Curt Weiss - Stranded in the Jungle

Copyright 2017 by Curt Weiss

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, without written permission, except by a newspaper or magazine reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review.

Published in 2017 by Backbeat Books
An Imprint of Hal Leonard LLC
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213

Trade Book Division Editorial Offices
33 Plymouth St., Montclair, NJ 07042

Front cover photograph of Jerry Nolan Alain Dister

Book design by Kristina Rolander

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Weiss, Curt.
Title: Stranded in the jungle : Jerry Nolans wild ride--a tale of drugs, fashion, the New York Dolls, and punk rock / Curt Weiss.
Description: Montclair, NJ : Backbeat Books, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017017453 | ISBN 9781495050817
Subjects: LCSH: Nolan, Jerry, 1946-1992. | Drummers (Musicians)--United States--Biography. | Punk rock musicians--United States--Biography. | New York Dolls (Musical group) | Heartbreakers (Musical group : Johnny Thunders)
Classification: LCC ML419.N58 W45 2017 | DDC 786.9/166092 [B] --dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017453

www.backbeatbooks.com

Contents

Going to art school in New York City in the seventies introduced me to lots of things, amongst them: Eric Emerson and the Magic Tramps, Urban chaos, and the New York Dolls. The first time I saw them was when I went to the Mercer Arts Center to see Eric and the Tramps open for them. I quickly realized the Dolls were the Lower East Sides own version of the Stones in that they were locally ubiquitous. But they also reflected that same rebellion Id embraced as a kid growing up in Brooklyn: loud, longhaired, intelligent, and antiestablishment. They were raw, but they were still great and, most of all, familiar. After their first drummer Billy Murcia died, people thought they were gone forever. But they returned with a ringer on drumsJerry! Everyone knew that now theyd get a record deal. But once I saw that cover, I grew skeptical about their immediate possibilities, regardless of how good the record was. The cover, a shot of the Dolls in semi drag, was too strong for the time. It only took Mtley Cre and Whitesnake another ten years to make any money off a reworking of the Dolls style. But the Dolls were bigger than that, opening a door for the rest of us to walk through. Jerry was part of that excitement, and this book gives us a little glimpse into what it was like to live through. Sadly, he didnt make it through to the other side, but his legacy is still with us.

Chris Stein
2017

Part 1

1

Its the summer of 1980 and an avocado-green mid-70s station wagon is lumbering down a nondescript American highway in the dead of night. Its dragging a black trailer behind it, filled with guitars, drums, a stand-up bass, and luggage for eight; three roadies, a bass player, a singer, two guitarists, and a drummer. Half of those in the vehicle are under twenty-five, and all are under thirty except for the drummer. Hes been through hell and back the last few years, living a junkies life of lying, sometimes stealing, and playing shitty gigs just to make the rent, but at one time he was living the sweet lifelimousines, champagne, cameras flashing, women, and drugs. Lots of drugs. He still has a way with women, theres no denying that, even to the womens dismay. Junkie romance rarely ends well.

On top of his morning dose of methadone, he shot a speedballa heroin and cocaine cocktailafter the evenings gig. Hes now in fine fettle for the long drive to the next city.

No one else in the station wagon is having fun though. The band is always movingthey can never stick around for the pretty girls and after-show parties. They have to pack up quickly and get out on the road to arrive in the next town early enough to hit the methadone clinic before it closes. Clinics are early-morning affairs, a musicians nightmare, but if your drummer is a heroin addict, you dont have much choice.

But the drummer doesnt mind the summer heat, or the close quarters, which accentuate the wafting body odors. Hes floating on opiated air with an additional cocaine kick, leaving him as tight as a snare drum.

But when hes high and happy, he likes to talk. Sometimes he might talk about his old band, the New York Dollsthey were legends, legit punk rock originalsor Johnny Thunders, Richard Hell, or the other Heartbreakers. That was his family, dysfunctional as it might have been. He can share stories about everyone in New York: Debbie Harry, Willy DeVille, Dee Dee Ramone, most anyone who ever played Maxs Kansas City or CBGB. He was on the notorious Anarchy tour, with the Sex Pistols and the Clash. He can tell you stories about being in street gangs and watching people get stabbed to death, making a zip gun from a car aerial, or a hypodermic needle from a paper clip and a ballpoint pen, prison style. He loves talking about seeing Elvis Presley and his original trio, or Eddie Cochran, or Little Richard, or the trips he made to the Brooklyn Paramount to see Alan Freeds rock n roll shows with his childhood pal Peter Criss, from Kiss. He can talk about living in Detroit with leather-clad glam queen Suzi Quatro and her family, or dating Bette Midler in New York. Hes met Jimi Hendrix and Marc Bolan, and he even carries a scrapbook of photos with him that includes his most prized possession, a photo of him as a boy with his lifelong idol, Gene Krupa.

His name is Jerry Nolan. He is the ultimate New Yorker: wisecracking, cocky, confident, streetwise, moody, hip, and one of the greatest drummers in the history of the sport. His life has been one of largesse and legend. He used to be a contender.

* * *

Jerry Nolans legacy revels in myth.

He was born in Manhattan, May 7, 1946, at 895 West End Avenue, in the building where his father worked as superintendent. Jerry also had an older brother, Billy, and an older sister named Rose.

Their father, William Sr., also known as Billy, had other jobs besides being the building super. As many did during the Depression, he gravitated toward any opportunity to make a few extra dollars, honest or otherwise.

During the Prohibition years of 1920 to 1933, speakeasies flourished in New York. On weekends, after hed spent the bulk of his time selling fruits and vegetables from a horse-drawn wagon, Billy bartended at a speakeasy in the Canarsie area of Brooklyn, where his wife-to-be, Jerrys mother, Charlotte lived.

They had them beer rackets every Saturday night, Charlotte recalls. I loved ballroom dancing and so did he. So... I saw him quite often.

Charlotte was born Charlotte Beers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1914, and grew up in the area between Scholes Street and Ten Eyck, an area primarily made up of two-family houses. Williamsburg is now the epicenter of hipster cool, but back then it was mostly a Hasidic enclave peppered with European immigrants. Her mothers family were Irish, her fathers Anglo-Saxon. Her husband, William Nolan, was also Irish.

Jerry Nolan got his first taste of ignominy before he was even born: William was not actually Jerrys father. Jerrys son John tells the tale: [Charlotte] was with several different people. The man who raised Jerry was not actually his biological father. Jerrys friend Luke Harris recalls Jerry telling him that his biological father was a hustler.