Ramones

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The Ramones, an American punk rock band from Queens in New York City, performed 2,263 concerts across 22 years of near-constant touring. They released fourteen studio albums along the way. Most of those records barely troubled the charts, and the band never filled an arena.

  Still, in 2002 Spin ranked the Ramones the second-greatest band of all time, behind only the Beatles.

  That gap between sales and reputation is the puzzle at the center of this story. How did four young men from Queens change the sound of rock without ever topping a chart? Why did critics and fellow musicians see it years before the record-buying public did? And what did two decades on the road do to the people inside the band?

  6741

• 2. Forest Hills to CBGB

  ›

  In 1965, John Cummings and Thomas Erdelyi joined a high-school garage band called the Tangerine Puppets, which lasted until 1967. Both lived in and around Forest Hills, a middle-class neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens. Their circle grew to include Douglas Colvin, who had recently arrived from Germany, and Jeff Hyman, the singer of a glam rock band named Sniper, formed in 1972.

  Early in 1974, Cummings and Colvin asked Hyman to help them start a new group. The plan had Colvin singing and playing guitar, Cummings on guitar, Hyman on drums, and a friend named Richie Stern on bass. A few rehearsals proved that Stern could not play bass. They let him go and became a trio, with Colvin switching to bass and Cummings as the only guitarist.

  Colvin was the first to take the surname Ramone, calling himself Dee Dee. He borrowed the idea from Paul McCartney, who had used the pseudonym Paul Ramon back when the Beatles were still the Silver Beetles. Dee Dee talked the others into it and came up with the band's name. Hyman became Joey, Cummings became Johnny, and none of them were actually related.

  A friend named Monte A. Melnick, who worked at Performance Studios in Manhattan, arranged rehearsal time there and later became their tour manager. Dee Dee soon discovered that he could not sing while playing bass. With encouragement from Erdelyi, who was lined up to be manager, Joey stepped up to the microphone. Dee Dee still opened every song with a rapid shout of "1-2-3-4!" to set the tempo. Joey then found he could not sing and drum at once either. While auditioning replacements, Erdelyi kept sitting behind the kit to show how the songs went. He played them better than any candidate, so he joined as Tommy Ramone.

  On the 30th of March 1974, the band played for an audience for the first time, at Performance Studios. The songs were fast and short, and most ran under two minutes. Downtown, a new scene was gathering around two Manhattan clubs, Max's Kansas City and, more famously, CBGB. The Ramones made their CBGB debut on the 16th of August 1974. Legs McNeil, who would cofound Punk magazine the following year, remembered the leather jackets and the roar. He said, "These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new."

  By the end of 1974, the band had played CBGB seventy-four times, with sets averaging about seventeen minutes. In late 1975, Seymour Stein of Sire Records signed them after a Sire talent scout named Craig Leon saw them play. By then they were seen as leaders of a scene that people had started calling punk. Dee Dee gave much of the credit to the singer: "Joey was unique, totally unique." Stein's wife Linda caught the band at a club called Mothers, and she would later co-manage them with Danny Fields.

  1014161819

• 3. Debut Album and London

  ›

  In February 1976, the Ramones recorded their self-titled debut album, with Craig Leon producing and Tommy as associate producer. Fourteen songs fit on it, and the longest, "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement", barely passed two and a half minutes. Credits were shared by the whole band, though Dee Dee wrote much of the material. The budget was about $6,400. The record came out on the 23rd of April 1976, with a cover photograph by Roberta Bayley of Punk magazine, which ran a cover story on the band in its third issue that same month.

  Critics greeted the album warmly. Robert Christgau of the Village Voice said it "blows everything else off the radio". In Rolling Stone, Paul Nelson called the band "authentic American primitives whose work has to be heard to be understood". Wayne Robbins of Newsday went furthest, calling them "the best young rock 'n' roll band in the known universe."

  The public was less moved. The album reached only number 111 on the Billboard album chart, and neither single, "Blitzkrieg Bop" nor "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", charted at all. In June, the band played its first major show outside New York, in Youngstown, Ohio. Members of the Cleveland band Frankenstein, also known as the Dead Boys, were there and befriended them.

  England changed the picture. On the 4th of July 1976, the United States Bicentennial, the Ramones played London's Roundhouse on a bill with the Flamin' Groovies and The Stranglers, organized by Linda Stein. Marc Bolan of T. Rex was in the crowd and was invited onstage. The same evening, the Sex Pistols played in Sheffield, with the Clash supporting in their public debut.

  The next night, at a club date, members of both the Sex Pistols and the Clash came to see the Ramones. Danny Fields later recalled a conversation between Johnny and Clash bassist Paul Simonon, though he placed it at the wrong venue. Simonon admitted, "we just rehearse. We call ourselves the Clash but we're not good enough." Johnny's answer was, "Just get out there and do it." The Damned, another band whose members saw the Ramones, played their first show two days later.

  The Flamin' Groovies and Ramones repeated their double bill at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles the following month. A Toronto show in September then stirred up yet another young scene.

  3744477245

• 4. Chasing the Charts

  ›

  Two albums arrived in 1977, Leave Home and Rocket to Russia, both produced by Tommy and Tony Bongiovi, a second cousin of Jon Bon Jovi. Leave Home did even worse on the charts than the debut, but it held "Pinhead", with its chanted refrain of "Gabba gabba hey!" It also included a fast cover of "California Sun", which the band based on the Rivieras' remake. Rocket to Russia climbed to number 49 on the Billboard 200, and Dave Marsh of Rolling Stone called it "the best American rock & roll of the year".

  "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" became the first Ramones single to enter the Billboard charts, peaking at number 81. Its follow-up, "Rockaway Beach", reached number 66, the highest any Ramones single would ever climb in America. On the last day of 1977, the band recorded the live double album It's Alive at the Rainbow Theatre in London. It was released in April 1979, and its title nods to a 1974 horror film.

  Tommy, tired of touring, left in early 1978 and stayed on as a producer under his birth name, Erdelyi. Marc Bell, whose past bands included Dust, Wayne County, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, took the drum seat as Marky Ramone. Road to Ruin that year brought acoustic guitar, several ballads, and the band's first two recorded songs longer than three minutes. It missed the Billboard Top 100, yet "I Wanna Be Sedated" became one of their best-known songs.

  Roger Corman's film Rock 'n' Roll High School, released in 1979, marked the band's movie debut. It caught the attention of producer Phil Spector, who produced End of the Century in 1980. A long-disputed rumor says that Spector held Dee Dee at gunpoint in Los Angeles, forcing him to play a riff over and over. The album became their highest-charting, at number 44 in the United States and number 14 in Great Britain. Johnny was unmoved: "End of the Century was just watered-down Ramones. It's not the real Ramones." He did admit that Spector's slower-song production on "Danny Says" worked tremendously. A string-laden cover of the Ronettes' "Baby, I Love You" reached number 8 in Britain, the band's biggest hit there.

  Pleasant Dreams followed in 1981, produced by Graham Gouldman of the British pop act 10cc. Trouser Press said it moved the band toward "heavy metal territory". Johnny later called the direction a record company decision, a futile bid for American radio play. The album reached number 58, and its two singles did not register at all.

  Subterranean Jungle, released in 1983, peaked at number 83 and was the last Ramones album to crack the Billboard Top 100. Johnny said he was "kinda disappointed" by its pop polish. Its cover of the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today" ended up with three different drummers attached: Billy Rogers played on the recording, Marky was credited on the album, and Richie appeared in the video.

  4849505354

• 5. Drummers and Feuds

  ›

  Marky was fired after Subterranean Jungle because of his alcoholism. His replacement was Richard Reinhardt, who became Richie Ramone. Joey said Richie "saved the band as far as I'm concerned." Richie was the only Ramones drummer to sing lead on band songs, and he was the sole composer of tracks such as "Somebody Put Something in My Drink". Joey explained, "I encouraged Richie to write songs." Richie's song stayed in the live set until the very last show. The 1984 album Too Tough to Die brought back the original speed, and Allmusic described the rhythms as "back up to jackhammer speed".

  In 1985, the British single "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg" got wide play on American college radio even though it was only available as an import. Joey wrote it mainly to protest Ronald Reagan's visit to a German military cemetery that held graves of Waffen-SS soldiers. The song reappeared on the 1986 album Animal Boy as "My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)". Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that the Ramones "speak up for outcasts and disturbed individuals".

  Richie left in August 1987 after money disputes with Johnny. He had asked for a small percentage of merchandising income, based on his years in the band and their use of his name and image. Clem Burke, whose band Blondie had split, stepped in as Elvis Ramone. Johnny called the shows a disaster, and Burke was fired after two performances, on the 28th and the 29th of August 1987. Marky, now sober, came back in September.

  In December 1988, the band recorded Brain Drain, intended as a comeback. Most of the bass parts were played by Daniel Rey and Andy Shernoff of the Dictators, while Dee Dee added only some vocals. He no longer wanted to be in the band. The album still delivered "Pet Sematary", the band's highest-charting hit in the United States. Dee Dee played his last show with the Ramones on the 5th of July 1989 at One Step Beyond in Santa Clara. Christopher Joseph Ward, known as C. J. Ramone, took over on bass. Dee Dee briefly tried rapping as Dee Dee King, then returned to punk and kept writing songs for his old band.

  Tension between Joey and Johnny ran through the whole career. Joey was a liberal and Johnny a conservative. Johnny had spent two years in military school and lived by strict self-discipline, while Joey struggled with obsessive-compulsive disorder and alcoholism. In the early 1980s, Linda Danielle left Joey for Johnny, and the incident is believed to have inspired "The KKK Took My Baby Away". Johnny never contacted Joey before Joey's death, though he said he was depressed for "the whole week" afterward.

  Dee Dee's bipolar disorder and repeated drug relapses strained things further. Tommy said he had been "physically threatened by Johnny, treated with contempt by Dee Dee, and all but ignored by Joey." Marky and Joey even fought over their drinking habits on The Howard Stern Show in 1997. A year after the breakup, Marky called C. J. a "bigot" in the press, a charge C. J. denied. C. J. later lamented that the two men of the band's most commercially successful era were no longer in contact.

  7475767762

• 6. Sound and Symbol

  ›

  Joey once said the band started because they "were bored with everything we heard." In 1974, he complained, everything was "tenth-generation Elton John, or overproduced, or just junk." The Ramones reached back to 1950s and 1960s pop: Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, bubblegum acts like the 1910 Fruitgum Company, and girl groups such as the Ronettes and the Shangri-Las. They also borrowed the harder edge of the MC5, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls. Trouser Press credited their "caustic sense of trash-culture humor and minimalist rhythm guitar sound."

  On stage, Johnny gave C. J. strict instructions before his first shows: face the audience, hold the bass low between spread legs, and walk to the front of the stage at the same moment Johnny did. He disliked guitarists who played facing their drummer or amplifier.

  The look was just as fixed: long hair, leather jackets, T-shirts, torn jeans, and sneakers. Tommy recalled that the band was influenced by comic books, movies, the Andy Warhol scene, and avant-garde films, and he added, "I was a big Mad magazine fan myself."

  The band's logo came from the New York artist Arturo Vega, a longtime friend who let Joey and Dee Dee move into his loft. T-shirts he made were the group's main source of income. Many of the designs grew from a black-and-white self-portrait he took of his American bald eagle belt buckle, which appeared on the back sleeve of the first album. After a trip to Washington, D.C., he pictured the Great Seal of the President of the United States as the perfect emblem for what he called an "almost childish innocent aggression."

  The Ramones made a few changes. The olive branch became an apple tree branch, since the Ramones were "American as apple pie." Because Johnny was such a baseball fanatic, the eagle gripped a baseball bat instead of arrows. The scroll in the eagle's beak first read "Look out below", then changed to "Hey ho let's go", from the opening lyrics of "Blitzkrieg Bop". Around the border, where the presidential seal names its office, Vega placed the members' pseudonyms. Marky later joked that many kids wearing the shirt might never have heard the music.

  Vega served as creative director from 1974 until the breakup in 1996 and was often called the fifth Ramone. He died of cancer on the 8th of June 2013, at the age of 65.

  1573716445

• 7. Farewell and Remembrance

  ›

  In 1991, the band finished its Sire contract with the live album Loco Live. Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion offered to sign them to his label, Epitaph Records, and even traveled to a concert in Amsterdam to plead with Joey and Johnny. Booking agent Stormy Shepard promised tours with bands that were huge by then. Their manager, Gary Kurfurst, was launching his own label, Radioactive Records. C. J. warned Johnny about the conflict of interest, and Johnny shot back, "When you have as many years in the business as I do, then you can make the decisions." The band signed with Radioactive.

  Mondo Bizarro in 1992 earned the Ramones their first Gold certification, in Brazil, after selling 100,000 copies. Acid Eaters, made up entirely of covers, followed in 1993. That year the band also voiced animated versions of themselves in The Simpsons episode "Rosebud", the show's first guest spot by a punk band. Executive producer David Mirkin called them "gigantic, obsessive Simpsons fans". Marky later called the appearance "a career highlight".

  In 1995, the band released its fourteenth and final studio album, ¡Adios Amigos!, which spent just two weeks on the lower end of the Billboard chart. They announced they would disband the next year and spent late 1995 on a farewell tour. Then they accepted a slot on the sixth Lollapalooza festival, which crossed the United States that summer. The final show took place on the 6th of August 1996 at the Palace in Hollywood, later released as We're Outta Here! Dee Dee reappeared, joined by guests including Motorhead's Lemmy, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Soundgarden's Chris Cornell and Ben Shepherd, and Rancid's Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen.

  On the 20th of July 1999, the original four members stood together for the last time, at an autograph signing at a Virgin Megastore in New York. Joey and Marky ended their feud that year on The Howard Stern Show. Joey, diagnosed with lymphoma in 1995, died of it on the 15th of April 2001. Only Tommy, Richie, and C. J. of his former bandmates attended the funeral.

  The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the band on the 18th of March 2002, naming Dee Dee, Johnny, Joey, Tommy, and Marky. Green Day played "Teenage Lobotomy", "Rockaway Beach", and "Blitzkrieg Bop" as a tribute. Dee Dee, who had humorously congratulated and thanked himself in his speech, was found dead on the 5th of June 2002 from a heroin overdose.

  On the 30th of November 2003, New York unveiled a sign naming the corner of East 2nd Street and Bowery as Joey Ramone Place. In 2004, the documentary End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones came out. Johnny, diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1999, died on the 15th of September 2004. That same day, a Ramones Museum opened in Berlin with more than 300 items of memorabilia, including Johnny's stage-worn jeans.

  A Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award came in February 2011, with Tommy, Marky, and Richie attending together for the first time. Tommy, the last original member, died of bile duct cancer on the 11th of July 2014. On the 30th of April 2014, the debut album was certified Gold for 500,000 copies, 38 years after its release. On the 30th of October 2016, the intersection in front of Forest Hills High School was officially named The Ramones Way.

  8990969798

• 8. The Blueprint

  ›

  Music historian Jon Savage wrote that the debut album is one of the few records that "changed pop forever." Tony James of Generation X said, "Everybody went up three gears the day they got that first Ramones album." One observer noted that after those two July 1976 shows, "instantly nearly every band speeded up." Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69 called the Ramones his band's "only blueprint". The leading fanzine of early British punk, Sniffin' Glue, took its name from the Ramones song "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue".

  Across the Atlantic, the reach was just as wide. California punk drew on Greg Ginn of Black Flag, Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys, Mike Ness of Social Distortion, and Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, all influenced by Ramones shows and records. The Beastie Boys, the Misfits, and Gorilla Biscuits cite them as well. Roger Miret of Agnostic Front said Leave Home was the first album he ever bought with his own money. The hardcore band Bad Brains took its name from a Ramones song.

  Pop-punk grew from the band's catchier side, with Green Day, the Offspring, Blink-182, and Fall Out Boy all citing them. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day named his son Joey in homage, and drummer Tre Cool named his daughter Ramona.

  Metal listeners heard something too. Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett has described how Johnny's rapid-fire playing shaped his own development, and thrash grew in part from that punk-metal meeting. Lemmy of Motorhead mixed the Ramones' "Go Home Ann" in 1985, and his band later wrote the tribute "R.A.M.O.N.E.S."

  In April 2009, Spin writer Mark Prindle counted at least 48 full-length tribute records. The first with multiple performers, Gabba Gabba Hey: A Tribute to the Ramones, came out in 1991 and included Bad Religion and L7. Motorhead's Phil Campbell recorded "Rockaway Beach" for a tribute album, but when Johnny heard it, he refused to put it on the record.

  Gene Simmons of Kiss offered a blunt verdict: "They have one gold record to their name. They never played arenas; couldn't sell them out." He added, "It doesn't mean they weren't great. It means the masses didn't care."

  The Japanese trio Shonen Knife formed in Osaka in 1981 because founder Naoko Yamano fell instantly for the Ramones' music. In 2012, for the group's 30th anniversary, they released Osaka Ramones, a collection of thirteen Ramones songs.

  686877245