Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Personality Crisis: One Night Only’ on Showtime, A Martin Scorsese-Directed Doc Where Singer David Johansen Interprets His Life And Songbook

 From directors Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi, and director of photography Ellen Kuras, Personality Crisis: One Night Only (Showtime) is a hybrid of live performance and life story featuring David Johansen, who blazed a punk rock trail with The New York Dolls in the 1970s, morphed into ‘80s gadabout Buster Poindexter, and has thrived as a pursuer of music, art, and culture across the span of time. As Johansen holds court on stage at New York’s Cafe Carlyle, Personality Crisis jumps through time to capture him in various interviews and incarnations, as well as his relentless flair for showmanship.  

PERSONALITY CRISIS: ONE NIGHT ONLY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

The Gist: People huddle at cocktail tables in the half-gloom of The Cafe Carlyle, in the shadow of the restaurant and lounge’s beautiful mural. Debbie Harry, the artist Penny Arcade, and other New York luminaries are in the room. And with his vamp and introduction – “The best pompadour in the business!” – David Johansen sidles from back bar to bandstand and launches into “Funky But Chic,” from his 1978 solo debut following the demise of The New York Dolls. “I don’t wear nothin’ not too fussy or neat, I just want somethin’ to be able to walk down your street!” It’s January 2020, and everyone’s gathered to hear Johansen swagger through a few selections from his lengthy career, cabaret-style.    

Personality Crisis: One Night Only, named for the punchy Dolls rave-up from their 1973 debut, features Johansen and his band moving through boutique versions of his classic material as he places the songs in time with recollections, ruminative backstory, and an ease with humor and insight that speaks to his comfort on stage. This guy’s a showman, and in accompanying interviews conducted by his stepdaughter, the writer and filmmaker Leah Hennessey, Johansen discusses the cultural firmament of late 60s and early 70s New York, when he was immersed in everything from the music curation and film experiments of Harry Smith and the “intelligent ridiculousness” of Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies to Ridiculous Theatre’s campy hijinks and the hip art and music scene at Max’s Kansas City. Archival footage of the New York Dolls in performance and excerpts from Andy Warhol movies completes the look.

Johansen, of course, is also a transformer. After the heady, blistering punk excess of the Dolls, he worked as a solo artist before becoming Buster Poindexter in the 80s, a slick and outsized performer’s persona that afforded him license to explore. (He remembers the one hit wonder “Hot Hot Hot” with a grimace.) And while he bore witness to a lot of showbiz tragedy – “There’s a lot more dead people than there are living” – Johansen says he never tired of his own hustles, of his musical curiosity and appetite to create. “Music to me – they say playing music, not working music.” Did he establish punk rock’s template with the New York Dolls? Maybe. Probably. But it’s always been about play, about being mischievous. “I just wanted to bring those walls down,” he says of society and the squares. “Have a party.” And with the Carlyle set in 2020, he proves to still be doing exactly that. 

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Martin Scorsese was also at the helm for the 2005 music documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. And David Tedeschi, who co-directs Personality Crisis in addition to editing the doc, also edited No Direction and Shine a Light, Scorsese’s 2008 film about The Rolling Stones. The younger David Johansen, seen in some electrifying footage from the New York Dolls days, certainly seems to have taken note of Mick Jagger’s signature shimmy.  

Performance Worth Watching: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome The Boys in the Band Band. In Personality Crisis, Brian Koonin (guitar), Keith Cotton (keys), Ray Grappone (drums), and Richard Hammond (bass) back David Johansen with a feather’s touch, stone cold licks, pocket and groove perfection, and the enthusiasm and offhand cool to match the man Grappone affectionately refers to as “Boss.”   

Memorable Dialogue: Johansen is on stage at the Carlyle, Tom Collins glass in hand, and leaning back on the piano with a rakish comfortability. In planning for this set with his band, he tells the room, “We decided that we would do Buster Poindexter – that’s me – singing the songs of David Johansen. That’s me. Because I know those songs. So here we are, both of us.” 

Sex and Skin: Morrissey was and is such a head for the New York Dolls that he was president of their UK fan club as a teenager. And he says that while Johansen and the Dolls were the most intelligent, the most witty, and the most violent of pop stars – “They were the answer to everything, but of course, too dangerous” – the cultural establishment of the 1970s just couldn’t handle a bunch of guys who embraced taboo, flaunted androgyny, dressed in women’s clothing, and tweaked conventional sexuality with confrontational glee.  

Our Take: If you ever listen to David Johansen’s Mansion of Fun program on SiriusXM — at various points in Personality Crisis, we see and hear him recording it for the satellite broadcaster — then you’ll understand the power of his voice as rich text. It’s a distinct instrument, amplified and gravelly, totally built for radio because it was galvanized by a zillion cigarettes and just as many microphones in rock clubs and “hockey rinks,” as he calls any arena larger than the intimate Cafe Carlyle. Johansen’s voice is a magnet, and that’s before you gravitate to the meat of it, word choice and subject matter. In the interview portions of Personality Crisis, he’s often asked about his inspirations in that regard, and he’ll invariably conjure a specific instance. The title of the New York Dolls song and this doc itself came from a peculiar turn of phrase used by his Ridiculous Theatre pals Charles Ludlum and Bill Vehr. There’s also “Maimed Happiness,” another Dolls song from 2006, in which he drew on a line of text from the philosopher William James. When he’s asked in another interview about the binders he keeps, where lyrics and notes interact with a plethora of images and other visual prompts, he says it’s all a way of keeping his mind active and creative fire lit. One of the things Personality Crisis does well to illustrate is how much David Johansen has been a sieve for information, charged connections, and the perfect word or phrase to sing or shout.     

Our Call: STREAM IT. At its center, Personality Crisis: One Night Only is a platform for a consummate showman, and David Johansen, together with the exquisite framing and lighting of his Carlyle Cafe set, seats the viewer in the room. But it’s equal parts biography and memoir, too, of its subject but also the New York City from whence he came, with all of its grime, glam, and artistic creatures of the night. 

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges