Billy Murcia, the original drummer for the New York Dolls, didn't last long. On the group's first tour of England in 1972, he mixed alcohol and drugs and suffered an overdose. All night long, reportedly, his girlfriend worked to keep him awake and alive -- evidently she never thought to seek medical assistance -- walking him continually around their hotel flat, putting him into a bathtub of cold water, and forcing black coffee into him. To no avail. The official cause of death was suffocation. He had drowned on the coffee, or choked, more likely, though "drowned," which reportedly appears on the death certificate, tends to dignify just a little the whole sorry episode. He was twenty-one.
Billy Murcia, the original drummer for the New York Dolls, didn't last long. On the group's first tour of England in 1972, he mixed alcohol and drugs and suffered an overdose. All night long, reportedly, his girlfriend worked to keep him awake and alive -- evidently she never thought to seek medical assistance -- walking him continually around their hotel flat, putting him into a bathtub of cold water, and forcing black coffee into him. To no avail. The official cause of death was suffocation. He had drowned on the coffee, or choked, more likely, though "drowned," which reportedly appears on the death certificate, tends to dignify just a little the whole sorry episode. He was twenty-one.
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