Friday, August 26, 2011

The Heartbreakers -- What Goes Around ...

  1975: Johnny Thunders quits the New York Dolls, Richard Hell gets tossed out of Television, both form a group with Jerry Nolan, ex Dolls drummer, and Walter Lure, called the Heartbreakers.  By 1976 Hell leaves the group to form the Voidoids and Thunders carries on with the Heartbeakers.  What Goes Around is recorded live in '75, mostly at CBGB's, with what sounds to be a crowd of ten people.  I have to admit that the record sounds like sh*t, would I have bought it knowing this, fu*k no, am I going to keep it as a document in punk rock history, fu*k yes!  What you have here is two rockstar ego's battling it out for center stage and artistic direction of the band, it's obvisous in the track listings; you've got Voidoids classics like Love Comes In Spurts and Blank Generation, as well as Heartbreakers classics like Pirate Love and Can't Keep My Eyes On You, a couple of years before they get released separately and officially.  One track that sticks in my mind, if any, from this album is So Alone a kinda sad slow ballad sung by Thunders, I think (?).  Thunders on this number sounds, and probably is, like a junkie who's ripped off all his friends and finally faces the sickness and loneliness he has much deserved, but nonetheless cries for sympathy after everything is all said and done, it's too late, all that there is left is What Goes Around ...