Sex, drag and rock-n-roll: The New York Dolls on the 1970s...

Vanity Fair has an interview with David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain, the sole surviving members of the New York Dolls, who have a new record coming out... Here's an excerpt from the Q-and-A:

Let’s talk about New York during the 70s. Stories from that era tend to be romantically gritty and over the top. It’s always something like, “So I was living in an apartment over a peep booth theater run by a midget, and one day these mobsters showed up with a meat truck filled with uncut cocaine...”

SS: That’s usually it. There’s a lot of nostalgic exaggeration about that time. But it was also much more dangerous than people remember. Back then, we got our asses kicked constantly. We had our first loft in SoHo, and some of our first musical experiences were there. But you took your life in your hand just walking through the neighborhood after 5 o’clock. If you were in Greenwich Village and you crossed Houston into SoHo, kids would come right up to you and beat the hell out of you, just because you had long hair or you were walking with a black guy or something. People say to me all the time, “Wasn’t it great back then?” No, it was not!

Alex has more over at Flaming Pablum about who the Dolls will tour with this summer (Mötley Crüe and Poison!) ...

And, why not...