New York Dolls

THE STROKES DEBUT IS THIS IT

I t’s been 25 years, going back to the first days of punk, since a New York rock band m has made an impact. Aside from a few sad indie groups, a lot of hip-hop, and a smattering of East Village outfits indulging unhealthy Johnny Thunders fantasies, the city has been in a certifiable slump—until now. Upon the release of a three-song demo at the start of the year, the Strokes were immediately anointed rock saviors—five young Manhattan scalawags with an elegant thrift-shop look, messy hair, and a surfeit of feral his-and-her sex appeal. More to the point, while the unpolished, compelling pop energy of their songs invokes much of what came before— the Violent Femmes, Television, Blondie—the band has squeezed out something fresh, untempered, and, above all, propulsive for jaded ears. In England, the Strokes have sent the weekly rock press into fits of ecstasy trying to outdo one another with expressions of infatuation. “We’re much bigger celebrities in British newspapers than we are in real life,” says front man Julian Casablancas. “We’re ecstatic and slightly freaked out.” In a recent expression of both sentiments at a show in London, a girl in the audience removed her underwear and threw it onstage. “The following day,” Casablancas says, “Albert [Hammond Jr., guitarist] wore it on his head.” This month the band releases Is This It, an album that for once justifies the command PLAY LOUD. But is this indeed it? Or will the heartland prove deaf to a band that makes New York a theme of its music? “We’re just trying to be as good as we can be,” says the 23-year-old singer, “and not get too concerned about whether we are popular or not.”

EDWARD HELMORE