Gabba Gabba Hey

"I sit and stare into the grin of Skinny the Foo. I just wanna have something to do! Life goes on, I'm still an angry punker with a view, but an icon is now gone, and he's left me here with you." Anderson Silva from "Joey Ramone is Dead"

The nurse has taste like Nancy Reagan, a strict "Just Say No" policy to anything that isn't Grade-A certified smash by the collective masses. she may be all falke boobs and tattoos but if you spin through her Ipod you'll find enough Mariah Carey and Pink to choke the world to death on bubble gum. She would never had appreciated my musical voyage, hell she wouldn't understand the beauty, the brilliance, the ballistics that were The Ramones.

I quote Joe Strummer, founder of one of the greatest bands in the history of music, The Clash. He said "If that Ramones record hadn't of existed, I don't know that we could have built a scene here because it fulfilled a vital gap between the death of the old pub rocking scene and the advent of Punk." That's a statement. Saying that a little band of misfits and uncool kids from Queens helped establish Englands punk rock scene.

For me, punk rock, and I'm talking real not for commercial distrubution, punk rock was an essential part of my high school experience. Wes, thank Jeebus for Wes, opened my ears to the likes of D.I., the Dils, Rhino 39, Sham 69, The Adolescents, the Sex Pistols, and of course the Ramones. We would sit in his room, drum set nearby, and listen to records, yes records in the 80's, as we made mix tapes that I would play until they stretched so bad that Joey Ramone started to sound like Pat Boone. If it wasn't for Wes and those sessions I never would have been able to appreciate all the different types of music that I now do, but the Ramones were special.

I remember driving with Don to the Rock Shop on Hollywood Blvd for the express purpose of buying The Ramones. The debut album. Now granted this was like 1986 and punk rock had long been gagging on the vomit it had spawned, but there were few albums I absolutely remember buying. It may have been after the game was over but we found something amazing. We popped the cassette into the deck of the Mazda trucks tape deck and listened to it twice on the way back to Don's house. It brought us together. It was angry and raw. Our Reagan-era upbringing was in need of a swift kick to the BMW. Finding punk help[ed us to stand against the yuppie epidemic that was all around us.

I think there are maybe 5 albums that changed the musical landscape. Elvis Preseley's Sun Sessions, the Beach Boys Pet Sounds, the Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, Nevermind from Nirvana, and the Ramones. The only other two albums I would even think about including are Thriller and, this will make someone out there very happy, Guns N' Roses "Appettite for Destruction". None of which could or would exist without the others, except Thriller, because it's not a rock-n-roll record. Important in the history of music, sure, but not in the same genre and leauge as the others mentioned. Each of those records has been a part of my life, none of them played as important a role as The Ramones. It is still worthy of my love and devotion, even if I look like an aging hipster driving my huge SUV while listening to "I Wanna Sniff Some Glue". When I see a 14 year old kid walking down the street in a Ramones T-shirt, I feel bad for the kid. He thinks he knows, but he doesn't really know, you know?

The Ramones wrote some great mix tape making love songs to go along with the slam and pogo standards. For me, that's whay makes them fascinating, 30 years later, yeah, I'm feeling old, but my ears are still young. I wouldn't want to have grown up without the countdown in my head. 1,2,3,4. The Ramones made those numbers seem like the start to everything, the beginning of the story, the birth of a genre, the emergence of my adulthood, all with three chords, a leather jacket, and the right attitude.

Did punk rock effect your life? The Ramones?

Dixie Cup of Love: Joey, Johnny, Tommy, and Dee Dee.