Return of New York Dolls - Dedication to Arthur "Killer" Kane (no moz!)

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Written by David Johansen (I'm speed typing so excuse any errors)

Arthur Kane was some kind of a man. But unfortunately, not the kind I'll ever see again.

Sometime in 71-2 there was a knock on my apartment door on East Sixth street. I opened it to find Arthur and Billy in platforms with Arthur a good foot and a half taller (I had to look up). He said "I heard you're a singer." The tone of his voice was kind of ethereal for a boy with such an imposing presence, and I have to say I was both amused and intrigued by him, so we went to Johnny Thunders' apt on 10th st and started to play some music and just like that I was a NY Doll.

Every sentence Arthur "whispered" seemed like an aphorism and gave me pause and often an out-right double take. I knew a lot of people in the East Villiage, but I remember thinking "what a pixilated enchanting motherf***er."

Arthur's perceptions were not those of mortal men. He saw through the veil of ordinariness to a visionary word of infinite possibility. There was no doubt in his mind that he would succeed. He never had an unkind word about anyone and even in a fit of anger he was a delight to behold.

I "got" Arthur and he got me and in our band of miscreants he was the glue that held all of the disparate iconoclastic elements together.

There is an expression "Playing to the band". It derives from going over the audience's head, as the Dolls so often did, especially in the tertiary markets. For me to have Arthur behind me "getting it", with a knowing nod or some subtle facial expression that I was graced to be able to read, made me feel that our efforts were not in vain, or "casting our swine before pearls", as we liked to say. Because Arthur instinctively knew when it was "right". And we as a band were on the path that would take us to so many unexplored regions of the liberating power of real rock and roll.

There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then and the time we got back together for this performance with Arthur, Syl and myself having wrestled with various demons. But delightfully I found Arthur to be more mesmerizing a personality than ever.

Thrrough all the myriad relations and degradations, that a person as sensitive and vulnerable as Arthur had experienced, which ultimately led to his spiritual enlightenment, he had emerged to my eyes as a mystical almost translucent being.

That, just knowing he existed on our planet gave me overwhelming joy and comfort. He was nonjudgmental, bawdy and holy. I could feel his love as unconditional, I could talk to him about anything and I mean anything. I was so looking forward to revealing more and more of myself in the time we were to spend together and having it mirrored by such a sensitive, wise and knowing human being. But that is not to be.

Upon meeting for the first time after many years to rehearse the show presented here, Arthur said to me in that voice that was uniquely his, "I received a video seminar in the mail and it guaranteed that if you followed its format without deviation, it would return you to 'pre-crash condirion'." I said "What?" And he repeated "pre-crash condition." To which I replied "Oh yes, of course."

Arthur was an angel and he still is. I talk to him several times a day as does Sylvain. Knowing that we accepted and loved each other is a great solace to me. But Sylvain and I will miss him terribly in emotions that cannot be described here.

The passing of Thunders and Nolan is somehow comprehensible to us, but in the instance of Arthur "Killer" Kane I'm afraid it will take quite some time. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "We mark with light in the memory the few interviews we have had with souls that have made our souls wise, that spoke what we thought, that told us what we knew, that gave us leave to be what we inly are."

Sylvain and I dedicate this project to Arthur and also to Johnny and Jerry & Billy Doll.

David Jo in N.Y.
 
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