Welcome to the dollhouse

>> Sylvain Sylvain's so nice they had to name him twice

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Florida has been called "God's waiting room," due to a large chunk of its populace being golden-age refugees from the cold, there to bask in the rays and get a little shuffleboard in before they buy the farm. In one of rock 'n' roll's best tragic comedies, Florida would also prove to be the killing ground for one of glitter rock's most celebrated and influential bands, the New York Dolls.

In 1975 the Dolls found themselves in the Florida Keys, booked for a two-week engagement by svengali/manager Malcolm McLaren. Shacking up in the trailer home of drummer Jerry Nolan's mother, these androgynous glam freaks must have fit in like Charlton Heston at a Pride march. Due to a lack of heroin for Nolan and guitarist Johnny Thunders, and the claustrophobic ego of singer David Johansen, the band would die an unheralded death at that time.

"After we broke up in Florida," says Sylvain Sylvain, "I was riding back to New York in a station wagon with Malcolm. He kept going on about these kids that were hanging around his wife's shop. He started telling me how he was going to start a band and I could be in it. All I had to do was give him my guitar and my Fender Rhodes piano, which he would send to London and then he would send me a plane ticket."

In case you haven't guessed it already, the band that McLaren was jawing on about would become the Sex Pistols. Sylvain's white Les Paul custom did make it across the pond, but wound up in the hands of Pistol Steve Jones instead.

Having already lost their original drummer Billy Murcia to a drunken bathtub drowning in '71, the surviving Dolls would see tragedy strike again--twice--in the early '90s. Thunders suffered a methadone overdose in New Orleans and Nolan died a year later in a New York hospital bed.

Sylvain's new home and new life are in the suburbs of Atlanta. Listening to his thick Brooklynese, though, one can't help but think he must stick out in the middle of Georgia as much as he did in that Florida trailer court in '75. Despite not being a Doll or even a New Yorker any more, Sylvain can still deliver the rock 'n' roll goods.

On songs like "Paper, Pencil and Glue" and "Sleep Baby Doll," the title track on his latest record, Sylvain doffs his cap to his days in the Dolls and celebrates memories of his good friends that aren't around anymore. "When Johnny died I thought there was just nothing for me in New York anymore. After awhile I just felt like another schmuck walking on the streets."

After living in New York, Paris, Los Angeles and now in the sleepy boroughs of Atlanta, it seems that Sylvain can finally put down some roots. "I really love it here, but I'm still waiting for that plane ticket from Malcolm, so who knows," he laughs.

With One-976, les Météors and DJ X Cafèïne at Café Campus on Monday, Dec. 18, 9pm, $10