Ramones
We're Outta Here!

THE REVIEW

2,263 is read two thousand two hundred sixty-three.

2,263 seconds are thirty-seven minutes. 2,263 minutes are thirty-seven hours. 2,263 hours are ninety-four days. 2,263 days are six years spent on stages. 6 years spent on stages are forty-six pages, the last of «Ramones. An American Band.» by Jim Bessman, the complete gigography from March 30, 1974, to August 6, 1996.

March 29, 1974. Jeffrey is 22 years old; ten years earlier, his grandmother contributes to buying his first drum set. John is also 22 and is friends with Douglas, who is 21; a couple of months earlier, John and Douglas head to 48th Street in New York, Manny's Guitar Center; John buys a Mosrite Blue guitar, Douglas a DanElectro bass, 50 dollars for the guitar, the same for the bass. Jeffrey plays with a band, the Sniper, and knows John because they frequent the same places and run into each other after high school; later, he also starts hanging out with Douglas because friends of friends are friends; John recommends Douglas keep an eye on that lanky Jeffrey; Douglas calls Jeffrey and suggests he join a band. Douglas, Jeffrey, and John.

March 30, 1974, 7:30 AM. Margarina wears a blue apron and goes to elementary school. Testa wears a blue apron and goes to kindergarten.

March 30, 1974, 10:00 PM. Douglas, bass and vocals, John, guitar, and Jeffrey, drums, perform at the Performance Studio. In the days leading up, the three distribute flyers to advertise the event. The audience is not one for grand occasions, about thirty friends, entry costs two dollars. Even if the audience isn't big, for the three, it's their debut; their nervousness is evident; Douglas trips over the $50 DanElectro and destroys it, scrambling to find another bass to prevent the first show from ending before it starts. Douglas sings most songs, occasionally replaced by Jeffrey, who has a beautiful voice; it takes few songs for Douglas to become hoarse; Jeffrey hits so hard he destroys his equipment, makes an incredible noise on the cymbals, drowning out the sound of the other instruments and the vocals.

March 30, 1974, 10:37 PM. «All our friends were invited, and we suck to each one of them, so much so they stop hanging out with us. We are not ready to play in front of any kind of audience.» That's how John comments on the performance. «They bring in their equipment, and then, plugged in, they start playing: they are terrible, pathetic. But also formidable.» declares Thomas, 21, the boss of the Performance Studio, sensing these three might have surprises in store, while his partner Monte laughs from the first to the last note.

March 31, 1974, 7:30 AM. Margarina still goes to elementary school; Testa to kindergarten.

March 31, 1974, 5:21 PM. Thomas offers to manage Douglas, Jeffrey, and John for a few months: everyone agrees. But something needs to change... Jeffrey isn't the best drummer around, so Thomas, who had never touched a drum set, sits behind the drums to show Jeffrey how he should play, but Jeffrey doesn't understand; until Douglas and John shout: «Why don't you play the drums?». To Thomas, it seems like an opportunity to seize and he rushes out to buy a set, parting with a hundred bucks that matches the guitar and bass for fifty. And never mind that Thomas had never touched a drum set... «I don't have a melodic style, and I don't play fourths, fifths, scales, or stuff like that with harmonic progression. The bass line always follows the guitar; I play the first note of the chord and stick to it.» Douglas illustrates his technique... «I had never played the guitar before, and I learned by counting downstrokes, “one-two-three-four”. Downstrokes and barre chords, that's all. I learned by following this routine.» John argues, revealing his personal style based on the “constant movement of the limp wrist”... «John makes it sound simple, but it's not like that. I can't play like him, and I bet Eddie Van Halen couldn't either. At least not for an hour straight. No one else can play like John.» so says Ed, someone who knows about guitars and guitarists and was at the Performance Studio on March 30, 1974.

April 1, 1974, 8:30 AM. Margarina and Testa, still present.

April 1, 1974, 7:12 PM. Jeffrey on vocals, John on guitar, Douglas on bass, Thomas on drums; Jeffrey baptizes himself Joey, John [GP1] Johnny, Douglas Dee Dee, and Thomas Tommy. They pass themselves off as brothers from a Puerto Rican family illegally immigrated and stationed in New York, Queens, the Ramone; like the Smiths of London, Notting Hill, and the Brambillas of Milan, Giambellino. That they were all born within a short span of 365 days and aren't twins is an inconsistency that no one minds. They are the Ramones, they seem like a flash in the pan, a joke destined to last a short time.

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August 5, 1996, 11:56 AM. Margarina and Testa, long finished with their brilliant careers behind school desks, enjoy their well-deserved vacations.

August 5, 1996, 6:07 PM. 8,164 days have passed between March 30, 1974, and today. The Ramones realize that a joke is funny when brief deem that tomorrow's in Los Angeles will be their last gig.

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8,165 is read eight thousand one hundred sixty-five.

8,165 days are 195,960 hours which are 11,757,600 minutes which are 705,456,000 seconds. Or, more simply, 8,165 days are those between March 30, 1974, and August 6, 1996. Or even more simply, 8,165 days are those between the first and last gig of the Ramones. 2,263 concerts in 8,165 days, one concert every four days.

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August 6, 1996, 5:03 PM. Margarina is at home dozing after an exhausting hike in the mountains; Testa is at home dozing after a day spent baking by the lakeside. If they knew what was to happen shortly in the City of Angels, they would be elsewhere, preoccupied with entirely different matters.

August 6, 1996, 9:57 PM. Friends mingled in the crowd make themselves heard, indeed; they are more than thirty and have paid more than two dollars to attend the feast; and they are eager for the party to begin. And let the party begin, for heaven's sake! To the notes of «The Good, the Bad, the Ugly» the Ramone brothers take the stage; Joey with his emaciated face, covered by ever-longer and messier hair, the inevitable sunglasses hiding eyes too shy to be THE punk-rocker, Joey living for years with cancer that makes singing a pain and will soon shorten his days, but tonight is the night, and this is a wonderful world, don't worry about me; so CJ, who replaced Dee Dee, yells for the 2,263rd time: «One-two-three-four»; and «Durango 95», «Teenage Lobotomy», «Psycho Therapy», «Blitzkrieg Bop» up to «Any Way You Want It». 32 bullets in quick succession, a formidable set unchanged for two decades.

August 6, 1996, 10:56 PM. It's the last gig and some friends have chosen to be there to honor those four hooligans from Queens who on March 30, 1974, were laughed at by everyone present. Lemmy takes the stage, only Lemmy, and it's the most intense moment rock 'n' roll – not punk, not blues, not metal, but rock 'n' roll as a whole – has experienced since July 4, 1954, when Elvis entered the Sun Records recording studio. The Ramones have played the same song for 22 years, Lemmy Ramone, the same: «I've always thought people change for the worse, if they change», thus the life philosophy of John; «The bad boy plays the rock'n'roll / Gabba gabba see how they go / Bad boys once, bad boys even now / Great friends, mau mau mau.» thus the life philosophy of Lemmy. R.A.M.O.N.E.S.!!!!!

August 6, 1996, 11:08 PM. Arrive Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen. In that hot Californian summer of 1996, they are the ones holding up the punk flag with dignity; but Rancid would never have existed if on March 30, 1974, those four hooligans from Queens hadn't found themselves at the Performance Studio being laughed at by everyone present. R.A.M.O.N.E.S.!!!!!

August 6, 1996, 11:18 PM. Now it's Chris Cornell, Ben Shepard, and Eddie Vedder's turn. In that hot Californian summer of 1996, they are holding the rock flag high with dignity; but neither Soundgarden nor Pearl Jam would have existed if on March 30, 1974, those four hooligans from Queens hadn't found themselves at the Performance Studio to be laughed at by everyone there. In the booklet notes, Eddie's scarce words stand out: «2,262 shows, plus this last, in a van, remember.» Those four hooligans from Queens toured the world far and wide, played everywhere: always on the road with shabby vans, no comforts, always on the front line, with fierce and incorruptible coherence. Punk. R.A.M.O.N.E.S.!!!!!

August 6, 1996, 11:30 PM. And lastly, the prodigal brother Dee Dee returns who, years ago, polemically abandoned brotherhood, leaving the bass in CJ's capable hands. Now the party is real. Let cancer, drug addiction, betrayals, and subterfuges go to hell, it's time now for finger-pointing once again like that night of December 31, 1977 – remember Douglas? Remember Jeffrey? – and another 2,261 nights, chanting in unison with all the breath in our bodies «D.U.M.B. Everyone accuses me». R.A.M.O.N.E.S.!!!!!

August 7, 1996, 12:00 AM. The Ramones end here. The Ramones will never reunite, except for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony on March 18, 2002. But they are no longer the same: Jeffrey died on April 15, 2001. Simul stabunt, simul cadunt: Douglas dies on June 5, 2002, and John follows him on September 15, 2004. Thomas, the youngest of the Ramone brothers, is also the last to leave the stage on July 11, 2014. The Ramones are tough but not tough enough to escape death.

August 7, 1996, 7:27 AM. Margarina and Testa still don't know each other but awaken simultaneously with the same bitter taste in their mouths. They don't yet know that the last gig of the Ramones, the two-thousand-two-hundred-sixty-third to be precise, ended recently.

November 18, 1997. Eagle Rock Records releases «We’re Outta Here!», the album documenting the last concert in Ramones history.

November 19, 1997. Margarina and Testa still don't know each other but, stirred by the same emotional tremor, leave home early to buy «We’re Outta Here!», the album documenting the last concert in Ramones history; they return home late and lose themselves in observing the photos inside the booklet: the four brothers' dusty and creased "spikes," hanging, ready to be worn one last time; Johnny's guitar bearing the marks of 2,263 battles fought through the years; the concert photos, with all the guests; the thanks from the four hooligans from Queens, expressing their satisfaction and disbelief for a band that is a unique and never-to-be-replicated Story. A group of friends who faced and overcame difficulties, differences, quarrels. R.A.M.O.N.E.S.!!!!!

March 12, 2016. Margarina and Testa have known each other in a debasarian manner for a couple of years. Margarina saw the Ramones live three times, moshing and sweating and dripping genuine fun as in no other occasion ever; Testa never saw the Ramones live but owns all their records and listens to them on repeat even today, at 45 years old, moshing and sweating and dripping genuine fun as in no other occasion ever. In the early afternoon, Margarina delivers a few lines about «We’re Outta Here» to Testa; in the evening, Testa adds more, blending it all together.

March 14, 2016. The third of Margahead. And if you've made it this far, we welcome you among us, one of us, gabba gabba hey or ad maiora, you might say.

R.A.M.O.N.E.S.!!!!!