SYLVAIN SYLVAIN

Sylvain Sylvain lost his long, courageous battle with cancer on January 13 this year. Egypt-born, Paris-raised, New York City-made, Sylvain was the heart and soul of the New York Dolls, the band he formed and named in 1971.

Sylvain’s guitar provided the essential complementary ice to temper his Dolls sparring partner Johnny Thunders’ singular proto-punk fire: insistent spiky shards of reliable rhythmic punch to propel the animalistic post-Dick Dale roars, yowls and caterwauls of the ungovernably mercurial Thunders.

While it’s the libertine excess of the Dolls’ rambunctious rock that lies at the heart of their enduring influence and appeal, it’s the disciplined roll provided by Sylvain, frill-free bassist Arthur Kane and cooler-than-thou swing-specialist drummer Jerry Nolan that ultimately seals the deal.

Always cast as the loyal subordinate bridesmaid to Thunders’ brassy bride, it was Sylvain who originally brought in, tutored and, with surprising team-player generosity, stood aside for the undeniable charisma bomb that was Thunders to occupy the senior guitarist’s Keef-established stage-left spotlight.

Captured in London while promoting the reunited glam legends’ One Day It Will Please Us To Remember Even This album of 2006, we join the cherubic, corkscrew-coiffed guitarist sinking ever deeper into a West End hotel bar’s leather couch as he spools back through an engaging series of snapshots from a life well lived.

When were you first possessed by rock’n’ roll?

I actually started early. I discovered I had talent when my parents moved to Buffalo, New York, next to Niagara. We’d come to America from