Buster Pointdexter “Buster’s Spanish Rocketship”
The first thing you notice about “Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” the new Martin Scorsece documentary about David Johansen, is the class of the joint. The walls of Cafe Carlyle are adorned with two murals by French artist and Academy Award-winning costume designer, Marcel Vertes. The lemon peels in the drinks are tiny, delicate works of art. The crowd is tony. The air rich. The location — the corner of Madison and Seventy-Sixth — is a long way from Max’s and the Mercer Art’s Center — not to mention Staten Island.
The second thing you notice is Johansen’s head. It’s massive, even if you discount the pompadour. But with the hair, it’s whatever is more massive than massive. He frames it with a pencil thin beard and mustache (with a European accent on the second syllable of “mustache”) that would be criminal on literally anyone else in the world but which he pulls off with aplomb. Even his face itself — part Herman Munster, part Mr. Potato Head and part Mick Jagger — is too big for his neck and body. Since he was a young man, Johansen’s face appeared somehow both too old and too young for his age. But what makes the least sense of all is that he makes it all work. David Johansen playing Buster Pointdexter singing the songs of David Johansen looks fabulous.
The third thing is the thing that’s so obvious that it’s normally the first thing mentioned: his voice. The son of a Norwegian insurance salesman who, in his spare time, sang the big hymns in church and the holiest of holy songs in temples, Johansen inherited the gift to sell and to belt from his father. But genealogy only explains part of his instrument. Though in The Dolls he was frequently likened to Mick Jagger — with Johnny Thunders playing the part of Keith — Johansen has always had the voice of an older bluesman. There’s a stray cat guile in his affect that is similar to Jaggers’, but the more apt comparisons are undoubtedly Howlin Wolf, Louis Armstrong and Eric Burdon. It’s a big, booming instrument, emanating from a mouth too large for his face — too large for any face. More than he “sings” songs, David Johansen swallows them whole and then croaks them out.
And then, finally, there’s the fourth thing, which is really just the sum of the first three. Given the place, the face and the voice — and all that style — the picture really starts to coalesce. It’s high and it’s low. It’s glitz and gutter. Funky but chic. It’s what Laren Stover called in her “Bohemian Manifesto” the “Dandy Bohemian.” According to Stover, there are five types of Bohemians, but it is this last variety that Johansen fully personifies. Stover describes it thusly: “A little seedy, a little haughty, slightly shredded or threadbare, Dandies are the most polished of all Bohemians, even when their clothes are tattered.” David Johansen, the Dandy Bohemian. That’s the fourth thing.
If David Johansen is the Dandy Bohemian, his first cousin is Tom Waits, the “Beat Bohemian,” which Stover defines as: “Reckless, raggedy, rambling, drifting, down-and-out, Utopia-seeking. It may seem like Beats suffer for their ideals, but they have let go of material desire. Beats jam, improvise, extemporize, blow ethereal notes into the universe, write poetry, ramble and wreck cars. They live on the edge of ideas.” The two men — Johansen and Waits — are united by many factors. The rasp and growl of their voices. The years in which they came of age. The heavy affect of their personas. The fact that both men (more than) dabbled in screen acting. But, Johansen is the Bohemian with sartorial splendor while Waits is the tousled, hobo jazzman. Johansen is the “fun drunk.” Waits is the fall down drunk, asleep at the piano. For Johansen, the Fifties became the Seventies. Early Rock and Roll and R&B are part of the forumula, but the later sixties counterculture much less so. There are no high ideals, only artifice and then dissolution. For Waits, the war, the folk scene, the high ideas and their hangovers are all too real.
“Personality Crisis: One Night Only,” which captures the singer at his older, more wizened and natty best, might sound like the story of a man with many faces. But, in fact, the doc confirms something profoundly obvious: that David Johansen is a singular man with a singular face. He’s always been a barfly, a cabaret act, aesthetically obsessive, but creatively fluid. His one thing has always been his many things. And so, in that way, Johansen as the Dandy Bohemian is not the revelation. What’s less obvious, and more provocative, is the idea that his most honest guise — the one closest to his actual personality — might be the one we’ve spent years trying to explain away.
For decades now, the prevailing discourse has been that Buster Pointdexter was “the act.” That the tuxedo, giant pompadour, martini glasses, Jump Blues, and Eighties Club Med by way of Fifties Havana vibes was David Johansen having a go at everyone. That ten years after the demise of the New York Dolls — the world’s greatest band that never had a chance — and years after working and working and working his way around the world with the David Johansen Band but ending up exactly where he started (nowhere), he needed to make us laugh so we wouldn’t cry. Buster Pointdexter was supposed to be a serious good time, but also in no way serious. It was a lark. A costume. Closer to Tenacious D than to The Dolls.
But then, through karmic circumstance, or the ultimate irony or impeccable timing, the impossible happened — Buster Pointdexter scored a hit. “Hot Hot Hot,” a raucous Calypso-for-the-suburbs cover, made its way up the Pop charts. Buster’s self-titled debut followed suit and then, one day, “Hot Hot Hot” was being played at every resort, wedding, bar mitzvah, sweet sixteen, bachelor and bachelorette party in America. Eventually, David Johansen (as Buster Pointdexter) found himself singing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. For the better part of a decade, he could literally not afford to tour as himself. The demand was for Buster. For every request of “Trash” or “Frenchette” there were thousands of drunk, sunburned tourists demanding “Hot Hot Hot.”
Though Buster Pointdexter might have appeared like a sadistic joke to New York Dolls fans, he was, in reality, an effective commercial for the actor playing the part. “Hot Hot Hot” launched the acting career of David Johansen who, in addition to his unlikely ascent up the Pop charts, parlayed his hit into a film career. Soon after “Hot Hot Hot,” Johansen scored roles in “Scrooged,” alongside Bill Murray, “Let It Ride,” alongside Richard Dreyfuss, and, most critically, “Mr. Nanny,” alongside Hulk Hogan and Sherman Hemsley.
What started out as a one off stunt — a mildly embarrassing side hustle even — became a career. Whereas The New York Dolls released just two official albums over five years during their initial run, and where the David Johansen Band released four studio albums in their eight years together, Buster outlasted them all. As tremendous as those first two Dolls albums are and as almost great as his solo records could be, there was always a sense that David Johansen was pushing against something. Against the chaos of his band. Against the constraints of Rock and Roll. Against the scale of the third-tier arenas. Against the zeitgeist.
Buster, on the other hand, appeared effortless. What’s more, Buster was not a phase. He was not an alter ego or an id. Looking back now, Buster Pointdexter was the thing. The barfly. The eclecticism. The freedom. The party. The clothes. The hair. The band. The space wherein Johansen could be what he wanted to be, but also wherein his desires coincided with the zeitgeist. Though decades later it sounds like an ad for an over-sixty Caribbean cruise, in 1989 “Hot Hot Hot” was both singular and prescient. Without Buster Poindexter, there’s Big Bad Voodoo Daddy or “Swingers.” In fact, there’s probably no big-haired vocalist bandleaders — no Harry Connick Junior and no Michael Bublé.
By most accounts Buster Pointdexter and his band — The Banshees of Blue — were something to behold live. Lots of horns. Extra percussion. Able to make the turn from Swing to Zydeco to Jump Blues to Cabaret without missing a beat. A real party — with the consummate host out front, holding the crowd with his booming voice, his smooth transitions and his on-stage banter.
The Buster Pointdexter albums, conversely, survive as curiosities — as thrift store relics once acquired for a single song or for a funny cover image or on account of a great late night talk show performance. Most of their customers knew little (or nothing at all) about The New York Dolls and The David Johansen Band. And while they were warmly reviewed, rarely were those albums seriously considered by critics. It was widely understood that they were novelty albums from a once important artist playing dress up.
And there is of course more than a sliver of truth to all that. But also, there are delirious performances by superb players of thrilling songs across all four Buster Pointdexter albums. Those records don’t squawk. They don’t grind or push. They swing. Buster’s self-titled debut features ten, well selected covers and one divine original (“Heart of Gold”). The fast follower is lighter, but also more tired — a necessary, if reluctant response to sudden market demand. And the third album, which arrived five years after the second and after Johansen’s season in Hollywood, is a fun, fitting tribute to the pleasure (and pain) of alcohol. But it’s the fourth one — the final one — that most defies logic while also validating my thesis.
“Buster’s Spanish Rocketship” was released in 1997, when David Johansen was forty-seven years old and during a moment when the Swing revival was cresting in America. Named for Buster’s new, seventeen piece band (including seven horns and three percussionists), the album includes thirteen songs, all of which were either written or co-written by Johansen. Ironically, however, it features very little, if any, Swing. Eternally ahead of his time, Buster eschewed the trend he’d helped kick off and pivoted to a new one, just a few short years before Shakira would cross over and make it official.
Though he is in no way Latin, and though his New Yawk Spanglish is played mostly for laughs, “Buster’s Spanish Rocketship” still succeeds as something more than a gag. In fact, it succeeds over and over for nearly an hour. A great deal of credit is undoubtedly due to de facto bandleader and lead guitarist, Brian Konnin who, according to Johansen, has kept the band in “tip top shape” for four decades (and counting). While every song on “Buster’s Spanish Rocketship” sounds like a David Johansen invention, it’s seems implausible that they could have been birthed without Koonin writing parts and arrangements for Buster’s words and melodies.
“Buster’s Spanish Rocketship” is a series of odes, jokes and tall tales, dreamed up by Johansen, mixed with some tequila, and then set ablaze by Koonin’s band. True to its title, the album features Salsa, Merengue, Rhumba and even some Tejano music. But, unlike previous Buster records, every track here is an original David Johansen composition. “Ondine,” the opener, sets the vibe. Conga next to conga. Horn next to horn. Buster howling about the mythical sea nymph while sipping cocktails on a Fifties cruise from Miami to Havana. It’s a throwback. It’s a great time. And it’s just the beginning. The Latin Rocketship cooks, slowing down only occasionally, and only just long enough to breathe. At times, they run a beat too hot. On songs like "Inez (Is Just a Big Rage Queen)” and “My First Sin” charm and romance are traded for velocity — it’s too much too soon.
Johansen’s mouth — like his head (and presumably his brain) — is positively huge. It’s no doubt what allows him to sing so many syllables per line and so many words per verse. It’s also what makes salsa and merengue excellent fits for his skill set. That being said, I’ve always preferred his mid-tempo numbers. The Dolls’ “Lonely Planet Boy.” “Vietnamese Baby.” “Donna,” from his solo debut. “Heart of Gold.” Those songs where he can stretch out, emote and milk it a bit; because, even when he’s slow, he’s always a little fast.
Which is why, when the rhythms get frantic, the rocketship starts to rattle a little. And also why, when Koonin steadies the engine, Buster’s woozy jazz really lands. “Mean Spirited Sal” is a hootin’ and hollerin’ Salsa party. Just a great fucking time. “Linda Lee” is a hip-shaker — “Tequila” by way of Buddy Holly, with the most evocative couplet on the album (She's got a carnival inside her / She’s got a thousand girls inside her). And, on “Iris Chacon,” as Buster recalls his father recalling the fearless, busty, irrepressible, titular entertainer, the phallic spaceship gets a little excited. It’s the sort of song that Jonathan Richman might have written if he were a little hornier and if he were from The Bronx instead of Boston. And, I mean that as high praise.
Shortly after Buster’s swan song, Johansen formed The Harry Smiths and recorded a duo of traditional American Folk and Blues music albums. And then, in 2004, at the request of Morrissey, he reformed The New York Dolls, with Arthur Kane, Sylvain Sylvain and Brian Koonin by his side. The Dolls’ resurrection lasted longer than anyone expected — longer than their implosive first run. It spawned three new studio albums, two of which received rapturous praise. And it offered Johansen and Sylvain, a long overdue moment in the sun, touring the world and rewriting history.
Though The Dolls’ prologue was not without its tragedy (Arthur Kane died in 2004 and did not appear on any of their later albums; Sylvain Sylvain died in January 2021), it succeeded in one very particular aspect. Its success was not so much the performances, which were lively and honorific. It was not so much the albums, which were very good but which neither enhanced nor diminished their history. And it was not the riches — neither Johansen nor Sylvain’s fortunes were particularly changed by The Dolls’ second run. It was more in how it resolved the ellipse at the end of the first chapter. How it gave an aging artist permission to be a young Punk one more time. And then, most of all, how it settled the issue of Johansen’s personality crisis — which was never really a crisis at all. After The Dolls, David Johansen could be himself. A dandy bohemian. The dandy bohemian.
Buster Pointdexter was never the mask. It was always the face.