I Still Wanna Be a Ramone!

As far as this writer is concerned, the Ramones were one of the greatest rock bands ever to set foot on God's green earth. I've been a fan for nearly 25 years and their music continues to provide the soundtrack to a good portion of my life. If you're a Ramones fan, you understand what I'm talking about. If you're not, please keep reading, and I'll try to explain the obsession and their enduring underdog appeal.

The Cliffs Notes version of the Ramones story goes something like this: sick of the current state of so-called "rock" music, four burnouts from Forest Hills, Queens decided to form a band in 1974. After an abortive attempt to learn some cover tunes and deciding that they were too hard, they started writing original songs. Each of the four - Jeffrey ("Joey") Hyman, John ("Johnny") Cummings, Douglas ("Dee Dee") Colvin, and Tommy ("Tommy") Erdelyi - adopt the surname "Ramone" (a variation on an alias used by Paul McCartney during his Beatles heyday) as a sign of unity. Their cause? To take back rock n roll from the self indulgent prog bands and spoiled, millionaire dinosaur rockers who had turned '70s radio into a vast wasteland. The Ramones were diehard fans of the '60s British Invasion bands and underground garage rock, and wanted to bring some of that simple-yet-somehow-dangerous vibe back to the table, with an added hit of early '70s bubblegum catchiness.

A seedy club in New York's Bowery called CBGB (which stood for "Country, Blue Grass, and Blues") gave the strange new band a tryout. Legend has it that their first show at the venue was played in front of a grand total of five people ("six, if you count the bartender's dog."). It didn't matter...the revolution had begun. Word started getting around and soon the Ramones were at the forefront of a new musical explosion in New York City dubbed "punk rock" that revolved around the CBGB scene, sharing the stage with other soon-to-be superstars like Blondie and the Talking Heads. Seymour Stein's Sire Records came calling in 1976, and the band's debut album -- released that same year and featuring fourteen songs in just under 30 minutes -- became an underground favorite, though it was totally ignored by mainstream radio. On July 4, 1976 - the date of America's Bicentennial - the Ramones celebrated by performing at The Roundhouse in London. Members of the Clash and the Sex Pistols were in the audience, and those bands would eventually eclipse the Ramones' popularity, leaving many music fans with the mistaken impression that punk was purely a British phenomenon.

1977's Leave Home and Rocket To Russia and 1978's Road To Ruin garnered decent reviews, but despite a cult following that now stretched around the globe, big time success continued to elude the band. "I Wanna Be Sedated" (from Ruin ) became a minor hit and remains the band's best known song. At the height of punk rock's short lived mainstream popularity, the band appeared in the 1979 Roger Corman film "Rock N Roll High School" and then collaborated with legendary girl-group impresario Phil Spector on 1980's still-controversial End of the Century , which proved to be their highest charting album in the U.S. (peaking at #44) despite some concerns from their loyal punk fanbase that working with the pop-minded Spector was an attempt at "selling out."

As the 80s dawned, it had become clear that no matter how hard they tried, the Ramones were never going to become big time jet setting rock n rollers. They were too weird for radio (remember, it was the time of disco and Debby Boone) and the fledgling MTV channel only gave them minimal support. The only way to keep the band going was by constant touring, taking an occasional break for a new studio album, then going back out on the road again. The grueling album-tour-album-tour schedule that the Ramones followed throughout the 80s probably would've killed dozens of other bands, but aside from a few drummer changes nothing stopped the machine, giving rise to a working class legend. 1981's Pleasant Dreams and 1983's Subterranean Jungle came and went without much notice outside of the diehard fanbase. Hardcore punk had become the new flavor of the underground, yet the shamefully ignored Too Tough To Die (1984, featuring the debut of new drummer Richie Ramone) proved that when the chips were down, the Ramones could be just as hardcore as the legions of bands they'd inspired through the years. Animal Boy (1986) and Halfway to Sanity (1987) showed the Ramones were continuing to keep it real.

In 1989 the band's profile was raised when they provided the theme song to the horror film "Pet Sematery," based on the Stephen King novel (King was a long time fan). Shortly after the release of '89's Brain Drain , bassist Dee Dee left the band for a (thankfully) short lived career as a rapper (yes, really) but losing a founding member and major songwriter didn't put the band on ice for long. The Ramones drafted a former U.S. Marine named Christopher Joseph Ward, henceforth known as "C.J. Ramone," to take his place, and Dee Dee continued to contribute on the songwriting front till the end of the band's career... while the tours went on and on.

By 1992 the Ramones left their longtime home Sire Records in favor of Radioactive Records, a startup label owned by their manager. After Mondo Bizarro (1992), the fine all-covers album Acid Eaters (1994) and finally Adios Amigos! (1995) the Ramones announced that they were hanging up their leather jackets. Perhaps Joey and Johnny's long-standing animosity towards one another had reached a breaking point, or maybe they were just tired of slugging it out. It seemed a particularly cruel irony that even in the mid 1990s, when "pop punk" was the flavor of the day, the Ramones still couldn't get a break while bands such as Green Day, Rancid, and the Offspring - all clearly spiritual descendents of the Ramones - were selling millions of records. The band joined 1996's Lollapalooza festival tour in the U.S. and said their final goodbye on August 6, 1996 at the Palace in Hollywood, where they were joined onstage by original bassist Dee Dee, as well as celebrity fans like Lemmy of Motorhead, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden.

Sadly, three out of the four founding members of the Ramones didn't get much time to enjoy their well-deserved retirement. Joey Ramone passed away due to complications from lymphoma in April of 2001. The remaining Ramones were inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in March of 2002 (during which Johnny ruffled some feathers by not even mentioning Joey in his acceptance speech), which finally provided them with some long-overdue acceptance and acknowledgement of their influence from the mainstream. Dee Dee died only a few months after the Hall of Fame ceremony in June of '02 from a heroin overdose, and Johnny Ramone passed in 2004 after a battle with prostate cancer. Joey's long awaited solo album, Don't Worry About Me, was released posthumously in 2002 by Sanctuary Records. Long time drummer Marky Ramone (aka Marc Bell) remains active in music with a variety of bands and gigs on satellite radio, whilst his predecessor Tommy (Erdelyi) was last seen playing in an Upstate New York based bluegrass band (yes, really!) called "Uncle Monk." C.J. Ramone was most recently heard from on a 2007 single by his band Bad Chopper. Numerous books and films have been released about the band since their breakup; of these, I most highly recommend the book "I Slept With Joey Ramone" by Mickey Leigh (Joey's brother) and the movie End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, a fascinating, occasionally heartbreaking warts-and-all documentary that shows the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Ramones experience.

I wish I could say that I was one of the privileged few who was there to witness the first time the Ramones stormed the stage of CBGB in 1974 and lit the fuse of the punk rock revolution in the process. Unfortunately, I cannot make that claim as I was only four years old at the time. I became dimly aware of the band's existence as a kid in the late '70s thanks to an older, punk rockin' cousin who, it seemed, was always just heading out the door to go see a Ramones concert whenever we came by to visit. Regular exposure to the videos for "Do You Remember Rock N Roll Radio?" and "Rock N Roll High School" during the very early days of MTV further fueled my curiosity about the band, and by the time I saw the "Rock N Roll High School" movie on TV one fateful Sunday afternoon at the age of fourteen, my fate was sealed. I videotaped the film and watched the concert portions of it over and over again. Before I finished high school, I'd collected the band's entire discography, knew just about every song and virtually every lyric. As a college freshman in 1988, I finally got to see the band live for the first time at a dingy little hole-in-the-wall in Staten Island, New York called "The Wave." It was my first concert in a small night club and my first mosh pit experience as well. Everyone should have such an introduction to live music!! I was lucky enough to see the band twice more (1991 and 1994) and meet them once at a 1992 autograph signing for the Mondo Bizarro album release before they hung it up for good. (Upon shaking Joey's hand, I babbled some embarrassing fanboy nonsense thanking him for all the great music, saying it had kept me sane for many years, to which he grinned and said, "Hey, happy to be of service, man.") Considering that I got on the Ramones bandwagon a lot later than most folks, I don't think that I did too badly.

To this day, I still miss the Ramones terribly and occasionally daydream about fronting a Ramones tribute band. Hell, if it weren't for the fact that I'm middle aged and out of shape, I probably would've done it by now. I know that the world will never see another band like them, but thankfully their influence has reached far and wide and their music will live on forever. All you have to do... is listen. Hey ho, let's go!

Ramones - Sire, 1976

Leave Home - Sire, 1977

Rocket To Russia - Sire, 1977

It's Alive (live) - Sire, 1977 (not released in U.S. till 1996)

Road to Ruin - Sire, 1978

Rock N Roll High School (Soundtrack) - Sire, 1979

End of the Century - Sire, 1980

Pleasant Dreams - Sire, 1981

Subterranean Jungle - Sire, 1983

Too Tough to Die - Sire, 1984

Animal Boy - Sire, 1986

Halfway to Sanity - Sire, 1987

Ramones Mania (compilation) - Sire, 1988

Brain Drain - Sire, 1989

Loco Live - Sire, 1991

Mondo Bizarro - Radioactive, 1992

Acid Eaters - Radioactive, 1994

Adios Amigos! - Radioactive, 1995

We're Outta Here! (Live CD/video) - Radioactive, 1996