Weekend Punk Pick: New York Dolls

Despite stage diving face first into punk in high school, I backed into New York Dolls in college via Poison Idea's cover of the excellent "Vietnamese Baby." When I went and hunted down the original, I was shocked to find out the darkness and menace of the song were not something the Oregonians brought but instead was inherent in the music itself. Here's a band that predicted both punk rock and '80s, sashaying and strutting through stale '70s rock cliches with a sly camp wink. As one reviewer once said, the Dolls were the Rolling Stones in drag and with way better heroin.