Illustration by Kristian Hoffman

Club 82, at 82 East 4th Street in New York’s East Village, was a well-known “high class” drag club of the 50s and 60s where the likes of Walter Winchell, Elizabeth Taylor and Errol Flynn could be seen. Down on its luck in the 70s, the space was transformed into a glam-rock club and later a disco.

In this clip, the New York Dolls, in drag (save for Johnny Thunders), perform “Pills” at Club 82 on April 17, 1974. I’m presuming this was shot by Bob Gruen, but I’m not sure.
 

 
A selection of pop’s bold in beautiful in drag.
 

Robert Plant and Roy Harper.
 

Annie Lennox in “Who’s That Girl?”
 
 
Previously on Dangerous Minds

 
More beautiful people after the jump…
 

 
A classic 70s Dolls performance caught by ace rock photographer Bob Gruen. Here the lipstick killers do “Who Are the Mystery Girls?’’ at The Matrix in San Francisco.

Thank the gods Gruen had his video camera trained on the New York Dolls in their prime. Because of him, moments like this exist for posterity. Video cameras were rare at that time and this video was no doubt shot on the ancient half-inch open reel format. Compared to today’s HD cameras, lugging something like that around would be like strapping a vacuum cleaner to your back. Very unwieldy beasties they were.
 

 
Thank you Douglas Hovey!

 
Once thought lost, but recently found and restored by Anthology Film Archives, artist/philosopher Manuel De Landa’s Super 8 Ism Ism captures his truly inspired collage mutations of New York City subway ads during the mid-to-late 70s. Slicing and dicing the perfect faces of models into deviant ghouls, Ism Ism turns the homogenate into the ripening rot of nightmares.

“Bad Girl” and “Subway Train” by the New York Dolls is the perfect soundtrack to De Landa’s animated subterranean monstrosities.
 

 
Some early, surprisingly crisp New York Dolls clips just popped up on WatchLiveShows’ YouTube channel, and, for your pleasure, here’s a pair of ‘em.  Being in black-and-white, they definitely pack a certain grittiness absent from those glammier, Old Grey Whistle Test clips floating around online. 

An alarmingly lanky David Johansen‘s comment from the Max’s Kansas City stage that Trash just came out on 45 dates clip one to ‘73ish (but they weren’t, to my great sadness, ever on Wonderama).

In clip two, the Dolls shred through Human Being, the mighty closing track from their second studio album, Too Much Too Soon.  What these clips lack in sound quality is more than made up for in conviction!  See if you agree: