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The Ramones: Bands
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The Ramones were and are one of the most influential punk bands of all time. They took their mutual love of 60s Girl Group records (particularly those produced by Phil Spector) and applied that to short rock songs. They were great fans of pop music, although many fans didn't seem to realize this, which is odd, given the sound and structure of their songs and choices of covers, though one could see the confusion given the subject matter of many Ramones songs. The inter-band tensions are widely known, but they stayed together for a long time. Sadly, the 3 core members have died within a couple years of each other, but their influence reigns on.
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The Ramones were a German punk rock band, award winning comedy troupe, wrestling stable, 2004 NFC Champions and mafia family. The original line-up consisted of Joey on tamborine, Johnny on lead vocals and cowbell, Dee Dee on drums, Marky on guitar, and Cubby on tuba. They formed a band in 1984 which eventually lead to a series of top selling records.
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The Ramones weren´t the only alternative band on the New York scene during those fateful days of ´74 and ´75. There were those who´d come before, like the glittering New York Dolls from st Marks Place, the boys-will-be-boys Dictators from the Bronx, and the Priestess from New Jersey, Patti Smith. And there were those who emerged alongside them, the Neon Boys, Tom Verlaine and Richard who splitt up to form Television, the art school refugees Talking Heads, and the pop aspiring Blondie. And they all met at such unlikely shrines as the aforementioned CBGB and the old Warhol hangout, Max´s Kansas City. No one ever got up and officially proclaimed this motley crew of musical misfits a movement. But as they began to draw increasingly lager audience - audiences made up of people who, like themselves, were bored with the music on their radios and in their record stores - and as the critics began chronicling their exploits and singing their praises print, a movement was indeed nurtured.
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In the early '90s, The Ramones sobered up, with both Joey and Marky undergoing treatment for alcoholism. The band returned to recording in 1992, first releasing the live Loco Live and then Mondo Bizarro, their first studio album in three years. Mondo Bizarro turned out to be a commercial failure, as did their 1994 covers album, Acid Eaters.
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With 1984\'s Too Tough to Die, the Ramones delivered a belated response to America\'s burgeoning hardcore punk scene that was largely produced by Tommy Erdelyi. The album helped restore their artistic reputation, as did the 1985 single, "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg," an attack on President Ronald Reagan\'s 1985 visit to Germany. Instead of continuing with the sound of Too Tough to Die, the Ramones began pursuing a more streamlined, stylized, and conventional take on their songwriting formula with 1986\'s Animal Boy. This was a direction the group followed for the remaining ten years of their career. Following the release of 1987\'s Halfway to Sanity, Richie Ramone left the band and Marky Ramone re-joined the group. In 1988, the career retrospective Ramones Mania appeared.
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Their story: The story of the Ramones began in their childhood neighbourhood of Forest Hills, Queens. The band members shared childhoods filled with alienation, salvaged only by their common love of underground music like Iggy and the Stooges and the New York Dolls. As high school students, amidst teenage delinquency, glue sniffing and a shared dark sense of humour, all set to a soundtrack of teen angst and frustration, the Ramones were headed nowhere. With seemingly no other options, and against a popular music terrain that was completely polar to their sensibilities, they formed a band and learned to make music by simply picking up instruments and just playing. And after a few false starts, they unveiled their newly invented sound at the legendary CBGB's on the Lower East Side. With their stripped-down sound, clean aesthetic and fast attack, the band quickly became the darlings of the New York underground music scene.
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