26 Oct Ramones Redux

On February 21, 1978, a concert was held at McAlister Auditorium on the campus of Tulane University in New Orleans. The crowd was a mix of rockers, proto-punks, hippies, hipsters and the plain curious. The opening act was the Runaways—all still genuine teenagers at the time—and the headliners were the Ramones. I was one of several hundred in attendance—not a punk (proto or otherwise), definitely not a hippie, somewhat of a rocker, and probably more hipster/curious than anything.

The Ramones were in the midst of four years of almost non-stop touring. Following their eponymous 1976 debut album they released both ‘Leave Home’ and ‘Rocket to Russia’ in 1977 and began to venture out of the New York region, initially to California, then Europe, and finally into the American heartland. The show at McAlister Auditorium was their first show in the proper south.

The Ramones had been preceded in New Orleans by the likes of the New York Dolls (1976) and Elvis Costello (1977) and the Sex Pistols had played one of the seven shows of their infamous U.S. tour in Baton Rouge about a month and a half earlier. (Malcolm McLaren’s decision to present the Pistols in the sleepy backwater of Baton Rouge rather than in the dense musical ferment of New Orleans appears to have been an intentional thumbing of the nose to the conventions of touring. The Pistols’ tour avoided New York and Los Angeles entirely, four of the eleven shows were cancelled, and the entire enterprise ground to a cacophonous, acrimonious halt in San Francisco five days after the Baton Rouge show. No one I knew had bothered to make the trip to the Kingfish Club for the gig and though I was intensely interested I was handicapped by a profound deficit of funds and transporation.) This preliminary exposure to the status quo-rattling insurrectionary musical/cultural waves rolling in from New York and across the briny deep had served to prime the swampy ground of the City That Forgot To Care, but nothing that had come before could prepare us for the full frontal onslaught of Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy (Marky would replace Tommy on the drum stool later that year).

The Runaways did their best in the thankless role of warmup act but beyond their basic conceit of jailbait provocateurs they were little more than bar band competent. I was, however, motivated enough to stand at the back of McAlister Auditorium after the show and yell ‘LET’S TRADE LICKS!’ with the vague hope that the head of Lita Ford (and not Johnny Ramone) would emerge from the dressing room windows. When the lights went down for the second time and the Ramones hit the stage the blast from the PA system was genuinely breathtaking: It was the loudest thing I had ever heard. I could feel my internal organs vibrating against one another. The band opened with ‘Rockaway Beach’ followed by ‘Teenage Lobotomy’ and ‘Blitzkrieg Bop,’ pausing only long enough between songs for Dee Dee to scream ‘ONETWOTHREEFOUR!’ The music was assaultive in its attack and volume.

Although the Ramones were considered standard bearers of punk rock they were, in fact, something much more subtle and complex. Their drastically stripped-down three-chord sensibility flew in the face of the bloated prog-rock of the day but it sprang directly from the fertile ground of basic early rock and roll: Buddy Holly would very likely have been a huge Ramones fan had he been prone to air sickness. The band’s rejection of guitar hero pyrotechnics ran counter to just about every virtuosic tendency in rock and roll since (at least) the Yardbirds but Johnny’s percussive attack can be seen as relating directly to Bo Diddley. In their own unique way, the Ramones were traditionalists. The overtly political stance advanced by the Sex Pistols and other early punk bands was largely absent from the Ramones’ oeuvre. The disparate political views of the band members precluded any cohesive doctrinal front: Joey was a classic New York liberal, Johnny a staunch Republican.

The Ramones were also a pop band. Despite the occasional ode to recreational glue sniffing, baseball bat beatdowns, and the joys of electroconvulsive therapy, their oft-repeated themes of boyfriend/girlfriend, summertime fun on the beach and such like would have been at home on a Beach Boys album. The formidable roar of the band’s live show aside, Joey was closer to a crooner than a punk screamer. The Ramones wanted hits and by their sixth album (‘Pleasant Dreams’, 1981) they were stating their desire unequivocally. To large degree, the band’s demands for the airwaves were in vain. The group’s highest-charting album in the U.S. was a compilation album released in 1988. Their only singles to dent the U.S. charts were on 1977’s ‘Rocket to Russia.’ (The band fared better overseas, achieving a certified #8 hit on the British singles chart in 1980 with a soppy cover of the Ronettes’ ‘Baby I Love You.’) It was no coincidence that Phil Spector, the prime architect of ‘60s perfect pop, sought the band out to offer his services as producer.

The Ramones were also a concept band. Beginning with the decision to adopt a common surname (a trope inspired by a nom de guerre employed by the young Paul McCartney) they developed a cohesive visual identity and a consistent urban knucklehead/misfit persona that has proven exceptionally durable. Many bands throughout the years have adopted a unified visual presentation but few have manufactured the kind of monolithic identity that the Ramones deployed to such enduring effect. The name ‘Ramones’ instantly conjures forth all of these elements—visual, aural, conceptual—40 years after the band’s inception.

My experience with the Ramones lasted for approximately 45 minutes—long enough for them to smash through 20 songs, ending up with ‘Suzy Is A Headbanger’ and two cover songs (‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘Do You Wanna Dance’). The after affects of the experience were significantly more prolonged. My ears rang alarmingly and I was seriously concerned that my hearing would be permanently impaired. To my profound relief the ringing eventually faded and I was never to see the Ramones in concert again. Somehow, I never felt any particular need to. I saw them once in their youthful prime and that was enough. The later albums were uneven and the line-up changed over time, with the exception of Joey and Johnny. The Ramones brand, however, remained unchanged, indelible. With the airwaves never to be theirs, the band made their living from incessant touring and marketing of the brand. The band released their final album, ‘Adios Amigos!’, in 1995 with the admonition that they would call it quits if the record was not successful. Accordingly, the Ramones performed their last show in August of 1996.

Now, with the death of Tommy Erdelyi on July 11 of this year, the original Ramones are all gone. Tommy was the only one of the founding members to make it into his 60s. All of them with the exception of Dee Dee died of natural causes. And yet, somehow, beyond all improbability, Keith Richards lives on.

I saw a commercial today featuring the Sex Pistols’ version of ‘My Way’ with Sid Vicious providing the snarling lead vocals. The commercial was for the 2015 Acura TLX. It made me sort of glad that Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy weren’t around to see it.