Ramonesongs

"Who's your favourite Ramone?"

It's Joey. However, it's not unquestioning as with, say the Clash (Strummer wins), or a Rorschach test like the Beatles used to be (nowadays it's all John). The Ramones gang-mentality made them slightly harder to distinguish. Johnny was the punk rock anchor, Dee Dee the key song-writer and Joey brought the pop. Tommy, Richie and Marky's importance can't be discounted, though perhaps C.J.'s can.

So while Joe Strummer inspired dozens of songs about him, to the exclusion of his Clash-mates, Ramones tribute songs (as opposed to covers) are legion and less exclusive in their devotion. In these twenty-six Ramonesongs, Joey takes the lion's share but Dee Dee gets enough, while Johnny and Marky also get namechecked. The remainder are bands who just let their tattered Ramones flags fly.

1. Motorhead - R.A.M.O.N.E.S.
Motorhead make most other bands sound like sissies.

2. Eastern Dark -Johnny and Dee Dee
Handclaps, harmonies and hammering guitars - hey ho let's go.

3. Sloppy Seconds - You Can't Kill Joey Ramone
A junk-rock prayer for the dead.

4. Queers - Goodbye California
Joe King embodies the Johnny/Joey - rock/pop dichotomy in one surly man's body and hence all of his songs are Ramones tributes even when they only mention the band in passing.

5. Mr. T. Experience - End of the Ramones
When MTX was a two-song-writer organization, Jon Von's goofy garage-rock tunes always complimented Dr. Frank's more sarcastically cerebral pop-punk songs.

6. Marky Ramones and the Speed Kings - I've Got Dee Dee On My Mind
In the documentary End of the Century Marky says the Ramones greatness lied in their stamina and which Ramone has shown more stamina than Marky?

7. The Vacant Lot - Dee Dee said
May in fact be a love song for former Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Meyers.

8. Helen Love - Joey Ramoney
If Bridget Jones formed a twee-pop band who sang only about the Ramones this is what they would sound like.

9. Dr. Frank - I Wanna Ramone You
Solo song from the leader of MTX and it's from his self-penned soundtrack to his novel, King Dork.

10. Lenny & the Piss-Poor Boys - Beat on the Brat
This is CBGB's music; not drugged-up punk or straight-edge hardcore but country, blue grass and blues - Bowery style.

11. Amy Rigby - Dancing With Joey Ramone
Country-tinged power-pop with a sharp eye for detail.

12. Spazzys - I Wanna Cut My Hair Like Marky Ramone
Screeching Weasel surf with the Go-Go's in Australia.

13. Parasites - I Wanna Be Like Dee Dee Ramone
In 1:40 Dave Parasite does a more fitting tribute to tha brudders than his hour-long cover of "It's Alive".

14. Badtown Boys - Dee Dee Took the Subway
A zippy lament for Dee Dee's doomed solo career.

15. Hanson Brothers - Joey Had To Go
A salute to Joey by the NoMeansNo side - band who sound uncannily like NoMeansNo trying to sound vaguely like the Ramones.

16. Greenland Whalefishers - Ramones
The Pogues but Norwegian.

17. The Wildhearts - 29 X the Pain
Actually an advertisement for leader Ginger's very discriminating taste in rock n' roll (with the exception of Kiss who blow no matter what cockamamie theory anyone offers to the contrary).

18. Raging Slab - Dry Your Eyes (For Joey Ramone)
The Ramones inspired seventies-styled sludge-rock bands too.

19. We Vs Death and Tom Sweetlove - No Future (For Joey Ramone)
Some call it post-rock, I call it art for art's sake.

20. Sleater Kinney - I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone
Their time as crit-darlings is long gone and this song represents the best of the noise-damaged art-punk they left behind.

21. Guitar Wolf - Kung Fu Ramone Culmination Tactic
Japanese feedback-mongers offer an instrumental tribute to the Ramones (at least I think that's what they're doing...)

22. Swoons - My Grandpa is Joey Ramone
A (possibly) Japanese band who'll make you miss Shoenen Knife (a.k.a the Osaka Ramones).

23. Boris the Sprinkler - Kill the Ramones
Rev. Norb spews out more of his Ramonesaphobia.

24. Huntingtons - What Would Joey Do?
The Huntingtons plied their Ramones-by-way-of Screeching-Weasel shtick for ten years and it never hurt anyone.

25.Acid Reflux - Do Your Parent Know You're a Ramone
A :37 second old-school hardcore smear.

26. Jello Biafra - Joey Ramone
They say generals are always fighting the last war and Jello Biafra is a punk rock general forever fighting against the mid-seventies.


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P.S. With so many songs about the Ramones I elected to delete some songs before this turned into a friggin' box set. That being said, please feel free to comment on songs left off.

P.P.S. Still time to vote on the Last Great Ramones Album.

Next: I Was A Teenage Ramone

The End of the Ramones Clones

What's your Ramones cut-off?

Some say it's all been downhill since Rocket to Russia.

Many more would say Road to Ruin killed them.

A die-hard minority (including Rhino Records) would say that the Ramones stayed strong till Too Tough to Die.

Finally, there are those ever-diminishing pockets of resisters who hold onto one of the later albums as the final Ramones triumph.

Animal Boy (hence the 12" pictured above) is my cut-off and while proponents of Halfway to Sanity and Brain Drain might have a point, fans of Mondo-Acid-Amigos just have a tough slog.

The full-album tributes to the Ramones also peter out at Too Tough to Die, which has been done twice! Neither version adds up to much. The unfortunately-named Jon Cougar Concentration Camp (who came to Joe King's aid in keeping the Queers afloat) make the whole album sound like "Endless Vacation". Canada's mighty Mcrackins bring none of their pop-smarts to bear and instead make the whole album sound like "No Go". (For some thin but rollicking Mcrackin-ness go HERE for their"Mickey and Mallory" e.p.)



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Download Jon Cougar Concentration Camp

Oh yeah, and as far as postscripts go you can't forget this gnarly-sounding live bootleg of Ramones covers by Operation Ivy. Berkley, California's Op Ivy only produced a single, an album and a few scattered comp tracks in their life (it all fits on one CD) but what a legacy. Critically written-off but still an inspiration to a million kids with guitars - including a few great bands and, one must confess, a few thousand derivative ones. Album recently re-issued by Hellcat. For more info on lead singer Jesse Micheal's two excellent post Op Ivy bands Big Rig and Common Rider go HERE (and scroll down a wee bit)


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Did I mention Sonic Youth earlier? Did I discuss their Ramones covers bootleg (that sneaks in "Nic Fit" for reasons unknown)? Well, If I neglected that document, let us rectify our mistake here and now. Here is New York's noisiest take on a bunch of early Ramones classics.

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Please look up and to your right at the survey with
the tiny title font ("Last Great Ramones Album?")
and make your choice.
If you're an American, you'll already
be in a democratic mood and
the rest of us will be able to ease our
voter envy with the click of a mouse.

Ramones Clones III

Despite my voracious mid-90's pop-punk diet, I never glommed onto Cleavland's Beatnik Termites (and I did sample their work). Did I miss something? Back in 1997 they attacked Pleasant Dreams as if it was an album of their best originals and came within spitting distances of cutting the Ramones on the album's most memorable song - "The KKK Took My Baby Away". Then, with "You Sound Like You're Sick", they did end up beating the Ramones of 1981 at their own game. It's no wonder it's the only of these cover albums to have been both praised by Marky Ramone ("It was real good") and name checked on the Rhino Ramones re-issues' liner notes. Even if you think that covering an entire album is lame- you owe this a listen.


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P.S. For a European take on Subterranean Jungle visit the ever-awesome Ratboy 69 who posted an often-fun version by the Tip-Toppers. A quick listen suggested to these (Canadian) ears that only Americans can really pull off Ramones mimicry - though a Chixdiggit version of Animal Boy would be great (Sloppy Seconds being possibly even better).

P.P. S. In 1997 former New Jersey-ites the Parasites fit the double-album It's Alive onto a single LP by doing the Japanese single disc version. The exhaustive (in the fun sense of that word) Hangover Heart Attack has posted it here. However, this album doesn't tell you anything that you need to know about this otherwise excellent band.

Ramones Clones II

Rev. Norb unleashed one of his hyper-caffeinated rants to begin this 1998 cover of what he calls, "one of the worst Ramones albums known to man". He then goes on to claim that they asked for End of the Century because everyone knows it sucks and thus reducing the pressure on Green Bay’s Boris the son-of-a-bitchin’ Sprinkler. So while most songs, like “I’m Affected” and “This Ain’t Havana”, are done straight, Rev. Norb does get to do the wigged-out version of “Baby, I Love You” we all wished the Ramones had done.


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Attack of the Ramones Clones

It's always been easy to ape the Ramones. That handful of chords, those two or three tempos, those simple tunes, that leather n' denim uniform and the so dumb-its-smart attitude. But it's deceptive, trust me I've tried (more on that later) and so have a 378,00o other bands. None of those bands ever wrote a string of classics that can overcome the boundaries between good and bad taste. The Ramones songbook will outlive the few remaining members - with the entire frontline being dead and all their drummers alive the Ramones ended up as the anti-Spinal Tap.

The band is cited as an influence by groups like Sonic Youth and U2 who sound, charitably, nothing like the Ramones. Then, there are the thousands of pop-punk bands who use the Ramones as their entire blueprint. Many of these bands (the Richies anyone?) are only of interest to Ramones Fanatics ("no comment, your honour"). However, starting in the late eighties a raft of American bands from the mid-west and Southern California built impressive discographies on the foundation that the Ramones bashed together. Many of these bands recorded entire Ramones albums in tribute and while, inevitably, none surpass the masters, you could at least say that each of those cover albums are more intriguing and more rewarding than Gus Van Sant's shot-by-shot re-make of Psycho. Not a flattering comparison, I grant you but I only mean to praise with such faint damning.

Chicago's Screeching Weasel (by Ben's own admission) stole more from the Ramones as they progressed through their first few incarnations. When one of those incarnations was at a low point in 1993 the band recorded the entire Ramones debut album in its entirety. While, unfortunately, they don't mess with the arrangements much they do jack up the tempos and add a mid-western snarl. If you like either band, it's worth the listen especially since the re-issue adds a great late-period Screeching Weasel single which proves that Ben's catchy originals have a prickly intelligence that the Ramones never pursued. Available from littletype

Obsessiveness loves company, so in 1994 fellow Chicagoans the Vindictives recorded The Ramones second album, Leave Home. Re-arranging the track order ("You Should Never Have Opened That Door" moves from near the end to being the second song) is the first indication that will be the least conservative of the series. The nerdy-whiny of Joey Vindictive gives a new desperation to the songs and little twists (odd samples, new guitar lines, strange backing vocals and twisted endings) make this the freshest of the series. Available from Interpunk

The Queers entire catalog is a tribute to the Ramones, so surprisingly their 1994 tribute to the strongest Ramones album, Rocket to Russia, is nice but uneventful. Available from Interpunk

Thus far I've refrained from expounding on the twisted lyrical vision of the Mr. T Experience's Dr. Frank (a.k.a. Y.A. author Frank Portman) since almost all of the good Doctor's work remains in print via Lookout Records. While it may be the slightest of this Berkley band's mighty works, MTX's 1998 Road to Ruin takes an inherently limited opportunity and makes a fist of it, especially when they dig into the bleaker tracks such as "I Wanted Everything" and their acoustic take on "I've Gone Mental". Currently unavailable...


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