Paul Myers is blogging about a book he's writing on producer Todd Rundgren. Last week he covered Rundgren's involvement with the New York Dolls. The piece liberally quotes from Morrissey's early book on his favourite band -

"...The industry may not have known what to make of them, but the effect that the New York Dolls had on a generation Morrissey's age was nothing short of revolutionary. And while Morrissey had praised their grotesque collaboration of court shoes, bouffant hair, black lipstick, nail polish, exaggerated posturing in his book, he was equally candid about his opinion that the band's campy, pre-glam image had distracted from any serious discussion of their music which, he wrote, drew energy from desperation.�

To stay loose and be crazy, Morrissey concluded, was the Dolls' doctrine, and eventually, that they looked like haggard hookers from a 50's B-movie became immaterial. Nothing could detract from that music.

The band's Todd Rundgren-produced, self-titled album from 1973 struck such a chord with young Morrissey that he was not only moved to form the legendary Smiths, with Johnny Marr, but he would eventually pay the New York band back in a way that made it possible for the surviving band members to reunite with each other, in 2004, and with Rundgren in 2009..."

The full article.