Double Elvis.

Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis.

The stories about the New York dolls are insane.

They came to life when their hometown of New York City was coming apart at the seams in the midst of rising murder, rape, and burglary rates.

The dolls dressed like women, fucked with men, and made the antics of the Rolling Stones look like innocent schoolboy shenanigans.

Their drummer drowned, their bassist was nearly murdered.

Their guitar players despised their singer, and the only thing that their singer loved more than Archie Bell was himself.

This, of course, was all part of the act, the self-destruction, the violence, the intra-band squabbling, but it was, of course, was all part of the act, and the self-destruction, the violence, the

intra-band squabbling, but it was, of course, also a part of the band's reality.

A reality that in early 70s, New York, in that weird moment between downtown avant-garde

music and the coming punk explosion, between the velvets and the Ramones, a transitional New York city reality

that the New York dolls embodied. There were a band that at the time, just like the city they were

from, seemed born to lose. There were also a band that made great music. Unlike that music I played

for you at the top of the show, and that wasn't great music.

That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Kansas City Flapjack, MK2.

I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to Family Affair

by Sly and the Family Stone.

And why would I play you that specific slice of thicker than the mud funk,

could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on Christmas Eve, 1971,

and that was the day the New York Dolls played their first show and forever changed the trajectory

of rock and roll. On this episode, Lipstick Killers, a city in transition in the New York Dolls.

I'm Jake'm I'm

...