Corporations are so helpful. Take Seattle's own Amazon.com. Back in the pre-Amazon days, when I was a sad lost teenager, it was a total chore to find records by the band that eventually cured my teenage blues. Believe me, digging up the New York Dolls (MIA since '75) during the Michael Jackson/Ronald Reagan/Rick James early '80s was a quest of Nancy Drew proportions that found me scouring weird used record stores, downtown rock clubs, and strange girls' homes.

Now, thanks to Amazon.com, you don't even have to leave your house to find the perfect rock record. Case in point: my very own New York Dolls. Right there on Amazon's website there's an impeccable write-up of exactly what the Dolls mean to rock history, along with a helpful list of related bands--Iggy & the Stooges and Richard Hell. (There's also a listing of 27 [?!] Dolls albums, though the band only released about 15 songs.)

I know what you're thinking, and I was thinking it too: Amazon has ruined an organic process. Without having to comb the streets of whatever suburb you live in, winding up at all those weird used record stores or strange girls' houses, Amazon's pre-packaged Dolls discovery comes absent of any true meaning. It's like cheating.

Oh, how wrong you are, brothers and sisters! I've come to realize that reality sucks, and that I'll take my rock and roll idols neatly shrink-wrapped by Amazon.com any day. Here's why: My real-life New York Dolls trail ends on a big, sad note. Last week, in the final chapter of my quest to "find" the New York Dolls, I reached Sylvain Sylvain on his cell phone in Atlanta. Sylvain Sylvain was the scrawny Jew-'froed second guitarist, who backed up the Dolls' sexy glitter twins: Johnny Thunders, with his famous Chuck Berry guitar trash, and David Johansen, with his black-chick preening.

Thunders died in 1991 of a heroin overdose, and Johansen refuses to talk about the Dolls. Sylvain Sylvain, on the other hand, loves to talk about the Dolls. In fact, he loves his former band so much he's on tour right now doing 30-year-old rock songs like "Trash" and "Frankenstein," which Sylvain co-wrote with Johansen and Thunders. Sadly, his idle reminiscing over the phone, and the idea of his current tour (on which he'll also be playing some numbers off his Dolls tribute album, Sleep Baby Doll), has made me long for that perfect punk portrait I found on Amazon.com, rather than the guy I was interviewing.

First, my starstruck self tried to get Sylvain's reaction to Amazon's New York Dolls write-up. However, Sylvain just started talking about how Morrissey had invited him to a Morrissey show in L.A. where the ex-Smiths crooner covered "Trash," and gave Sylvain an autographed copy of the set list.

"The last time I played in L.A.," Sylvain went on, "Morrissey came to see me--not that I saw him--but I played this punky kind of bar called Al's Bar, down in downtown L.A., and it was all over the paper. It didn't have a mention of my show, but that Morrissey was there."

When I asked Sylvain what he thought of Amazon's recommendations of other bands that Dolls fans should try--i.e., should the online retailer have included more contemporary bands on its list?--Sylvain hit a jag about how he sings karaoke in his basement with his girlfriend, and then ended up pitching his recent solo album.

"I still write songs," he said, "and my latest album may be on Amazon.com, I think. Sleep Baby Doll. That was basically my tribute to the New York Dolls. I actually did 'Trash' on there. I think you're really going to like it. You know, in the original, Johansen says: 'How do you call your lover boy?' I do a little new thing there--so I won't even tell you about it, and you go listen to it."

Sadly, after the interview, I'm not sure if I will. I think I may just stick with my memories, which are perfectly ordered, not altogether different from Amazon's write-up.