Street Trash

AMG Review of Street Trash

Sean Westergaard
All Music Guide

Street Trash is a somewhat arbitrary pairing of some early New York Dolls studio recordings (1973) paired with a Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers live show from the '80s. The Dolls' material gives an idea of what their early set lists were like: tunes that ended up on their first album mixed with classic ock & roll. Notable here are the early versions of "It's Too Late" and "Babylon," which wouldn't appear on an album until Too Much Too Soon. Sound quality is decent, but not great.

The Thunders' set is a pretty typical outing for the Heartbreakers. No real tune surprises, but the performances are solid and the sound is pretty darn good (there are some awful sounding Thunders shows out there). All of this material has been out there before, but this isn't a bad way for a completist to pick it up. Listeners just coming to Johnny Thunders or the New York Dolls should look for more essential material, though.