The Rehabilitation of the Ramones
It seems that the world has really turned upside down. We are in the midst of an unpopular war, the economy in most of the country is in sad shape and our jobs are flying out of the country even faster than the Japanese and Chinese can keep shipping their products to keep all of the Walmart’s in stock. So what happens – Bush gets re-elected because more people are concerned about gay marriages than the fact that they’re going to lose their jobs. In this climate it almost seems reasonable that the Ramones have been brought back from the dead and rehabilitated. As we all know, the Ramones played some 2300 shows in 21 years and never had anything resembling a hit record. Every band on the planet that is worth listening to credits the Ramones as being a great inspiration to them, but this translates to very few record sales. Eventually, the Ramones hung up their leather jackets forever and became just another great band that you will never see again.
But a strange thing happened – now they are discovered by the same industry that had spent 21 years ignoring them. This is straight out of the old Soviet Union where it was common to rehabilitate somebody who was out of favor with a previous regime. Joey, then Dee Dee and finally Johnny all die within a few years, but the media onslaught continues. Eight years after their last show we are presented a barrage of Ramones-related output.
· At least 3 new books on the Ramones as well as a re-issue of Dee Dee’s autobiography (hopefully with Hamtramck being finally spelled correctly)
· A brand-new DVD called “Ramones Raw” with tons of tour footage
· A documentary called “End of the Century” that details the history of the 4 gentlemen that changed rock & roll forever.
I don’t even want to count the number of Ramones T-shirts that I’ve been seeing around town worn mostly by people who weren’t around when the Ramones were actually talking to each other and creating classic albums like “Rocket to Russia” and “Road to Ruin”. You can’t attend a hockey or baseball game without hearing either the “Blitzkrieg Bop” or “I Wanna Be Sedated”. And we all remember Anheiser Busch and AT& T more for playing Ramones songs in their commercials than for anything that they were actually selling. When the Ramones were around – their songs were never played on commercial radio; in fact, WRIF used to tease us by playing the intro to “Do You Remember Rock & Roll Radio?” before cutting it off and sliding smoothly into the next Bob Seger travesty.
So it was time for me to once more dive back into the Ramone-world and find why it took the rest of the world 25 years to discover the Ramones. I started with a Ramones book club, of which I became the first and only member. I just couldn’t see myself waking into some existing book club with a stack of books on the Ramones and trying to start a discussion about how 3 chords could change the world. So, instead I read --- and read ---
1. The Ramones - “A Twisted History”
2. On the Road with the Ramones
3. Hey Ho – Let’s Go
4. Surviving the Ramones
5. The Ramones – An American Band
By now I had 5 different versions of every Ramones story in existence as well as a lot of dirt about drugs, feuds, revolving drummers, bad tours and ultimately – commercial failure at the end. I also found out that it’s a lot easier to get a Ramones book published in the UK, so I got to read what Joey’s height is in centimeters and how much Johnny paid for his first guitar (in pounds). The books all complemented themselves in some strange way so I didn’t really feel like I was re-reading the same stuff over and over (even though I was). My favorite is the Monte Melnick book entitled “On the Road With the Ramones”; he was their tour manager for pretty much the entire career and his stories almost put you on the same beat-up van with the band as they criss-cross the country chasing those elusive windmills of commercial success.
After all of this reading it was time to hit the movies. First up is the Ramones DVD called “Raw”. It’s certainly a must-buy for any Ramones fan and it contains a wealth of great footage, Ramones home movies, TV appearances and all sorts of goodies – mostly from the Marky Ramone days. Just buy the thing and turn the volume on to full blast – it will improve your life. Finally, came the long-awaited visit of the Ramones documentary called “End of the Century” to Detroit. Yes, I took the day off from work and was there for the first showing (you can draw your conclusions about my sanity from that). The movie is brilliant and sad at the same time; you know that they will not break through commercially and that they really don’t get along very well. The footage (especially from the early days at CBGB’s is priceless) and you hear from members of all these other bands (Blondie, Clash, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Rancid, etc) who go on to achieve much greater commercial success than the Ramones. The movie ends with their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and shows Dee Dee walking away down the hall straight into his own death two months later. Johnny died just recently and now we’re left with a whole bunch of memories and a street in NYC named after Joey.
We all know that this attention and commercial success is way overdue for the band. They are not around to enjoy it anymore and old fans like me are bitter that they’ve been ignored for all of these years. It’s fun telling people that I saw the Ramones more than 20 times in places ranging from the Second Chance to Cobo Hall – and, yes, they were way better than any band that you’re ever going to see. Their place in rock & roll history is secure – even if it did take the rest of the world more than twenty years to catch up.
