Billy Murcia: the tragic death of the New York Dolls’ heartbeat
Death haunts rock ‘n’ roll. Its spectre follows the medium like a shadow and, at least in the public eye, has done ever since Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and Buddy Holly took that fateful plane ride in 1959. In a way, this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
For centuries, young people have been getting in too deep with their chosen artistic medium and losing themselves entirely to it. Rock ‘n’ roll is no different, but it also seems better suited to casualties than most other forms of art, as the New York Dolls chillingly prove.
As one of the bands that defined the movement that would later grow into punk rock, The New York Dolls exuded that live fast, die young energy that has always been associated with rock ‘n’ roll. They were here to shock, appal, excite, titillate, basically change lives with the fleeting time they had on the planet. Life was quite simply too short not to leave a lasting impression on all you meet and, tragically, the Dolls found this out the hard way.
The band began life from the ashes of a go-nowhere garage band called The Pox, which featured Sylvan Mizrahi on guitar and the Bogotá, Colombia-born drummer Billy Murcia. After The Pox fizzled out, Mizrahi (who’d taken on the name Sylvain Sylvain) and Murcia resolved to continue playing together, with Sylvain noticing the New York Doll hospital across the road from the boutique he worked in and feeling like it could work as a really good band name.
After a few aborted attempts at putting The Dolls together, Sylvain befriended Johnny Thunders and Arthur Kane, inviting them to join him and Murcia. Thus, the first incarnation of this most influential band came together. When Thunders insisted that Murcia take up the drums and enlist his friend David Johansen on vocals, the classic lineup of the New York Dolls formed for the first time in 1971. It would last a single year.
What happened to Billy Murcia of the New York Dolls?
Despite being an abrasive, aggressive proto-punk band that could barely play, The New York Dolls got industry attention right from the off. Perhaps that’s not such a surprise, though, given how impossible they were to ignore. After their residency at the Mercer Arts Centre became the stuff of legend, the band signed a manager and found their first high-profile fan, Faces frontman and solo superstar Rod Stewart, who invited them to London to open a solo show of his.
The New York Dolls, fatefully, decided to make the most of this opportunity. They booked a tour around the Rod Stewart show, their rationale being that the London glam rock scene would welcome them with open arms. They were arguably too right about this, as after one of their shows, they were invited back to a house party, where Murcia ended up overdosing on pills similar to Quaaludes. Tragically, that wasn’t what killed him.
Instead, it was the witless fucks that he was partying with who killed him. They thought, rather than call an ambulance, they’d instead tip a pot of coffee down his unconscious throat, shove him in an ice-cold bath and then scarper. Leaving Murcia to drown rather than actually helping him when he needed it most. Murcia was 21 years old.
The Dolls kept going eventually, replacing Murcia with Jerry Nolan. However, the damage to the band was done, and each member has said that the band was never the same after Murcia died. After all, for all the romantic ideas of leaving a beautiful corpse, the reality of a young life being snuffed out decades before its prime is horrifying. It’s one that we’d do well to remember next time we encounter anyone waxing lyrical about the 27 Club. Some people don’t even make it that far.
