Ramone Reminiscing

The news about Johnny Ramone dying last week was certainly not a shock as he had been suffering from prostrate cancer for about 5 years.  His death just seemed to close the final chapter on the Ramones – Joey, Dee Dee and Johnny have all died in the last several years and yet their public profile just seems to be getting higher and higher.  There are about 5 books written on the band, a DVD is being released and the documentary “End of the Century” is slowly making its way across the USA to Detroit.  History is being rewritten in front of our very own eyes – the Ramones are now finally getting the attention and credit that so long eluded them back in the 1970s and 1980s.  I want to scream out – “It’s About Time” to all the people that ignored and disdained the Ramones for all of those years, but I won’t.  To me it was ludicrous that bands like Foreigner and Boston routinely sold out Cobo Hall in Detroit, while the Ramones couldn’t get any airplay and were relegated to playing small clubs like Traxx.  I spent many hours playing the Ramones for people who just never got it.  The Ramones were right and most of the world was wrong.  We all knew it and now 30 years later that rest of the world wants in on all of this.  Obviously, it’s way too late for the Ramones to get much satisfaction from that – hopefully they all knew that all of their work was not in vain and that our world was a much better place with the Ramones in it.

By now my Ramones mourning had almost turned into a morbid routine – I’d get all depressed, play the CDs over and over at full blast and reflect of how lousy life can be sometimes.  This didn’t change way too much last week – I now have CD of the Ramones live at the Palladium in 1978 which serves as a great adrenalin rush each morning, but I sense that even the people closest to me are kind of urging me to get over it and get on with life.  I really tried last weekend and almost succeeded.  On Thursday night I headed over to Small’s to check out the Husbands.  Even though the Ramones are long gone – bands like the Husbands just seem to carry on the same spirit and soul that powered the Ramones through many shows.  There were only about 15 people in there, but the band didn’t let that bother them in the least – their music seems to cover everything that great about rock & roll: lots of loud guitars, booming drums and great vocals.   

 It seems that I get jaded after seeing all of these bands over the years, but there’s always a spark of creativity and originality that drives back to see more.  Most of the people that I know just think that I’m nuts, but in some ways sitting in a bar with about 15 people that really care about a band is way better than a bar full of people who don’t care about the bands and are just there because it’s the cool place to hang out.  The Ramones were really never “cool” – they just played the music that they believed in and those of us that got it always knew that their influence extended way past those record sales numbers or the critical bashing that never seemed to give them their due.  The Ramones are gone now and this revisionist celebration of their importance is great, but way too late for an old fan like me.  Yeah, I’ll read all the Ramones books, buy the DVD and see the movie, but those are just props to help me feel better.  A live Ramones show could never be given justice in any conceivable way and I, for one, will smugly live the rest of my life knowing that I had a chance to see the most important rock & roll band that ever plugged a guitar into a Marshall amp and yelled out those unforgettable words: GABBA GABBA HEY !!!!!!!