A little more than a week ago we got the news that David Johansen died.

Because I only knew of one song David Johansen performed (more on that in a minute, please stay with me because it’s a great story) I decided to give his band, New York Dolls, a listen in tribute.

There are two albums, basically: ‘New York Dolls’ and ‘In Too Much Too Soon’.

They were not big smashes, and the label dropped the band, and I think they performed live a bunch before the band fell apart.

The music is very of its time - early 70’s - or at least that’s what it sounds like to me. I actually think they were an influential band helping create that sound, unless I read something wrong.

David Johansen sounds remarkably like Mick Jagger to me.

I kept thinking of the game ‘Guitar Hero’ hearing the songs - any one of their songs would have been fun to play in that game.

Now on to David Johansen’s alter ego.

I will tell you exactly when I found out that David Johansen was Buster Poindexter - I found the Facebook post where I first told this story. (I searched ‘Sucich and Poindexter’ and among the zillions upon zillions of posts on that site it was a unique combination of words and popped right up.)

I wrote something similar to what I’m about to tell you on September 24, 2012. That was the week of a show my brother was playing in upstate New York - on a Saturday night in September he was opening for David Johansen.

What made that so remarkable was that in 1987 we went to the Ground Round with a friend of ours, and rode in their car, and his parents played ‘Hot Hot Hot’ - I think they had a cassette. My brother loved that song. (We all loved it.) He ended up getting the single, though, and playing it to death.

So it was wild that he was opening that night for the man who sang ‘Hot Hot Hot', albeit under a different guise.

But hearing that Matt opened for Johansen is how I discovered that Johansen was Poindexter.

So, though I was totally unfamiliar with the music of New York Dolls until this past week…Johansen had a pretty big cultural impact.

My family talked about him a lot without knowing it…and I think anyone who attended a wedding or party with a DJ in the late ‘80s probably did too. You couldn’t escape ‘Hot Hot Hot.’

It was a fun song and a fun part of our family for a period of time.

Thanks for that, David Johansen.