MAJOR MUSIC ARTISTS - USA (AMERICA)
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| Ramones |
DESCRIPTION: Ramones
ACTIVITY STATUS: Defunct
ACTIVITY PERIOD: 1974 - 1996
MUSIC GENRE: Punk
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: USA (AMERICA)
RECORD COMPANIES / LABELS (Current & Past): Sire, Warner Bros., Philips, Radioactive, Chrysalis
OFFICIAL WEB SITE: http://www.ramones.com/
ABOUT THEM:
How the Ramones started: The Ramones were formed by Tommy, who never really intended to be in the group at all. Joey was the drummer and not a very good one either. Tommy states: "Those first few practices were hilarious. Joey was actually on drums at first, and he had a unique kind of choppy style, and the drums would be falling apart every time. After every song everything would be in shambles, literally, i knew what to do was in my head so i took over" So Joey went out front and Tommy took the sticks and played fast, real fast, no fills, no rolls, no boring drum solos. Tommy : "I had seen the New York Dolls, and the idea was just to get a charismatic, sort of quirky band together. Basically from what we were coming up with musically, once I became the drummer I harnessed it and arranged it, and we turned it into what became the Ramones sound."
We're talking about the band that took rock and roll into a garage, stripped off the rust, pumped up the tyres, tuned the engine and sent it back out with a new sense of humour. Had the Ramones finished by the end of 1977 those first three albums alone would've cemented their rock n' roll legacy.
Tommy was the manager, producer, and eventual drummer once they realised they couldn't get anyone else who could play that fast. "We were trying to bring back the fun in music, bring back the essence of rock'n'roll, I just played what I wanted to hear, what I thought was necessary. I designed the drum parts specifically for the songs— they were constructed in a way that would fit the songs perfectly. They would wrap around the songs, or the songs would wrap around the drums, I didn't really listen to drummers, I basically played what I thought was needed for the Ramones"
Tommy wrote the Ramones anthem Blitzkrieg Bop. He was also the most normal of the four. Joey had obsessive compulsive disorder, Johnny was a right wing disciplinarian, he was impatient, and a combination of his impatience, love of speed, (he wanted to be a Baseball pitcher) and wanting to get his own virtuosity across molded the Ramones sound and it was going to be fast. He only knew downstrokes.
Dee Dee was a heroin addict and glue sniffer and as it happens the main songwriter, all those dumb lyrics are his… despite living together in the early days Dee Dee actually couldn't work Tommy out because Tommy was normal. Tommy could cook dinner and was neat. It's almost 50 years since The Ramones began.
VIDEOS:
LINKS:
- Ramones Story in The Brooklyn Bugle - http://brooklynbugle.com/2014/07/14/noise-the-column-tommy-ramone-the-ramones/
- Story on the creation of the first Ramones album (NY Times) - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/19/arts/music/ramones-the-story-behind-a-debut-album-from-punk-pioneers.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1
- Ramones Collection story in the Village Voice - http://www.villagevoice.com/music/the-ramones-at-the-queens-museum-through-a-diehard-fans-eyes-8489894
- 40 year since Ramones debut album story in Dangerous Minds - http://dangerousminds.net/comments/back_to_mono_the_ramones_debut_album_is_40_years_old
| Parent Category Page Links: | Music Artists / Outfits - America |
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