Rest In Punk Rock Power Sylvain Sylvain
it was 1987. i was working at trash and vaudeville when right before my very eyes one of my all time heroes strutted in looking just the way he did on his album covers. guitarist and songwriter for THE NEW YORK DOLLS sylvain sylvain was standing in front of me asking if he could try on a pair of purple suede mondo creepers.
that first dolls record was in my bone marrow. i remember staring at it when i was barely seven years old. it spoke to me. it spoke to my gender dysphoria and ultimately to my gender affirmation. the songs inside were pop songs that were so rough around the edges that they were a welcome assault to my ears no matter what volume they were at. my older brothers turned me on to all kinds of cool new music but something about this record was even a stretch for THEM. “those are MEN’ i remember them saying. i would sneak down to our 1970s panel and green shag carpet basement and place the needle on the vinyl and bask in the godfathers / godmothers of punk rock as it ripped through my soul.
now it was almost 15 years later and im talking to the heart and soul behind the band in NYC. im barely out of my teens at this point and im telling him that i play saxophone.
“oh REALLY ya do ? ya any GOOD ?”
“i wouldnt be talkin about it if i wasnt any good” the hubris dripping off me was one of the only things that kept me alive as a teenager on the burnt out lower east side in the 80s.
“ok LUV” he says “ya sound like you know whatcha talkin about”
just meeting him woulda been enough but a week later he comes back in and marches right up to me.
“hey LUV. i want ya to come down to this rehearsal studio and play with me and my guys tomorrow night. bring that saxophone”. he hands me a piece of paper with an address scribbled on it. if i woulda thought too hard about it i mighta stood in my own way but my feet took me right over to that studio the next night and i played my freakin heart out. at the end of the rehearsal he asks me to do a show with his band that included NY dolls drummer JERRY NOLAN and a slim chance of a rumor that JOHNNY THUNDERS might even show up on stage.
i walked on air all the way back to my east village squat and went to sleep that night officially living the dream. the following week we did our first show at NIRVANA which was a coke den on top of times square and that “rumor” came true. right in the middle of the set johnny thunders jumped on stage and sang a couple songs with us. we blew the club to pieces and for the next few months we played all over NYC.
sylvain on the left and me on the right onstage at limelight 1987
me and johnny thunders onstage with sylvains band at nirvana NYC 1987
aside from sylvain being a real deal new york punk god, he was also one of the biggest hearts ive been lucky enough to know. when my girlfriend pati and i needed a place to stay he gave us his chelsea apt while he went out to explore LA for a few years.
LUV sylvain
the last i heard from him was in 2017. we had found each other on facebook. he was excited to show me a new guitar he just got and were trying to make plans to see each other. i never got a chance to truly thank him (as a grown up) for what he did to jump start my life as a NYC musician but i have a feeling he knows.
REST IN PUNK ROCK POWER SYLVAIN. YOU ARE A TRUE LEGEND. AND A HEART OF GOLD.
a couple of flyers from our shows in NYC 1987 / 1988