The Curse of the Ramones
rollingstone.com
The Curse of the Ramones
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Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#2I've always thought that bands have a lot of similarities with small businesses/startups/new ventures. A new band is a group of people with complementary skills coming together trying to make something new or special or worthwhile or even profitable.
Another similarity: Conflicts between founders. I was not surprised to learn that there was tension in the band. However, The Ramones were extreme with Johnny and Joey barely talking for many years. I find it remarkable that they were able to keep it together as long as they did (The Beatles, if the stories about Lennon/McCartney are true, did not last half as long).
About 15 years ago Michael Azzerad wrote a great book called Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991. It has some very good interviews with the founding members of various bands who came after The Ramones, covering the bands' formation, songwriting/recording approaches, success, and failure. The stories of Minor Threat/Fugazi/Dischord are particularly interesting. Reading it I was reminded a lot of Founders at Work.
This interview from AV Club (1) is helpful to understanding the parallels. A sample:
AVC: What is the connective tissue that binds all of these bands together?
MA: The epigram for Our Band Could Be Your Life comes from William Blake: “I must create my own system, lest I be enslaved by another man’s.” All of the bands in the book were creating their own system. That’s one thing. The other is that they were part of a close-knit, interconnected, interdependent community. You’ll notice how other bands in the book pop up in every chapter, frequently. That’s no coincidence—it really was that tightly knit. People shared everything: information, equipment, their floors, whatever. There was strength in unity.
1. http://www.avclub.com/article/revisiting-book-immortalized-8...
Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#3There's actually an exhibit about the Ramones at the Queens Museum, less than a mile from Forest Hills, where each of the Ramones grew up. I went on Saturday. There's a decent mix of art, reviews, and equipment. http://www.queensmuseum.org/2016/01/hey-ho-lets-go-2
Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#4There's actually an exhibit about the Ramones at the Queens Museum, less than a mile from Forest Hills, where each of the Ramones grew up. I went on Saturday. There's a decent mix of art, reviews, and equipment. http://www.queensmuseum.org/2016/01/hey-ho-lets-go-2
That exhibit will be in LA: September 16, 2016 - February 2017 at The Grammy Museum http://www.grammymuseum.org/exhibits/traveling-exhibits/hey-...
Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#5Isn't this the same magazine that perpetrated the false rape story at University of Virginia? Opinion piece discarded.
Why did they keep playing? They were only in it for the shekels.
The Ramones were terrible.
Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#6I've told a variation of this story to a ton of people, to specifically address the confinement of success.
They had the choice of sticking with the same colleagues they'd worked with (and increasingly hated) for 20 years, or being record store employees. Imagine if your livelihood was tied to working only with a few other people, and one of them had a tendency to beat you up, one was a heroin addict, and the other was an OCD acid-casualty. Imagine you had to live in a bus with them for years on end.
Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#7I've told a variation of this story to a ton of people, to specifically address the confinement of success. They had the choice of sticking with the same colleagues they'd worked with (and increasingly hated) for 20 years, or being record store employees. Imagine if your livelihood was tied to working only with a few other people, and one of them had a tendency to beat you up, one was a heroin addict, and the other w…
Not really, Tommy left early on as the article mentions and had a decent career as an engineer doing studio work, Dee Dee left in the mid-80s and pursued a solo career. The only constants were Johnny and Joey. There were other Ramones that article doesn't mention Elvis, CJ and Richie.
Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#8I've told a variation of this story to a ton of people, to specifically address the confinement of success. They had the choice of sticking with the same colleagues they'd worked with (and increasingly hated) for 20 years, or being record store employees. Imagine if your livelihood was tied to working only with a few other people, and one of them had a tendency to beat you up, one was a heroin addict, and the other w…
Not really, Tommy left early on as the article mentions and had a decent career as an engineer doing studio work, Dee Dee left in the mid-80s and pursued a solo career. The only constants were Johnny and Joey. There were other Ramones that article doesn't mention Elvis, CJ and Richie.
The article does mention Marky Ramone a number of times
Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#9This article was terrible, I guess proof reading and spell checking aren't important to Rolling Stone. I'm not sure what the point in the article is. It would be nice if they focused on how influential and original the band was, they wrote great pop songs, an American treasure. Punk wouldn't have happened without these guys. Their tour of the UK in '76 launched a thousand punk bands. If anyone is interested theres a doc called "Hey! Is Dee Dee home?" Which is a candid hour'ish long interview of Dee Dee dishing all the stories. Sadly he died not long after.
Re: The Curse of the Ramones
#10I've told a variation of this story to a ton of people, to specifically address the confinement of success. They had the choice of sticking with the same colleagues they'd worked with (and increasingly hated) for 20 years, or being record store employees. Imagine if your livelihood was tied to working only with a few other people, and one of them had a tendency to beat you up, one was a heroin addict, and the other w…
Not really, Tommy left early on as the article mentions and had a decent career as an engineer doing studio work, Dee Dee left in the mid-80s and pursued a solo career. The only constants were Johnny and Joey. There were other Ramones that article doesn't mention Elvis, CJ and Richie.
I had the great pleasure of drinking with CJ Ramone on the day that my divorce was final. We closed down the bar IIRC.
Great guy. Fun to talk to.