He released four albums on the Blue Sky label-the most recent is called ''Sweet Revenge''-carrying the Dolls` tradition of urbane topics and minimal melodies to an increasingly appreciative cult crowd.
It`s a good way to get to people.''Īfter the Dolls broke up in 1979, Johansen began recording and performing under his own name.
they`re also talking about some sort of variety show, with different guests every week. Johansen feels that ''TV is a good medium for Poindexter'' because it will expose his nightclub act to a nationwide audience. ''It turns people on to this whole musical heritage.'' Everything from a gurgly Louis Armstrong growl to an Eric Burden whimper comes from Poindexter during the hour-plus set. ''What we`re doing is real Americana,'' he says, listing the eras of music commonly covered in a Poindexter show-1920s jazz, the crooner age, early dance-party R&B, big band swing. ''You go through periods when you think you`ve heard it all, and then you find whole gold mines of stuff that you never even heard about. Since we`ve been doing the show live, a lot of people, you know, archivists, have come up with tapes and tapes of stuff. ''I started doing it as a hobby, just going through my record collection and taking the songs I really wanted to sing. He began inventing Poindexter two years ago. ''It`s great when you can invent yourself like that,'' Johansen says with a straight face. He tells jokes in highbrow diction and spins free-associative yarns about his Buster upbringing, meeting Liberace and learning songs from Noel Coward in Jamaica. He motions for a sing-along and the next minute the people in the audience yelp in unison, as if they knew the words all along. His eyebrows convey the drama of song, Poindexter style. He starts with a flurry of high camp, mixing Wynonie Harris` ''Good Morning, Judge'' with his original jump-rumba ''Everybody`s Going Cannibal'' and a thick bayou version of ''House of the Rising Sun.'' He bubbles around the stage like a hyperactive Ed Sullivan, at once singer and master of ceremonies. Even in my wildest rock and roll days, people thought of me primarily as an entertainer-the medium isn`t the most important thing to me.'' After about five minutes, the rock audience is having so much fun with Buster that it doesn`t matter they don`t think I`ve abandoned the ship or anything. We didn`t want them to expect a David Johansen show. ''We did the name change (Poindexter was borrowed from Johansen`s music publishing company) so that when people came in they wouldn`t get hit with this personality crisis or something.
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