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Johnny
Thunders is a rock and roll icon and I don’t think this concert
DVD does justice to his talents as a guitarist or frontman.
Recorded at Club Citta in Osaka Japan on April 3rd
1991, Who’s Been Talking? features the kind of performance
that’s at times so mild and average one even wonders what was it
about Thunders that attracted so many or made him a star. Most
of the performance is indeed so flat, a point could be made that
Thunders should have never left the pub circuit. Judging by
Who’s Been Talking? Thunders can play the guitar, but he is
nowhere near his original status as a hero. Granted at the time
this was filmed he was in full junkie mode; a fact that is
further put in evidence by his skeletical complexion and poor
abilities to handle the mike and the guitar at the same time. He
does one or the other, but never even tries to pull both at
once.
Johnny Thunders
was born John Anthony Genzale Jr on July 15, 1952 in New York
City. In 1968, while frequenting a West Village bar named
Nobody’s, he met Arthur Kane and Billy Murcia. He would then
join the two on the band Actress, which would eventually evolve
into The New York Dolls. With them, he’d record two commercially
unsuccessful albums (the self-titled debut and Too Much Too
Soon). Upon the band’s break up, Thunders would join other
punk luminaries (Demon’s Walter Lure, Television’s Richard Hell,
the Dolls’ Jerry Nolan) in The Heartbreakers. In 1979, he’d move
onto Gang War with MC5 stellar guitarist Wayne Kramer, but that
project was short lived.
Around the same
time he had also started releasing solo albums; starting up with
1978’s So Alone and through a string of albums during the
80’s.. During that decade Thunders’ music varied in
quality, a fact that was at least partly the result of his
heroin addiction. Which is where Who’s Been Talking comes into
the picture. The situation was well described in the book Please
Kill Me, that magnificent oral history of New York punk.
Thunders was short on money and accepts an offer for a handful
of shows in Japan. A few were electric, like the ones featured
on Who’s Been Talking? while some others saw Thunders performing
acoustic sets with a reduced band.
The set list is
comprised of mostly covers (from Ray Charles to The Monkees to
his old New York Dolls) and a few original Thunders’ penned
songs. For the most part Who’s Been Talking? Is highly
forgettable footage of a pub band playing covers. Even with a
full band that includes two guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, a
saxophone player and a female singer, the stage seems bare and
empty, sadly, the same can be said about the performance and the
soul of the band.
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