitrary to include the Heartbreakers as a Johnny Thunders vehicle but regard the New York Dolls as a completely separate entity (was Walter Lure THAT much less important than David Johansen?) but sadly Thunders did not think about how to make his career easiest to classify whilst embarking on it. In any case, this was the first album to bear Thunders's name and Thunders's name only on the cover so, from a technical point of view, it qualifies as his first proper solo album. Practically speaking, however, the sheer quantity and quality of contributions from other famous rock'n'roll stars means to call this a solo effort is still to blur the picture somewhat. Those hanging round the studio during the recording sessions include some Sex Pistols (particularly Steve Jones), some Only Ones (particularly Peter Perrett), Thin Lizzy's Phil Lynott and the Faces' Steve Marriott (who both sing lead on a cover of "Daddy Rollin' Stone"). For a destitute smack-head Thunders sure had a lot of important friends. Anyhow, the cabaret nature of the recording sessions is actually partially reflected in the resulting material. The grit and intensity of the Heartbreakers is less prevalent with Thunders embracing glam rock and its overtones (and therefore returning to his former glories with the Dolls) and expanding his musical palette to a surprisingly diverse degree. The overall mood is generally less demanding than LAMF, too, with the odd camp wink or vaudeville smirk. As well as the legions of helpers the fact that there is actually very little new material penned by Thunders on here (most are covers or reworkings of his old songs) suggests that he was not exactly chomping at the bit to resurrect his career. Sure, this is a great album with loads of charm, high energy and a cool verve, but, the fact remains, presented with the choice of penning some brand new material or cooking up Johnny was always likely to reach for the needle and spoon. Still, his guitar playing and certainly his attitude did not suffer as a result and therefore no-one should be complaining when listening to him rip through the Dolls' and Heartbreakers' leftovers "Leave Me Alone" and "London Boys" respectively as only Thunders can or turning the innocent surf-instrumental "Pipeline" into a demented blur of distortion. Furthermore, his differing facets of approach (and another area in which he ranks above and beyond his one-dimensional punk contemporaries) are reinforced with two of the three new original compositions being moody acoustic ballads - the dark and desperate "Ask Me No Questions" (which has Perrett contributing to the vocals) and the reflective "You Can't Put Your Arms Round a Memory" which has gone on (thanks partly to Guns n'Roses' Duff McKagan) to become something of a Greatest Hit for Thunders. The third "new" song is the deceptively impressive glam rock of "(She's So) Untouchable". Johnny also gets to show his romantic side (again showing why bracketing him purely as a punk misses the bigger picture) with a simply sublime cover of the Shangri-La's "Great Big Kiss" which manages to brilliantly combine romantic naivety with back-street sleaze. He also reworks the New York Dolls' "Subway Train" to strip away some of the grit and leave a far more wistful (not to mention superior) song than originally appeared. The current CD issue of the album (which is over a decade old and could desperately do with a remastering) includes four bonus tracks of which the single "Dead or Alive" and the ghostly "So Alone" are the keepers. Peter Perrett actually seemed to borrow "So Alone" for the Only Ones' (admittedly superb) "In Betweens". Still, it would not be the first time a punk band ripped Mr. Thunders off. As it happens, this album does not have a huge amount of actual punk on it as Johnny showed why he was outside the petty confines of the genre with a surprisingly diverse and sometimes eclectic collection of songs. Sadly, though, it remains one of the last times he actually tried to think outside the box as his career slowly deteriorated into one of generic self-parody. It is truly sad to think - and testament to the chilling power of junk - that Thunders career as an artist was almost at an end almost a full ten years before he actually died.

And thus the tenuous nature of Thunders's solo career reaches another extreme as the subsequent release to his "solo" offering So Alone was a live album that doesn't even bear his name at all - being solely credited to the Heartbreakers. Prior to 1994 this was actually regarded as the definitive album released by the Heartbreakers as it made amends for LAMF's dreadful mix through show-casing the same set of songs but with the gritty intensity of the band's sound restored. Obviously the 1994 remix of LAMF has subsequently reduced the relevance of this album somewhat but it still exists independently as a commendable live document of, lest we forget, one of punk's great bands. As the title suggests the album originates from a few gigs performed in New York in late '78 as a result of the Heartbreakers reforming for a bit of smack-money. The gigs were apparently meant to be "farewell" performances to the fans but given that Thunders sporadically played with Lure, Rath and Nolan for the rest of his career clearly that intention was not borne out. Indeed, Jerry Nolan does not even play on these recordings and therefore crediting this album to the Heartbreakers is misleading in itself (given Nolan was both a great drummer and a principal songwriter). As stated, the importance of this album is also depleted a little by the fact that it has been superseded by the new LAMF remix. Almost the entirety of LAMF is played through with only three non-LAMF numbers making the track-list and given two of them were included on So Alone ("Milk Me" aka "Leave Me Alone" aka "Chatterbox" and "London (Boys)") we are left with Walter Lure's typically grimy "Take a Chance" being the only brand new song. Actually, if this album does showcase one aspect not present on the LAMF remix it is just how dominant Walter Lure actually was within the band. I'd wager he sings lead on this album equally as often as Thunders and it is interesting to note that, during the stage banter, he usually over-rides Thunders's contributions. Certainly, in that sense, you can see why this album does not bear Thunders's name on the cover as Lure comes across as being at least as important. (The John Coltrane of punk, perhaps?) Although LAMF '94 is the more worthy document it is also worth noting that the production and mixing on this album is still distinct from the remix. The guitars are grimy without being as raw and as powerful and the mix is generally clearer, thereby lending more prominence to the vocals. In truth, though, it is the overwhelming intensity of LAMF's remix that provides much of the power and therefore a clearer mix on here dost not a better album maketh. As for the actual performance, there is not a huge amount to add other than Lure and Thunders bounce off each other in typically compelling fashion and the energy and verve of the LAMF songs are certainly not lost with all of the renditions being adequate reappraisals of their original masterwork. Once you've come to appreciate the Heartbreakers as the best rock'n'roll band of their generation then it is natural to seek out more material by them and, in that respect, this album remains a commendable stopping-off point. However, it is essentially more of the same, and although you get to see the Heartbreakers in all their disgusting glory ("this song is called 'I can't keep my cock in your face' or whatever"), it is not really anything we didn't see on LAMF - a great band playing great rock'n'roll.

Although I have tried, on this page, to review Johnny's albums in the order they were released an exception must be made for this one. After the Heartbreakers again disbanded Johnny, at a typically loose end, teamed up with another proto-punk hero, MC5's Wayne Kramer, who was not long out of prison. As the incarnation Gang War the duo played some live gigs, wrote a few songs, recorded a handful of demos, but were generally pretty profligate in terms of substance and commitment. Kramer of course blamed Thunders and his smack habit and it is not hard to have sympathy with him, even if his own career was also blighted by drug dependency. Various documents of the brief Gang War material slipped in and out of print, with the most recent being this one, compiled by Jungle (who else?), a mere repackaging of what was previously known as Street Fighting which put together material from two live gigs in Montreal and Boston in 1979 and 1980 respectively. It is pretty inevitable, really, that the combination of two of the most exciting guitarists of their generation, if not ever, forms less than the sum of their parts. Not only was music moving on from the garage rock basics in the early eighties but both stars were on the wane. Kramer had spent much of the seventies in jail, after resorting to minor drug-dealing after being a key member in one of music's most influential bands resulted in destitution, and Thunders was, of course, already on his slow and prolonged way down into the abyss of heroin addiction. Indeed, it isn't the sloppy, rambling nature of these messy recordings that surprise. Instead, it is the fact that, at times, the rock'n'roll chemistry of such luminaries is briefly aflame. Johnny replaces Sonic Smith's precision with his bludgeoning insanity on "Ramblin' Rose" to exhilarating effect and Wayne immediately repays the favour with a blistering assault on Thunders's punk targets on the vicious "London Boys". Thunders takes lead vocals on most songs, the majority of which are his, although Kramer blasts out his self-composed "Hey Thanks" and is also responsible for the highlight of the set - a classic garage rock interpretation of the reggae classic "The Harder They Come". The other covers are more hit and miss - the oldies "I'll Go Crazy" and "Around and Around" being played for half-arsed laughs, although such tongue-in-cheek shenanigans go down surprisingly well on a camp cover of "These Boots Are Made for Walking". Johnny does not give his sensitive side much exposure, though, with his bitter, spiteful ramblings on "Ten Commandments of Love" being spectacularly misogynisitic. Of course, his vitriolic rants say far more about him than they do about the fairer sex but it is equal parts compelling and harrowing listening to him frothing at the mouth like a bitter drunk who cannot get over being dumped by a girl he clearly didn't deserve. Equally, his racist ranting on "Just Because I'm White" does not make for comfortable listening, although it shows another moment of rock'n'roll pedigree when they morph it into "Bright Lights Big City". The second gig is generally messier and less impressive than the first side, and "The Harder They Come" and "Endless Party" get played twice, but there are enough glimpses of what made both artists so great in their day to warrant a cautious recommendation. Kramer apparently thought the generation gap between him and Thunders made such a venture doomed to failure but, despite the gap in age, it is worth noting that the New York Dolls were pretty hot on the heels of MC5's pace-setting. Certainly, both predate the punk generation, even if Thunders at least was still relevant enough to show them how it is done. One would be tempted to say such 'super-groups' never work but the Sonic's Rendezvous Band (featuring ex-members of the Stooges and MC5) conclusively disproved such sweeping generalisations a couple of years earlier with the blistering Sweet Nothing. The fact that Thunders and Kramer only sporadically match such highlights is more likely down to their respective drug problems then any divine force willing them into failure. The more wasted they come, the easier they all fall apart.

From: Louie

I just found your Johnny Thunders reviews and they are excellent! I recommend a Gang War live album frm Boston...can't recall the title, it's red adn has Wayne and Johnny it.
JT is out of his mind on this one. You know how he is sort of lpw key on Max's Kansas City? Well here, he sounds like he's foaming at the mouth, babbling about girls who seduce men with their 34 C tits, asking who won the fight that night, asking the kids for a joint, going on a rant during the "10 Commandments of Love", and inviting the audience to see his shrinkn so they could come out of their shell. At the end, he tells the audience, you kids are awful, your'e as terrible as the last bunch of kids they played for....crazy stuff.
I met Wayne Kramer and asked him about Johhny and Gang War and he said that JT was a junkie who would blow it whenever Gag War started getting some interest. Check it out...
And you're 100 percent right about "Cool Operator"!

Despite continuing to tour his rock'n'roll junk-circus around both America and particularly Europe (especially in Sweden where he managed to seduce both a Swedish girlfriend and the Swedish music press) Johnny's artistic talent and relevance was fast declining. His last studio album had, of course, come out five years ago. Brief sessions with legendary Stones' producer Jimmy Miller (who was at least partly responsible for the rock'n'roll legend that is Exile on Main Street) produced a handful of tracks but certainly not enough to constitute a new solo album. The skimpy session material eventually ended up in the hands of French record label New Rose who, realising a complete LP was some way off and given the extra demand for Thunders products in Europe, packaged the five Miller songs together with a live recording of a ramshackle gig in Cambridge. The bastardised nature of this release has since been clarified a bit with the Miller sessions coming to be regarded as an independent EP in their own right and therefore cropping up on other Thunders compilations on different labels. However it is this original New Rose version of In Cold Blood that I own (since repackaged on CD by Dojo) and thus it is the original version that I shall review. It is a little unfair on Johnny, of course, as he didn't know a great deal about the nature of this release but, on the other hand, he didn't know a great deal about anything given his perennially smacked-up state so he doesn't deserve that much sympathy. Besides, I bet he wasn't complaining when some of the pennies started trickling through and into his vein. Unfair, I should add, because the live recording (which makes up two thirds of the running-time) is rather poor. The sound quality is unexceptional, sometimes unclear, and at best passable. It certainly comes up short compared with Live at Max's or D.T.K.. Secondly, any performance that begins with Johnny slurring "I think somebody slipped something into my drink" is not likely to be a paragon of professionalism. At times it seems like a wonder Johnny doesn't collapse during the gig and the playing ranges only from sloppy to negligent. Still, it does capture some of Johnny's romantic charm and sporadically gets into gear with an electrified version of "Sad Vacation" and, when all else fails, he fleshes out his rock'n'roll fantasies with back to back covers of "Gloria" and "Louie Louie". However, the lack of decent recording equipment means Lure's vocals on "Too Much Junkie Business" are lost and, for some reason, the recording fades in and out at the beginning and end, making it unfortunately explicit that we've not been given the full gig. On the other hand, the In Cold Blood EP is actually far more rewarding and in itself worthy of a 7* award, I reckon. The title track is another of his Greatest Hits with its degrading grind capturing the sneer of Johnny's street-life. Similarly, a brutish cover of the staple of any rock'n'roll diet - "Green Onions" - underlines Johnny's role in bringing rock'n'roll down to its dirtiest and most debauched, without losing any of the authenticity. Another semi-Greatest Hit is included in the form of the deceptively sentimental ballad "Diary of a Lover". Indeed, the five song EP perfectly captures Johnny's whole shtick in a convenient microcosm. Even with genuine punk now a distant memory Johnny was still able to do his own thing without being tainted with the condemnation of irrelevancy. The fact is, though, five new studio songs in five years simply is not adequate reward for his fans' loyalty. Obviously the poor gig being tacked onto the record brings the overall grade down but that's the price he has to pay for only supplying a single five-song EP in the first place. Furthermore, it was this battle with his own productivity that would diminish and eventually drag down the rest of his career.

Thunders's European renaissance continued following In Cold Blood's release with him ambling into a French recording studio a year later to record that very laziest of apologetic releases - an unplugged album. Still, to be fair to Johnny, only the second half contains the self-covers that the lazy artist usually concentrates on with the first featuring an interesting mix of decent originals and intriguing covers. In this way, the debate over this album centres on whether it is a genuine artistic statement by Johnny, committed to showing a different side to his macho street swagger, or simply an easy way to make some junk-money. Unsurprisingly and uncontroversially, my interpretation falls somewhere in the middle. On the one hand, it must have been pretty handy for Johnny to spend a couple of days in a studio (hell, he could've recorded this album in a matter of hours) with only a half an album of new material (sound familiar?) and end up with a full length LP which would draw enough Euros to boost his skag supply. On the other, some of the new material was obviously written specifically for an acoustic setting ("Sad Vacation", "Hurt Me"); it is at least vaguely interesting to hear some of his more aggressive rock'n'rollers in a mellow mood; and he does actually sound genuinely interested in retaining the authenticity of the venture. That is to say, he does not sound lazy or half-arsed at any point and tries to put as much emotional investment into the songs as they deserve. Over 19 tracks Thunders does not sound bored at any point and, as a result, neither should the listener be. Of the new originals the two "hits" are probably deemed to be the title track and the Sid Vicious tribute "Sad Vacation". The latter is rather over-sentimental, one feels, as Johnny makes out like he was the most brilliant artist in the world rather than a tragic, insecure but nonetheless utterly talentless oik. Obviously, though, Thunders must have felt some kind of kinship with Vicious and it is sadly and tragically ironic that most of the lyrics might as well apply to Thunders himself. "Hurt Me" was co-written with Richard Hell (possibly in the formative stages of the Heartbreakers) and is an obvious stand-out on the album, although I'm clueless as to whether that is Hell's influence or not (who had given up music by this stage, of course). The rest of Thunders' originals are all entirely acceptable, if hardly (big audio) dynamite, and he revisits his New York Dolls days with a cover of Johansen's "Lonely Planet Boy" (although more for a self-referential sense than its actual quality, one suspects) and the outtake "Too Much Too Soon" which, of course, was the title of their second and last album. In terms of covers, he plays two snippets of Bob Dylan songs - an abridged version of "Joey" and an 18 second excerpt from "It Ain't Me Babe". Although one might accuse me of praising the Emperor's New Clothes I think it is the fact that Thunders did include an 18 second snippet of the Dylan classic on the final tracklisting as evidence of his desire for this album to be taken seriously as an artistic statement. The best cover, though, is his faithful performance of the classic protest song "Eve of Destruction" ("you're old enough to kill but too young for votin'"). Obviously it is a great song in its own right but taken out of context of the hardline folk movement Thunders again toys with the listener's expectations a little. The highlight of the self-covers on the second side is probably the predictable version of "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" which is only marginally inferior to the original. "She's So Untouchable" loses its swagger in isolation and reveals a more insecure, downbeat centre whilst "MIA" is the only other rocker stripped to the bare bones but, unfortunately, no such revelations are revealed. Indeed, as with the album as a whole, it is hard to say any astounding revelations are made. Thunders was never afraid to get the ol' acoustic out from time to time so a full album's worth just seems like an easy way for him to make a bit of bunce. That said, there's no need to be overly cynical when the actual album is modest enough, enjoyable enough and, above all, interesting enough to warrant its existence. Not the highlight of his career by any means but worthwhile nonetheless and a rare display of artistic sincerity from the skag-meister.

After going M.I.A. for the formative years of the decade Thunders continued his rare bout of prolificacy in the mid-eighties with a full-length studio album which, discounting Hurt Me as something of an aside, pretty much qualifies as the eventual follow-up to So Alone. Indeed, this album is remarkably similar to the latter, if in form rather than quality, even though seven years had elapsed. It is, of course, testament to the singularly one-track mind heroin creates that artistic progress barely featured in Thunders' thoughts at all. The nature of this album also reinforces the difference between Thunders as a solo artist and the Heartbreakers. Whereas the Heartbreakers were brutally intense, with their thuggish smack-induced overdrive, Thunders as a solo star concentrated more on the playful side of street-life, with far more glam overtones and wistful romance. On this album, even more so than So Alone, the gritty intensity of the Heartbreakers is conspicuously absent, with brass accompaniment (a la the Dolls' Too Much Too Soon) driving Johnny further towards "glam punk" then perhaps we'd like. Despite managing to get out one more proper album Thunders was an utter mess by this stage. Ten new songs masks the fact he'd been kicking most of them around on the live circuit for some time and, according to the sleeve-notes, it was a real trial for his manager and engineer to get Thunders to contribute anything towards the proposed album. In the end, it was only after Thunders' Swedish bird flew home from his London base that he was inspired to start contributing at all. In a love-sick (or should that be junk-sick) tizzy he penned the heartfelt ballad "I Only Wrote This Song for You" in an attempt to win back his girl. The romantics amongst you will no doubt be relieved to learn that the song succeeded with his girlfriend obviously not too disheartened by the fact the "song" he wrote for her was effectively "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" with new lyrics. Surprises on the album are unfortunately infrequent although the camp duet with Patti Pallidin, "Tie Me Up", is rather fun even if, again, natural and unflattering comparisons with "Great Big Kiss" inevitably arise. The rockers are mostly pretty adequate, capturing Johnny's street-sneer and highlighting his still visceral guitar playing, but it almost goes without saying they fail to reach the standards he set in the previous decade. Of course, most of them are pretty good songs - "M.I.A.", "Blame it on Mom" and the humorously vulgar "Little Bit of Whore" - but they hardly suggest Thunders was as relevant as always. Indeed, it is a little sad to think that a release like this might actually obscure his true worth as a punk icon. So few punk peers were still kicking out the jams at this stage of the musical evolution that Thunders seems even more like a decrepit relic of yesteryear. To that end and the only attempt to not completely repeat So Alone (Christ, this album even includes a surf instrumental - "Billy Boy") is the utterly, utterly insipid and unforgivable "Cool Operator" - by far the greatest atrocity Thunders ever committed. Obviously casting his one green eye over the praise the Clash were drawing for their dub experiments Thunders decided he'd have a go at that whole she-bang himself. And, my God, what a mistake. A more affable writer than myself might let the whole thing pass unnoticed and although I'll try to avoid ripping into it too much I could not possibly let the line "I can make Godzilla give me head" go unquoted. What, quite frankly, was the man thinking? The day he recorded that monstrosity was certainly one better spent staring at the ceiling with a needle in his vein. As I've said, the rest is just a less good and less interesting retread of So Alone. It is still a decent enough album but not something that suggested Thunders had a whole lot left to contribute. As it happens, this turned out to be his last solo album (despite technically only being his second), as his waste of talent was writ ever larger. Indeed, the fatalist title chosen by Johnny for this album is wryly appropriate as it seems inevitable that his career was to slide away in the way it did.

Unlike many of rock'n'roll's tragic icons Thunders has not had much posthumous luck in terms of artistic or commercial revivals. Although people who know what they're talking about are usually familiar with him the sad fact is, given he was fundamental in creating the music, imagery and attitude of punk, he remains way down the list of the dramatis personae of the movement. In part, of course, this is due to the way the music press rewrote history to place the popular faces of the era, the Sex Pistols primarily, at the cutting edge and relegated the likes of Thunders and the Heartbreakers to mere supporting roles. It seems ludicrous, really, that the Heartbreakers should have been a support band to the Pistols on the Anarchy in the UK tour when one stops to consider exactly who was leading who. Anyway, Thunders' back catalogue has not enjoyed much of a re-appraisal bar the obvious remix of LAMF and Jungle's subsequent remastering of some of his other albums (Hurt Me and Que Sera Sera). Gang War and Copycats remain either out-of-print or impossible to get hold of and, in the UK at least, the unremastered versions of So Alone and Live at Max's are available only as over-priced imports (God bless eBay). On the other hand, the cheapness of Thunders' legacy means plenty of semi-official bootleg compilations have flooded the market although, understandably, the quality varies greatly. One of the live albums that is worth getting, however, is this one. Released in the mid-nineties it features immaculate sound quality (marginally superior to Max's), captures the Heartbreakers at the peak of their existence (during their initial stay in England, with Nolan on drums) and, as an added bonus, features a bitter stand-off between the band and an unenthusiastic crowd with an irate Thunders hurling insults and jibes at the apathetic kids ("you're boring the shit outta me, you boring motherfuckers"). On the downside, the CD only spins for little over half an hour and the 10 song set-list is entirely made up of tracks from L.A.M.F.. In this way, this album suffers from the same problems as Live at Max's. That's to say, the fact that L.A.M.F. has since been remixed means there is no longer any great delight in hearing the same songs sound as rough and as raw as they should. Furthermore, of course, unless you're a real Heartbreakers enthusiast (like my good self) there is little point in owning both this and Live at Max's. The quality of both albums, though, is much of a muchness so there's no need to recommend one vehemently over another. Despite the impartial crowd the band rip through their one-album Greatest Hits with an undeniable energy, with vitriolic versions of "I Wanna Be Loved" and "Get Off the Phone" no doubt spurred on by the unreceptive audience. The set is nice and compact, although apparently split in the middle for some reason, and opening and closing with the "big" ones ("Chinese Rocks" and "Born to Lose" respectively) ensures things go on and off with a bang. As a historical document it hardly matches Iggy and the Stooges' Metallic KO but the fact that the gig itself is up to an appropriately high standard means it should not just be regarded as a novelty release. Despite the fact the book had closed on Thunders' career by the time this release came out it is nice to add a little more colour to the retrospective evaluation of the Heartbreakers. It is sad that still too few people are really familiar with their ability but one more impressive live album is hardly going to hurt matters. Still, though, their legacy begins and ends with L.A.M.F. and it is that monumental milestone that people should be seeking out first. If this album does show one thing, though, it is the irony that the Heartbreakers were as unpopular back in the day as they are unheard of now. They deserve much, much more.

Any artist, no matter how small and insignificant, tends to get the Best Of treatment at some stage and therefore it comes as little surprise that even someone as underrated as Thunders should have at least one compilation on the market. Prima facie, it seems like a rather neat idea, as Thunders' career was so sporadic and inconsistent that a CD such as this allows one to tie up all the loose ends without getting that shitty live recording on In Cold Blood or the filler on Que Sera Sera. However, despite Jungle's admirable efforts in making this look like an enticing product, with plush packaging, extensive liner notes and a bonus CD of unreleased material, there is no way this can be considered a successful compilation. Unfortunately, presumably down to publishing rights, Jungle were not able to use any material from So Alone which, given it represents the second most important source of material in Thunders' career, means there is no way this can accurately be called a "Best Of". A Thunders compilation without "London Boys", "Great Big Kiss" and "Dead or Alive" simply cannot be said to comprehensively capture the highlights of Thunders' career. They do manage to slip on the acoustic version of "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" from Hurt Me by way of an apology but it is an insubstantial gesture. Don't get me wrong, I think Jungle have done a pretty good job with Thunders's back catalogue - giving it the care and attention it obviously deserves - but I don't want you kids picking this up in the shop thinking it gives you the full picture. Furthermore, the fact that a full third of it is made up with LAMF numbers just reinforces the point that Thunders is not the sort of artist that needs a career retrospective, such is the way the early period of his career towers over the rest. And, of course, if the Heartbreakers are involved in proceedings why not include his New York Dolls greatest hits as well? Indeed, this compilation even includes Walter Lure's "One Track Mind". Anyway, there is no doubting that the Heartbreakers' material is the most impressive, although some of Thunders's more diverse offerings from the eighties - "Diary of a Lover", "I Only Wrote This Song for You" and "Hurt Me" - add a little colour to proceedings. We do also get two of the covers from Copycats ("Crawfish" and "Born to Cry") which are pretty fun and, again, show off his diversity. Jungle also make up somewhat for the omissions by finishing with one of the last songs he wrote, "Society Makes Me Sad", which was recorded during an acoustic concert in a rare bout of sobriety in 1991. Indeed, it is rather tragic to hear just how together and content Thunders sounds during the banter in that concert, particularly when compared to his wasted, bitter ramblings on the second CD, given weeks later he fell back into the chilling embrace of heroin and from which its terrible toll was finally exacted.

Even if the first CD is a cheeky misnomer and only partially relevant this compilation does derive an inherent worth from the second CD of bonus material. Made up of studio rehearsals and live gigs the material plucked from the tapes is nearly all up to a startlingly high standard and, in fact, is probably closer to a Best Of Johnny Thunders than the first CD. The material pans out chronologically, beginning with some early Heartbreakers rehearsals before fleshing out Johnny's live incarnations during the eighties. Unsurprisingly, the early Heartbreakers stuff is probably the most impressive with a break-neck run-through of "London Boys" (far more intense than the So Alone version), a brilliant rendition of Walter Lure's classic "Too Much Junkie Business" (which never ended up in official studio form) and an embryonic version of "Great Big Kiss" which, in truth, sounds better camp than rough and raw. We are then presented with yet more live recordings of the Heartbreakers doing the LAMF standards (still at the Speakeasy) which, unsurprisingly, are as good as usual. Much like Thunders's actual official releases the early eighties are entirely unaccounted for with the material jumping straight into the mid-eighties and Johnny's brief incarnation as a Black Cat, the highlight of which is an excellent rendition of "Needles" Nolan's "Countdown Love", bristling with cynicism and misogynist attitude. The only dip in quality on the second CD comes with an obviously wasted Johnny infuriating his audience with ramshackle acoustic covers before finally calling it quits after getting in a slanging match with an audience member ("if you wanna call me a cunt, come up here and call me a cunt, douche-bag"). Thankfully, the live concert segues into studio rehearsals for Hurt Me which features a far more professional Thunders running through impressive renditions of "Like a Rolling Stone" (also an abridged version), "Hurt Me", "Diary of a Lover" and "Sad Vacation". The CD ends with a mini-concert from Italy in 1986 with assistance from Jerry Nolan and Glen Matlock. I could be wrong but I believe material from that tour ended up as the live album Sad Vacation. Anyway, the set-list appropriately takes Johnny back to the very roots of rock'n'roll with covers of "I Can Tell", "Talking 'bout You" and ending with a simply breathtaking extended rendition of "Gloria". In truth, the last set of songs does occasionally dip into directionless guitar soloing perhaps suggesting that Thunders was beginning to lost his fierce intensity that had made his previous rock'n'roll so profound. One can't help but wonder whether if Johnny had stayed off the junk permanently in the nineties he might have degenerated into something of a generic rock'n'roll cabaret artist. Still, it's got to be better than dying. Anyhow, I really have to stress that even though this double CD is not worth buying as a proper Greatest Hits it is definitely worth owning just for the material on the second CD which contains an "alternative" Best Of that offers a far fuller picture of Thunders's brilliance. Still, that kinda sums up Thunders's whole career. He wasn't the artist that sells out stadiums with popular MOR "classics" - he was the junkie playing in the smack-den down the road to a booze-hound and his dog. He wasn't the face of rock'n'roll, he was the heart of it. I could say he did more for twentieth century music than a band like U2 ever did but then it kinda goes without saying, doesn't it?

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