Pitchfork

You're David Johansen. You're Sylvain Sylvain. You're the proud and the few. The very few. And you ain't the Marines.

You are, instead, the New York Dolls, the world's truly most forgotten godfathers (with all apologies to Raw Power-era Iggy). Not just of glam and punk and hair metal, where you staked your claim back when you started the band in 1971. But of a brand of ballsy, glittering, androgynous Bo Diddley-esque rock (with thick dollops of Spector-fueled girl group pop) that guys like Aerosmith would call their own and make millions off not too long after your first record in 1973.

You made one more record in 1974, Too Much Too Soon. Stayed around until 1977. Quit. And that was pretty much that for the New York Dolls.

Until One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This, due out July 25 on Roadrunner Records. It's an album most people thought would never happen.

Frontman Johansen recently talked to Pitchfork from a recording studio in Manhattan's Chinatown. "After (drummer) Billy (Murcia) and (bassist) Arthur (Kane) came to my apartment at Sixth St. and First Avenue, they took me to John's (guitarist Johnny Thunders) house," he said, reflecting on the band's genesis. "We made music and then we were a band. I'm not kidding when I say it was that fast and that simple. Syl showed up a month later."

Billy, John, and Arthur died, as did drummer Jerry Nolan; Billy first, Arthur most recently. Kane's loss is the saddest, as he stuck around long enough to see the improbable: a 2004 Dolls reunion, cobbled together by Morrissey, ex-president of the British New York Dolls fan club.

"He called, wanted to do a show with us," said Johansen of Morrissey. "My immediate answer was 'no way.' I even asked him, 'would you do it?' And he said 'NO.' But then I really did have to think about how fun it would be to do one show-- one show-- having laughs, seeing the guys. But then...I had more fun than I ever imagined." So did Kane, the subject of the recently released documentary New York Doll. But he died of leukemia not long after that first reunion show.

"He didn't believe in chance circumstance," said Johansen of Kane. "It was really important for him to come full circle as a Doll."

Weeks later, Johansen and Sylvain joined with Sam Yaffa (of Hanoi Rocks) and several members of Johansen's solo band and took on Little Steven's International Underground Garage Festival in New York City. Somehow, from that point on, Johansen and Sylvain were convinced they'd found the new New York Dolls. Not just sidemen but a solid batch of like-minds with whom they could commit to making further Dolls music in gang fashion. "Whatever we do is the Dolls, nothing we're doing is based on anything we've done before, but there is that vibe," said Johansen.

So here we are in a studio listening to the lovely "Beautiful Music", the punchy "Dance Like a Monkey", and the huffy "Gimme Love and Turn on the Light", all produced by Jack Douglas, who engineered the first Dolls album. These songs will all appear One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This.

The record features several high profile guest spots: Michael Stipe jumps on "Dancing on the Lip of A Volcano", Iggy Pop sings his napalm heart out on "Gimme Love and Turn on the Light", Against Me!'s Tom Gabel squeals on "Punishing World", and the Dolls' hero, Bo Diddley, sings and plays on "Seventeen". David Bowie was supposed to stop by, but it didn't work out (guess he was too busy with TV on the Radio.)

"We had a reputation of being fuck ups" said Johansen of the talk of drugs, more drugs and failure. "We want to make this big [and] special for as long as we can. And rather than do lot of the negative nihilist shit that came out in our wake, be positive."