bloggedy blog

:: Thursday, February 09, 2006 ::

Meet the Ramones, all over again
Has it really been 30 years since the Ramones burst onto the scene in a flurry of power chords and two-minute songs that seemed to all begin with One!Two!Three!Four!? Almost. The Ramones' debut album came out in the late spring or early summer of 1976, but Rolling Stone is already taking us down nostalgia lane by promoting on their website an August 1976 article about the band. "Riding a wave of rapturous reviews from New York critics, their album, Ramones, has actually broken into the Top 150," RS wrote back in '76, "and they just returned from two dates in London with the Flamin' Groovies."

Their music -- an amazing amalgam of higher energy, funnier lyrics and less command of their instruments than the New York Dolls' -- derives much of its charm from the Ramones' instinctive understanding that great artistry can result from turning your liabilities into assets.

"The reason I start all our songs by screaming 'one-two-three-four' into the mike is that we couldn't learn how to do the silent count," explains Dee Dee, searching his face for zits in a cosmetic mirror on manager Danny Field's desk.

"Besides, screaming 'one-two-three-four' is more fun," says Tommy. "Our music is an answer to the early Seventies when artsy people with big egos would do vocal harmonies and play long guitar solos and get called geniuses. That was bullshit. We play rock & roll. We don't do solos. Our only harmonics are in the overtones from the guitar chords."

Classic.

Ramones, music, punk rock

:: Andrew 07:43 + ::
...

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