10 Stories of Music. 3) Tommy Ramone (the last of the Ramones)
Uncle Monk "Round The Bend" Because not everyone likes to be in the spotlight! Tamàs Erdélyi liked the idea of forming a band with those other three crazy guys, but he wanted to be the manager, the producer, in short, "the gray eminence." Unfortunately, Joey just couldn’t play the drums (and it was Tommy who invented him as a singer), and all those assholes who showed up for auditions thought they were playing in a damn Heavy Metal band!
So it was up to Tommy. They were the “Fast Four”, those were, and (for me) will always be the only “Fast Four.”
They were a family. Yes, a family. But those three were really assholes: Johnny was a fucking fascist, Joey was too busy feeling bad, and Dee Dee... well, Dee Dee wasn’t exactly all there!
On stage, they were something fantastic, but off stage, it was a nightmare for Tommy.
Tommy endured all kinds of pranks and bullying. He wasn’t like them, and that annoyed them. Yet some of their best songs were actually written by Tommy!
He slept all the time in the back of their van, waiting for it to pass. Money was always tight, and Dee Dee would blow through it all almost by himself.
One night, after being forced to drink piss and beer, he felt really sick; the next day he woke up late with his vomit stuck to his face and there was a concert to do. He was losing his mind.
When Marky arrived, everyone was relieved.
Tommy wanted to be a producer, and he did it well. Just ask the Replacements or Redd Kross or the Ramones themselves (just to name a few).
In the end, he started playing bluegrass and folk with his wife Claudia. And Uncle Monk wasn’t half bad.
He was the last to go, after the other three, due to liver cancer. Always too soon: he was only 62.
When he died, everyone mourned him as Tommy Ramone, the last of the Ramones.
Family Matters...
