Standing Over By The Record Machine: The Heartbreakers’ The L.A.M.F. Demo Sessions is not another repackage of the same ol’ tapes.

Hear Johnny Thunders’ best band not called “the New York Dolls” woodshed for their sole studio shot.

The Heartbreakers (l-r: Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, Billy Rath, and Walter Lure chowing down on his daly apple) in another outtake from Roberta Bayley’s classic L.A.M.F. sleeve shoot, New York City, 1977.

Hello, world. I tap these syllables out still in a sick bed, as I did in my last post. I am finding that COVID-19 doesn’t give a good goddamn about whatever agenda you might have. You may be through with it, but it will be through with you whenever it’s damned well good and ready. And you have no choice but to go along with whatever hellride it’s gonna take you on. Then again, isn’t this what we’ve learned about viruses from the glut of zombie apocalypse TV shows the last 10+ years?

After three days of feeling like I was suffering through the worst case of flu in the annals of flu-dom, I awoke Friday feeling more like I was having a sinus attack. So I thought, “Oh! Let’s take a COVID test!”

Nope. Still positive.

And I thought, “Oh, well. I hear these things may take up to ten days. But, hey! I’m feeling pretty good! I’ll wash dishes, do laundry….Hey! I’ll even put on long trousers!”

Maybe two hours later, I felt as exhausted as I did 10 years ago, working day labor gigs in Denver, stuff like demolishing decommissioned Wal Marts and the like. 

So, yeah. Back to drinking tankards of Emergen-C and binge-watching That ‘90s Show on Netflix. (Yes, a review is forthcoming.) Only that gets old, no matter how many pleasant echoes of elementary school sick days back in the ‘70s this may hold.

One cool thing which happened (which I really don’t think is related to getting ill) was a metric fuck-ton of great rock ‘n’ roll records arriving in the mail. As I regain strength, I can easily throw down 500 words per day on each of these until I have some killer reviews for you. And I can’t think of a better place to start than….

HEARTBREAKERS – The L.A.M.F. Demo Sessions (Jungle Records UK import) magenta vinyl LP

“It was that classic sound, what rock ‘n’ roll should be,” ex-Pistol Glen Matlock told Billboard six years back, re: the magic of the Heartbreakers’ L.A.M.F. album. “A perfect three-minute pop-rock song, played great, with a great attitude, that’s about something with some consequence. You can’t say it much better than that.”

“We were the headline band!” he continues, recounting the Sex Pistols’ first “starstruck” encounters with the New York Dolls offshoots. “But they had a real cocksure arrogance about them. They didn’t look anything like the New York Dolls. They looked kind of like Puerto Rican gangsters, in dark suits. Just the way they played, they really had it.”

Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakersian guitar foil, Walter Lure, once sniffed to Dolls/Thunders/Heartbreakers biographer Nina Antonia that the key to the sway they’ve held over blank generation imaginations all these years was that they were “a rock band in the middle of punk.” I’d have to add “‘n’ roll” to that “rock,” for accuracy’s sake. Because this is the truth – the ‘Breakers had a lot more Chuck Berry to ‘em than Richard Hell, despite his maybe 18 months in the band. Thunders and his fellow ex-Doll Jerry Nolan took their initial claim to fame’s big beat and roaring guitar sound, as well as its fealty to the two-minute/three-chord song, and stripped it down to a fuel-injected rat rod framework. That this was darker and more narcotized than the Dolls made them perfect for a new era. And every London punk band from the Pistols on down learned the value of playing great rock ‘n’ roll from ‘em, even as they taught their glam refugee elders a thing or two about how to dress and hack their hair. And if it weren’t for their anthem “Chinese Rocks’” subject matter, with which they were intimately familiar, they might still walk among us, lords of Italian loafers and overdriven Gibsons. Well, that and the infamously muddy mastering job under which L.A.M.F. suffered.

After numerous attempts to give that full-length its sonic due, the best being The Found ‘77 Masters from two years back, Jungle Records now provides us with an in-depth look at The Heartbreakers woodshedding in various demo studios, The L.A.M.F. Demo Sessions. Previously scattered across various box sets and other releases, this is the first comprehensive collation of the various recordings documenting the development of the band’s key songs and sound.

Basically Disc 3 of Jungle’s now-out-of-print L.A.M.F.: The Definitive Edition box set from several years back finally brought to vinyl and given a tweaked running order, The L.A.M.F. Demo Sessions proves the Heartbreakers hardly arrived fully-formed. If anything, the tracks most resembling the band we know and love are this record’s first three and last three. The trio opening Side One are Speedy Keen-produced demos cut at London’s Essex Studios on Feb. 20 & 22, 1977. Comprising “Born Too Loose,” “Chinese Rocks,” and “Let Go,” and previously released on a 1983 Jungle 12-inch, they’re clearly a dry run for L.A.M.F. in execution and production. Thunders and Lure’s dogfight guitars have every slur and sabretooth tonality firmly in place, the finest demonstration of an overdriven Fender tube amp’s worth. Nolan’s drums pummel hard and propel the works with skill and power. Billy Rath’s bass provides a solid foundation and strong lashes of fatback r&b grooviness. You hear interesting quirks and twists that didn’t make it to the proper LP sessions, such as a dollop of spacey delay on “Chinese Rocks’” “oohs” and “ahhs.” The vocals are also more prominently mixed than we’d eventually hear them. But the differences between these and the finished masters are minimal.

Perhaps these come first so we’re not shocked by what follows?

“Can’t Keep My Eyes On You,” “I Love You,” “It’s Not Enough,” “Do You Love Me,” “Take A Chance,” and a second “Born To Lose” (note the change in spelling) follow from Rath’s first studio session as a Heartbreaker, from Staten Island’s Jay Nap Studios in Fall 1976. It’s instructive to note the presence of tunes that didn’t make L.A.M.F.’s final track listing, including Lure/Nolan’s “Eyes” and “Chance,” as well as the Contours cover “Do You Love Me.” Peculiar, considering all were strong songs that were highlights of the band’s live sets. Hearing the drummer take lead vocal on his own co-writes, and doing so well. Equally, he was the rare drummer who wrote strong material, and played drums so musically, Lure frequently wrote songs off of beats Nolan tossed off as afterthoughts or use as warm-up exercises. “Get Off The Phone” and “All By Myself,” neither of which are present here, are notable examples of the duo’s songcraft. Otherwise, these are sonically very much demos, awash in reverb, a cleaner guitar tone for Lure, and drums so thinly recorded that Nolan would definitely have quit were these finished masters! Then there’s the alternate early lyric on “Lose,” and slight arrangement quirks on the Spectoresque jangler “Enough” sufficiently different as to be noticeable. They’re clearly a work in progress at this point, though they’re maybe 85% there.

What’s really rough are the sole sessions with Hell from SBS Studios in Yonkers, cut January 1976. Comprising all the non-Hell tracks – no “Blank Generation,” “Love Comes In Spurts” or “Hurt Me” here – these takes of “I Wanna Be Loved,” “Going Steady,” “Flight” and the Red Patent Leather Dolls leftover “Pirate Love” are noticeably slower and even less well-produced than their final renditions. Well, save for Lure’s Byrds-like “Flight,” his sole lead vocal in the Hell era, and one which didn’t survive past that period. Surprising – it’s a strong tune. Was it vetoed by Nolan, who was notoriously against anything that smacked dangerously close to being a ballad? Perhaps. It’s good to have it ultimately preserved here. It’s equally killer hearing Hell’s beautiful, nimble bass work throughout. Punk’s original poetic conscience contributed a lot more to the Heartbreakers than their drummer was willing to admit.

The album ends with the final three studio recordings the Heartbreakers made in their initial run, from Riverside Studios in London in December 1977. L.A.M.F. came out with that rotten mastering job that suggested the title stood for Like A Muddy Flub. Nolan quit over it, playing the tour as a sideman. The Clash’s original drummer Terry Chimes attempted to take Nolan’s place behind the kit. For this three track session produced by Mike Thorne for a potential E.M.I. deal, Chimes acquits himself well, playing parts on another leftover Dolls arrangement – their rendition of the Shangri-Las’ “Give Her A Great Big Kiss” – and Lure’s Bo Diddley re-write “Too Much Junkie Business” virtually identical to Nolan. But Terry Chimes is no Jerry Nolan. He’s ultimately better than many post-Nolan ‘Breakers drummers, such as Ty Stix. And it’s great to hear the final proper HBs lineup roar through “London Boys,” Thunders’ clapback at the Pistols for “New York.”

But still, it bears repeating: Terry Chimes is no Jerry Nolan. No one is. Just as there’s no other Johnny Thunders, Walter Lure, or Billy Rath. It’s what these men brought to the meat grinder that remains steady, from these demos to the finished album: Thunders’ rock ‘n’ roll swagger and trashcan guitartistry, and gloriously overdriven tone; Nolan’s immaculately inventive drums; Lure’s British Blues Boom-bred six string heroics; Rath’s low-end hooliganism. The L.A.M.F. Demo Sessions is certainly a worthy release, and not a mere repackage of several other repackages. It should rightfully be filed alongside The Found ‘77 Masters, the ultimate representation of L.A.M.F. There’s equal value in these worktapes. They represent the sweat, care and craftsmanship that went into the Heartbreakers, making them so special.

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