Walter Lure & the Waldos at the Bowery Electric

Takto Nakai & Walter Lure

Walter Lure, born in Queens and raised in Long Island, started guitar lessons at age 12 but stopped until he played in cover bands while in college in the late 1960s. His first exposure to the downtown music scene in New York City was in the glam punk Demons in the 1970s. Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan left the New York Dolls in 1975, formed the Heartbreakers with Richard Hell, who had just left Television, and recruited Lure to join the band. The Heartbreakers ruled the New York club circuit and toured England with the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Damned, but achieving only underground success in New York City and England, the Heartbreakers split in 1978. Lure formed two short-lived bands, the Hurricanes and the Heroes, before forming the Waldos in 1986. Along the way, he played in many Heartbreakers reunions until Thunders died in 1991. In 1993, the Waldos released a debut album, Rent Party. Since 1995 the Waldos has consisted of Lure, guitarist Tak "Takto" Nakai, bassist Takanori "EZ" Ichiuji, and drummer Joe Rizzo . The Waldos, now rechristened Walter Lure & the Waldos, released Wacka Lacka Boom Bop A Loom Bam Boo, the band's first album in 25 years, on August 17, 2018. The lead track, "Crazy Kids," will be featured in the forthcoming full-length film Thunders: Room 37, which dramatizes the final days of Johnny Thunders.

Walter Lure & the Waldos perform in New York City about once every two months, and usually at the Bowery Electric. The set tonight featured newer songs from Wacka Lacka Boom Bop A Loom Bam Boo as well as many of the songs Lure wrote or co-wrote for the Heartbreakers. The set started with three songs from the current album, beginning with "Crazy Kids," a song Lure wrote in the 1990s and then forgot. The new songs savored the flavor of the old Heartbreakers vibe, but were also tighter, faster and more polished than anything from the Johnny Thunders generation. The show closed, as Waldos concerts usually do, with a pair of rocking songs that recalled the Heartbreakers' sordid reputation, "Too Much Junkie Business" and Dee Dee Ramone's "Chinese Rocks." Saxophonist Danny Ray and guitarist Shige Matsumoto joined on a few songs. Walter Lure & the Waldos brilliantly accomplished what few bands can do; the band solidly and authentically preserved the sound and legacy of late 20th century New York rock and roll.

Setlist:

1. Crazy Kids
2. Damn Your Soul
3. Take a Chance (The Heartbreakers song)
4. All by Myself (The Heartbreakers song)
5. Cry Baby
6. London Boys (The Heartbreakers song)
7. Busted (Harlan Howard cover)
8. One Track Mind (The Heartbreakers song)
9. Let Go (The Heartbreakers song)
10. (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone (Paul Revere and The Raiders cover)
11. Pirate Love (The Heartbreakers song)
12. Get Off the Phone (The Heartbreakers song)
13. Where Were You (On Our Wedding Day)? (Lloyd Price cover)
14. Born to Lose (The Heartbreakers song)
15. Too Much Junkie Business (The Heartbreakers song; with Shige Matsumoto on guitar)
16. Chinese Rocks (The Heartbreakers song; with Shige Matsumoto on guitar)