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Rating: Noble Tribute to Our Own
"Tremate debaseriani because the hour has come. The Count asks me for a brief salvo to properly introduce a review page on the life of the (fake) Puerto Rican brothers; but do you realize The Count and De...Marga together!! This pleases me, it fills me with true joy because the RAMONES are a part of me; and it is good and righteous to tell of their last tour on Italian soil. On January 22, 1996, they played at the Palatrussardi in Milan; let the ritual begin from the very beginning.
It so happens that in the morning, my then life companion Marina and I receive the gift of a German shepherd puppy, born on Christmas Day 1995, whom we name Primus: RAMONES AND PRIMUS on the same day!! Can you believe it... What a fabulous day (even got a rhyming couplet... WOW). But it's time to head to Milan because we all know very well that this is the last tour of the four working-class delinquents from Forest Hills.
There were four or five of us, who remembers; we're inside the Pala, the lights go down, and it begins. The smell of smoke is even bothersome; if it were only "normal" smoke ahahahaha. The usual setlist, the usual forty songs they have played for 22 years and 2263 concerts. Yes, you read that right: TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED SIXTY-THREE concerts. They had the immense courage and strength to overcome every crisis, every internal conflict (and there have been plenty for God's sake!!). They lived on tour for twenty-two years always in rickety and uncomfortable buses; no tour bus, no comforts. No planes for travel. Suffering and fighting always; always in contact and available to the band of devotees dedicated to their damned ROCHENROLLE creed!! Because the Ramones were capable of changing the earth’s axis rotation, the laws of physics with their musical approach, made mostly of physicality, simplicity, total chaos. Four chords on the guitar, rather just two, and off they go.
SBADABAM: let's return to the concert and the intense and lethal setlist. Poging was perfectly managed by yours truly (POGOMAN was my nickname), assisted by my friend Marco, known on debaser as Lewis Tollani. Joey already struggles to sing; struggles to stand. His lanky physique is already very tired; he can’t even manage the famous "onetwothreefour" between songs, which is declared by C.J. Marky holds bold tempos behind the drums; Johnny has the guitar at knee height and shoots four notes at full throttle. Faster, more chaotic, impulsive. Teenage Lobotomy, Psycho Therapy, Blitzkrieg Bop, Rockaway Beach, Pet Semetary, Cretin Hop, Pinhead (the scumbag from Lake Bracciano!!) are the institutional anthems that follow one another neck-breaking. I fall multiple times, make dozens of leaps over the crowd, sail and am as happy as Easter. Destroyed and happy, I reach the end; because unfortunately, after just over an hour the ritual comes to a close. Sweaty as a beast, I reach Marina in the stands; our embrace is spontaneous (I must have had a devastating armpit but I hold on tight to the embrace, damn it...). These were the RAMONES: a world apart, unique, bizarre characters who came together and created the myth. They all left, passing on to a better life. Except for Marky and C.J.
But we would continue to love them... A tribal drum, a wooden bass, a crackling voice, a guitar used like a chainsaw. Torn jeans, unkempt hair, worn-out and likely smelly sneakers. Scuffed leather jackets. We revered them, simply... GABBA GABBA HEY...."
Either you love them or you hate them, we often say about some band; I think that Our Own are the perfect example of this.
So here we are We who “hail the Ramones” and You who can’t stand them.
An obligatory note is that this division already happens within the Noble ones; I’ve eliminated the mass of the useless, skimming away about 95/97% from the total of humanity.
“The Ramones are not a group that plays old hits, they are not a glitter rock group, they don’t do boogie-woogie or blues. The Ramones are a rock’n’roll band, their songs are brief and complete” a band flyer roughly said circa 1974.
I never had intimate dealings with punk, on the contrary... but they were already there stealing a piece of my heart since I was a kid.
Then I asked myself why - exactly - since at the time I didn’t like any of the little punk I listened to, and the punks I saw frankly disgusted me....
Indeed, Our Own aren’t punk. They started that punk wave without being punk; they didn’t even consider themselves a punk band.
The Brothers are a Rock’n’Roll band with a capital R!
No one ever unknowingly put together stuff like the Beatles or the Beach Boys with a frenetic, full-throttle rhythm. Or the melodies of the 1960s girl groups but shot through with Chuck Berry on cube.
No one ever played twenty pieces in seventeen minutes! And if, in the early days, they had to play more to be (poorly) paid, they’d repeat the set two/three times, very simple. Also because other people’s pieces were too difficult oh, to hell with covers, we play our pieces period.
No one ever in that (musical) historical moment changed the rules like they did:
enough talking to the audience, no presenting anything. We play and that’s it.
They spanned three decades, played more than anyone, influenced almost as few others and never had real and deserved commercial success.
No one - or very few others - has remained so faithful to their sound for so long, ignoring trends and various bullshit.
They squabbled and couldn’t stand each other but, once on stage, they became a granite group.
No one - well actually someone had, but Our Own in this regard held up their end - were so wrecked. A junkie (fabulous) on bass, a scarecrow type glued to a microphone whose face you couldn’t see (probably for the better), an angry Republican conservative trying to play the guitar, and the various drummers with the common denominator of the noble alcoholic vice. Oh, the bass junkie was supposed to be the “pretty one,” too.
We who “hail them” don’t care about technique, scales, sixths, sevenths, minors or whatever, we’re into strong, no, extremely strong emotions.
Because even “my” Jimmy, who has nothing to do with it, said “I’m not about technique, I’m about emotions”.
Because We who “hail them” have to feel assaulted by the music, harassed, annihilated, like an adrenaline rush. And so their sound is perfect for this. Because, always my “Jimmy”, he also bores me to death with his Dazed and Confused that lasted half an hour!!!
Essential and direct!
And so, it happens that for We who “hail them” if we have a shitty day but happen to hear a “Hey, ho! Let’s go!” we start to smile, and if the “One-two-three-four” kicks in, for a few minutes we forget all the craziest bullshit.
We who “hail them” care about feeling passion, and we feel it all from them...
Always at full throttle! Maybe we stop halfway through a song during a concert and tell each other to go to hell, but we start right back up at full speed. And Johnny’s fingers bleed from all the thrashing. And there’s no way playing drums for the Ramones is easy!
“The Ramones come from Forest Hills. The kids who grew up there have become musicians, degenerates, or dentists. The Ramones are a bit of all three. Their music resembles the fast drilling of a molar” ...
I hate the dentist, I get anxious just thinking about the sound of that damn drill, but I adore them... I never would have thought that four degenerate, fake Puerto Rican brothers could enter my soul like this.
The book is beautiful, easy, and direct like their music. The story of a cult band if ever there was one. From the beginnings to the mythical CBGB's, to the first albums that would make history, the collaboration with Spector, alcohol and drug problems, drummer changes, to the end, always accompanied, even in reading, by their relentless sound and adolescent humor.
You Nobles who don’t stand them, just try to think that many bands you love have been, at the very least, influenced, if not downright “initiated” by Our Own...
From the Clash to Bad Brains to name a couple, put dozens and dozens in between.
And I’ll stop because I’d go on for another three pages driving you nuts.
I can’t write and certainly don’t have the gift of conciseness ahahah, I hope to have a bit of the vitality and passion of Our Own. So I wrote it in a hurry, this time.
“At the start of filming (of the movie “Rock'n'Roll High School”) the crew didn’t know anything about the Ramones, but in the end, everyone was singing Pinhead”
Dedicated to all You, especially to the Master but above all Friend, Pinhead.
Strange and beautiful to be “out of this world”, but feel real friends as people you've never even seen...
Adios Amigos
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