Music Reissues Weekly: New York Dolls - Showdown At The Mercer

“A band you’re gonna like, whether you like it or not.” The proclamation in the press ads for the New York Dolls’ debut album acknowledged they were a hard sell.

At this point, in July 1973, the band was a New York phenomenon. There had been an anti-climactic brush with the UK in October and November 1972, some Boston shows and one-off dates in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but otherwise they had played only to audiences in the city and the nearby boroughs in which they had formed.

If wider audiences were “gonna like” proto-punk glam outfit the New York Dolls, it needed more than what they had done so far. They did, though, have a dedicated fan whose tenacity enabled the release of that eponymous first album and its 1974 follow-up Too Much Too Soon. He was Paul Nelson, then employed by Mercury Records, the label to which he had them signed. The remarkable Showdown At The Mercer LP testifies to his commitment to the band.

Nelson (1936–2006) knew about music. In 1961, in his native Minnesota, he co-founded the folk music magazine The Little Sandy Review. Nelson was acquainted with Bobby Zimmerman at college. The also Minnesota-born, soon-to-be Bob Dylan visited Nelson’s apartment and assimilated his collection of folk records. They moved to New York around the same time as each other. Nelson was soon in the pages of folk oracle Sing Out!, becoming its managing editor in 1963. Two years later, in the magazine, he defended Dylan’s Newport Folk Festival electrification. He subsequently resigned from Sing Out!

Over 1967 to 1969, Nelson wrote for the pop-oriented US music mag Hullabaloo. In 1969, he moved to the more serious-minded Circus as its editor. Mercury Records took him on in 1970, first as their press officer and then also in an A&R role. While at the label, he was behind the release of the 1969 Velvet Underground Live double album and steered Rod Stewart in the direction of material by Dylan.

After the Dolls imploded in 1975 – Nelson was sacked by Mercury as they never hit big – he began contributing to The Village Voice and Rolling Stone. Antenna always finely tuned, he became an early scrutineer of Bruce Springsteen and The Ramones. When Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols came out in 1977, his Rolling Stone review said it “ is just about the most exciting rock & roll record of the Seventies,” while noting that the album’s “‘New York’ completely trashes the Dolls' ‘Looking For a Kiss’.” He was prescient, saying “in a commercial sense, the Sex Pistols will probably destroy no one but themselves.” At first hand, he had already seen self-sabotage with the Dolls. He also knew all about Sex Pistols’ manager Malcolm McLaren, who initially came into the Dolls’ orbit in June 1973. (pictured left, Paul Nelson, centre, with the New York Dolls' Syl Sylvain, left, and David Johansen, right)

Paul Nelson first saw the New York Dolls at Manhattan’s Mercer Arts Centre in August 1972. He immediately wanted to sign them to Mercury. No go. During September and October 1972, he took executives from the label to their shows. Still no go. The band went off to the UK in October 1972, where they had a brush with The Who’s label Track Records. No go there too. The jaunt was curtailed when drummer Billy Murcia died on 7 November. Back in New York with new drummer Jerry Nolan, they continued regularly playing the Mercer. By the year’s end, Atlantic, CBS and Polygram had also passed on them.

During the band’s 30 January to 4 February 1973 residency at Kenny's Castaways, Nelson finally convinced Mercury to pick them up. The contract was signed on 20 March and a set of demos recorded. The debut album was completed during April, May and June with Todd Rundgren as producer. It was released on 23 July 1973, days short of a full year after Nelson’s first live experience of the New York Dolls – just over a decade after he had first telegraphed his interest in music with The Little Sandy Review. Then, he embraced folk. Now, he was helping to bring proto-punk to the world.

While repeatedly attending the band’s shows, Nelson recorded them. Showdown At The Mercer is drawn from one of his tapes. It is the earliest live document of the band to surface, catching them on 16 January 1973, less than month after Jerry Nolan joined. They are performing their second set of the night, at a familiar venue. The New York Dolls only stopped playing the Mercer after the building it was in collapsed on 3 August 1973. That evening, the Dolls supported Mott The Hoople at the Felt Forum, within New York's Madison Square Garden complex. (pictured right, press ad for the New York Dolls show heard on Showdown At The Mercer)

On Showdown At The Mercer, the band are tight, propulsive but relaxed. Before a familiar crowd, they were doubtless aware of Nelson’s presence and his repeated attempts to get them onto Mercury. Yet there’s no special swagger. It seems like a textbook Dolls show. They are playing, and this is how they play. Which includes lengthy, momentum-dampening, tune-ups between numbers.

Showdown At The Mercer documents a fully formed band. The opening “Vietnamese Baby” is a little slower than it would be on the debut album, but otherwise it’s as per what was recorded with Rundgren. Next up, after tuning tedium, “Personality Crisis,” the song opening the album. There’s a slight difference in the arrangement of the section before singer David Johansen’s first verse but, otherwise, there is no variation between this and what would come out on record. It is tremendous. Song over, Johansen banters with the audience, telling them he’d recently been speaking with The Shangri-Las’ Mary Weiss. Cue a run-through of the New York girl group’s “Give Her a Great Big Kiss.”

Also heard and subsequently included on the first LP are band originals “Jet Boy,” “Looking For a Kiss” (again, marginally slower than the album) and “Trash,” as well as their cover of Bo Diddley’s “Pills.” Two other covers, “Don't Start me Talking” and “There’s Gonna be a Showdown,” ended up on Too Much Too Soon. “Trash,” says Johansen, was written a day earlier. (pictured left, July 1973 press ad for the New York Dolls' first LP)

While there are some audience shout-outs – “we love you” – there’s little crowd noise. It doesn’t feel as if the venue either held many people or was particularly full. The Dolls next played the following Tuesday – also at the Mercer. A further week on, the Kenny’s Castaways residency during which Nelson brought Mercury on board.

As Showdown At The Mercer fixes in aspic a New York Dolls on the cusp of being signed, what Paul Nelson taped must have been germane to the deal with Mercury. He recorded this, took it home and, presumably, mulled over what he heard before his next try at getting them a deal with Mercury. Consequently, while this is historic as it’s the earliest Dolls show to surface – the sound quality is good, between a bootlegger’s A- and B+ – so has to be heard, it is much more. A snapshot of a Seventies which was being rewritten, it documents a transformation fostering the emergence of punk rock in New York and, thanks to Malcolm McLaren, in London too.

Paul Nelson had been embedded in the world of early Sixties folk. He was wholeheartedly along for the ride when Dylan went electric. Seven years on, he began championing the Dolls and brought them to vinyl. Later, in 1977, he advocated for Sex Pistols. This is an unparalleled – and unbroken – line. All of which also makes Showdown At The Mercer vital to appreciating the significance of the always receptive, ever-hip Paul Nelson. This is a must-have.

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