In addition to Piano’s capriciousness, the band had to deal with the remnants of the once-proud New York Dolls. Thunders, Nolan, and occasionally Arthur Kane were always down in the basement, jamming, and usually shooting up. (“The place was too much of a dump for David Johansen to hang there,” Peter notes) One night, Lenny sat behind his drum kit ready to rehearse when he noticed something peculiar. “I looked down and I thought there was paint on my drums, and then I realized that it was dried, caked-up blood! All over the skin, all over the side of the drums. Jerry Nolan had jabbed himself with a carpet tack because they didn’t have any hypodermics in the house.” (Lenny inadvertently took revenge. There was no bathroom in the basement, and he would regularly urinate in a glass bottle that, unbeknownst to him, Thunders and Nolan were also using to cook their dope in. The fluids would not mix kindly.)

(De Sweat. The Story Of The Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band, de Joe Bonomo, del capítulo que describe sus inicios en New York)