Dust Off Those Grooves (Chapter Three) Johnny Thunders' So Alone

Johnny Thunders would have turned sixty years old today. In tribute to one of my major musical heroes, I am re-posting this look at his greatest album that I wrote in the early days of Moon in the Gutter.


Memory is a strange thing, specifically what we remember. I have over 3,000 records and cds. I've been collecting, passionately, since I was in my early teens. I have had girlfriends that I can't even remotely remember anything about but I can pretty much pull any of my records, or discs out, and recall not only where where I got them but what was going on in my life at the time. I couldn't tell you what I was doing last week but I could tell you my first 45 was Blondie's "The Tide Is High" and that my first lp was Elvis Gold Records Vol. 5. I mention this because, even though I remember these things clearly, certain albums seem to be almost part of my DNA...while I remember the first time with them, I can't imagine ever really being without them.
I found Johnny Thunders then out of print solo debut, SO ALONE, on vinyl in a tiny Manhattan record store in 1992. I had discovered JT at the perfect age of 16 when I bought the first New York Dolls record and even though his guitar playing had been copied a million times over at that point there was still a freshness and raw energy that made it totally unique and unbelievably compelling to me.
Southern Indiana in the late 80s early 90s was not the most ideal spot for finding Johnny Thunders solo records; so for several years it was just those Doll sides, some scattered live recordings and articles that I found in old music magazines.
I'll never forget getting the news that JT had died my senior year of high school. My friend Ryan coming into the cafeteria and simply saying, 'Johnny died'.
A year or so later my father took me up to Queens to see Johnny's grave, by that point Jerry Nolan was gone also and the groundskeeper was very helpful in helping us locating both markers. Johnny's grave was covered with stuff fans had brought...I added a pack of Lucky Strikes..
It was on that same visit that I found SO ALONE, a near mint original British pressing with the insert sleeve. The original Rolling Stone review was entitled 'The Promise Of Rock and Roll' and all these years later that still seems fitting. It's not only one of the great rock albums but it's an album that's in love with the idea of rock itself. It's because of this record that when I think of Johnny I don't think of drugs, his early death or any of that shit, I just think of the passion and humanity that he injects on SO ALONE'S 10 tracks. Humanity might seem an odd word to use in describing Johnny but like the line goes in "Great Big Kiss", "Bad but not evil". Hell, even the notorious Sex Pistols put down "London Boys" has a certain honor to it...like a kid talking trash on the playground because he's been insulted in front of his friends.
The album open with what sounds like a call to arms with Thunders storming version of the classic instrumental "Pipeline". What other 'punk' album would have worn it's heart on its sleeve so much? Johnny on this album right up to his final work COPYCATS would always, at heart, be that kid who grew up listening to rock in the 50s and 60s. One of the main things that always separated the New York punk scene from the British one was New York's willingness to tip their hat to what had inspired them. A lot of the British bands from the time seemed to take this holier than thou attitude that they were doing something new, when of course they had all been influenced by the same stuff the NY scene had. While Joe Strummer was singing 'No Elvis, Beatles or The Rolling Stones' Patti Smith was covering "Jailhouse Rock" and Richard Hell was doing "Ventilator Blues". It all works out though, and the influences that punk carried are more and more known. I think it might even get to the point where I can say no one was more punk than Elvis in '55 or The Who in '66 and not be looked at like I was crazy.
SO ALONE includes a mixture of covers, originals and a few older redone Dolls tracks and yet it feels completely cohesive. "You Can't Put Your Arm Around A Memory" is the most famous and probably rightly so, but listen to the way he sings David Johansen's incredible lyrics to "Subway Train" or that cover of the Otis Blackwell penned "Daddy Rolling Stone". It sounds like a greatest hits album to me and if the closing late period Dolls track "Downtown" doesn't make you miss what used to be New York City, nothing will.
A lot has been written about Johnny Thunders, highly recommended is Nina Antonia's bio 'In Cold Blood' (plus her work on The Dolls) and books like 'From The Velvets to The Voidoids' and 'Please Kill Me' are essential. For newcomers, I would recommend three things over any of those: The first Dolls album, SO ALONE and an essay Richard Hell wrote after Johnny died called 'Johnny Thunders and The Endless Party'. It's available in Hell's must have 'Hot and Cold' book. There isn't a finer piece of writing on a rocker that's ever been written. The most famous quote comes when Hell describes him as the 'the rock and roll Dean Martin of Heroin' which is of course dead on but it's his description of Thunders as a guy who wanted to be 'as good as Frank Sinatra and Elvis' that really gets me. After reading that I saw that guy staring at me from that isolated corner on the cover of SO ALONE differently. He was no longer that doomed rock and roll loser that everyone is so quick to cast him off as. He was just a kid who grew up wishing he could wear a great suit, play music that he loved so much and be as good as good ever got. Through the ten tracks on SO ALONE Johnny Thunders got his wish.

...

Brother, You Are Going Down: George Seaton's Showdown (1973)

A unfairly overlooked work from director George Seaton, Showdown (1973) is an elegiac and moving Western starring two of American film's greatest icons, Rock Hudson and Dean Martin. Opening and closing quite quickly in 1973, Showdown would turn out to be the last feature directed by the talented Seaton, an Academy Award winning filmmaker whose career stretched across four decades.



Billy Massey and Chuck Jarvis have been best friends for as long as they can remember. They played together as children and it seemed like nothing in the world could ever come between them. A splinter occurred when Chuck married Kate, a woman Billy had always been in love with. As they grew further and further apart with age, Chuck became a respected lawman while Billy turned to a life of robbing banks. After being apart for years, Billy and Chuck’s lives intersect again with tragic results.




George Seaton was born in South Bend, Indiana in the spring of 1911. His initial interest in film lay in acting but Seaton discovered fairly early on that his real talent was with the pen. After years of writing films for 20th Century Fox (including A Day at the Races and A Song for Bernadette) Seaton turned his attentions to filmmaking and he made his debut as a director with Diamond Horseshoe (1945). A talented, if undervalued director, Seaton is probably most famous for the original version of Miracle on 34th Street. Other credits include the searing Clifford Odets adaptation, The Country Girl, the charming Teacher’s Pet and the best picture winning Airport. A two time Oscar winner, Seaton would sadly die of cancer just a few years after finishing Showdown.




Showdown didn’t just mark the end of the road for George Seaton, as it would also feature one of the last major appearances by Dean Martin, who was said to be unhappy during the shoot due to the death of his favorite horse. As if that wasn’t enough, Showdown also also marked an end to the great Rock Hudson's prolific run of films that had started in the fifties and he would just work sporadically after 1973. Showdown stands a real symbolic end to a particular period in American filmmaking and at times it does feel like a nostalgic tip of the hat to the traditional Westerns that were all but dead by 1973. After all this was the period that saw directors like Sam Peckinpah and Monte Hellman totally transform the American Western and the fairly subdued Showdown must have seemed quite out of step to the few folks who saw it upon its initial release. Pity, as Seaton’s film is actually much closer in spirit to a film like Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid more than most would have recognized at the time.




With it lovely, and at times, haunting score by David Shire, Showdown is a very effective film throughout it's fairly short running time of 99 minutes. There is something positively epic in this little film about two friends who chose the most different of lives but never stopped caring for each other or forgot where they came from.






The acting is fine throughout with Martin and Hudson surrounded by many top tier character actors including Donald Moffat and Ed Begley, Jr. in a smaller role. Susan Clark does a good job as Chuck's wife Kate, but I always think of Tuesday Weld when I watch the film and can only imagine the multi-layered performance she would have given in the part. Hudson is at the top of his game here, middle aged and exhausted looking but still beautiful. He does a brilliant job at playing a man who has a job to do that he knows will ultimately ask him to make the hardest decision of his life. Martin is excellent as well and it is a performance that improves as the film goes along. At first it appears Dean will be giving one of his patented comic and winking performances but he does some really remarkable heavy dramatic work here as a man who knows what his destiny holds and that there isn't any escape from it.




Shot by prolific cinematographer, Ernest Laszlo, Showdown is gorgeous to look at and his photography is particularly good, although the video and TV versions in circulation ruin the film’s striking 2.35 visual design.






Showdown isn't perfect, I don't think that anyone working on it realized that they had what was close to being a really great film on their hands. It could do with being about thirty minutes longer as more characterization is needed, especially with Kate and Chuck. It feels edited a bit tight also, although the cutting by Diamonds are Forever editor John W. Holmes is mostly well done throughout. Showdown feels like a film that the studio expected to fail but that somewhere along the way Seaton and crew realized they might have a winner on their hands. I think had that thought been there at the beginning, Showdown would have turned out to be a small masterpiece. As it is a very good film with more great moments than anyone might expect.







Showdown does indeed reach greatness in its final few minutes where we see both men reaching their individual destinies. The ending of the film is particularly devastating and the look on Rock Hudson's face as the film closes is powerful, powerful stuff. Showdown shows off Rock Hudson as a master giving one of his last truly great performances.







Showdown would open and close quickly with very little critical or popular attention given to it. For most in the Summer of 1973, it was a product of a time that had slipped away. Ironically it was about two men who themselves were living in a world that had passed them by. Showdown would appear briefly on VHS in the mid nineties but has never been released on DVD. It is currently missing in action and is rarely mentioned in film circles, although it does pop up occasionally on Encore’s Western Channel.








Late in his life, Dean Martin was said to get great pleasure from watching old westerns on TV. I often think about the lovely man, sitting in his chair smoking, with perhaps a drink, and watching the flickering memories of his youth. I sometimes wonder if he ever happened to stumble across Showdown during one of those Western marathons he so enjoyed. Would he have flipped quickly by or would he have stopped, if only for a brief moment, and smiled at a film that is a lot better than anybody has ever given it credit for? There is no telling as we lost Dean, as well as Rock, years ago and I suppose in a way it is fitting, even if it is unjust, that Showdown has in its own way all but been lost to time also.

***This is a massively revised piece that I first posted several years ago here...the screenshots are new, as is much of my text. I just can't seem to shake this film...

The Art of the Opening Credit Sequence: The Wrecking Crew

***Titles designed by Wayne Fitzgerald***