Jan. 20, 1978 feature: The Ramones

 

Out for a ride with the pioneers of punk-rock. 

Jan. 20 1978 

The Ramones 

          The Ramones are packed into WGRQ-FM’s tiny broadcast studio, looking strange as missionaries among the non-believers. Except for their T-shirts, they’re all dressed alike – black leather jackets, sneakers and faded jeans torn at the knees. Singer Joey Ramone wears what look like sweater arms to keep his knees warm.

          Nobody’s quite sure what to make of this quartet of wayward-looking young men in their 20s. The deliberate imitation of street toughs is enough to place an artistic barrier around them, an image so unbreakable that it transforms any setting. What’s more, none of them professes a last name. It’s simply Joey, Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee.

          “Everybody say hello at once,” disc jockey John Velchoff says to start the on-air interview. They all say hello.

          “Johnny,” Velchoff begins, “what’s happening?”

          It turns out that the Ramones are happening. All over the country. The Buffalo date last Friday is part of the most extensive American tour in their three-year existence. The group that set the style for punk-rock is on the verge of breaking through into the pop mainstream. Their third album, “Rocket to Russia,” is 56 th on the Billboard charts this week and their single, “Rockaway Beach,” is a hit in their native New York City.

          “None of us are brothers,” Johnny explains when asked where the Ramones come from. “We’ve all been friends since we wee kids. We all lived on the same block in Forest Hills. We started writing songs out of boredom. We didn’t like what we were hearing, so we started playing our own tunes.”

          The stop at WBUF-FM is again awkward, but again the group says all the right things. They mention the show that night. They mention the album and the tour. They don’t insult anyone. And they get the single played.

          Tommy, the drummer, and Johnny, the guitarist, turn out to be the most articulate spokesmen. Joey seems quite shy. And Dee Dee, the bassist, seems closest in actual sentiment to the tough image that the band projects.

          But in some ways they seem like urchins lost in a strange land. Petite Linda Stein, a UB alumna and wife of Sire Records president Seymour Stein, ushers them in and out of the stations, picks up lost gloves and generally keeps them organized. Her bag bears a plastic tag that says: “Don’t Punk Out $$$$$$.”

          As they leave WBUF, she runs down the FM stations across the country that have started playing the album. “Now you’ve got what we call a solid FM foundation,” she tells them. As their new van passes the WKBW studios en route to an autograph session at Record Theater, she points to it and says: “That’s the station we want to go on.”

          The Ramones are not unaware of all this. They want to be stars. One can almost picture them as scruffy but cuddly cartoon characters. Nevertheless, the band seems a bit surprised by signs of enthusiasm outside Record Theater. Once inside, they clearly enjoy the attention they get.

          Another large crowd – a mixture of the curious and the faithful – turns out to greet them at He & She’s. College rock critics report that the band warms up in the dressing room by playing old Beatles tunes. The audience, meantime, warms up with Buffalo’s premiere punk-rock group, Lip Service.

          The Ramones take the stage about midnight with their usual abrupt intro – a shouted hello and Dee Dee’s countdown for the first number, “Rockaway Beach.” This is the more commercial sound they’ve aimed for on the new album, but much of the concert reaches back to old gross-outs and put-ons, like “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment” and “I Wanta Be Whipped.” (This one is listed among the Ramones' many commonly misheard lyrics. It's actually "I Wanna Be Well.")

          A few non-believers pick up and leave after the early numbers, but the Ramones’ rapid-fire attack and furious energy rouses the rest into a fine frenzy that carries through two encores. In future months, as other New Wave bands come to Buffalo, they can thank the Ramones for kicking open the door here for punk-rock.

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IN THE PHOTO: Sire Records promotional photo of the Ramones from 1977.

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FOOTNOTE: Her Wikipedia page tells us that Linda Stein, nee Linda Adler in the Bronx, left a teaching job to manage the Ramones. (Seymour Stein’s page in Wikipedia notes that she was the one who brought them to his attention.) Her marriage to Seymour ended in divorce not long after this and she went on to become a high-end real estate agent in the 1990s, finding million-dollar apartments for Madonna, Sting, Steven Spielberg and Elton John. Her personal assistant bludgeoned her to death in 2007 because Linda “just kept yelling at her.” Seymour Stein died earlier this year, on April 2.

          Tommy Ramone left the band not long after this tour and continued as their record producer. He was succeeded on the drums by Marc Bell, a veteran of Richard Hell & the Voidoids, who became Marky Ramone.

          The Ramones finally did appear as cartoon versions of themselves in an episode of “The Simpsons” in 1993. That was two years after they left Sire Records and two years before they issued their 14th and final studio album. Their last live performance was Aug. 6, 1996.

          The original Ramones are no longer with us. Joey died of lymphoma in 2001, Dee Dee had a fatal heroin overdose in 2002, Johnny succumbed to prostate cancer in 2004 and Tommy died of bile duct cancer in 2014.

          Setlist.fm gives only a partial accounting of what they played Jan. 13 in He & She’s:

          Rockaway Beach

          Blitzkreig Bop

          Sheena is a Punk Rocker

          Surfin’ Bird (Trashmen cover)

          Pinhead

          (encore)

          Do You Wanna Dance? (Bobby Freeman cover)

          (second encore)

          Suzy is a Headbanger 

          The setlist from a date Jan. 7 at the Palladium in New York City is much more extensive:

          Rockaway Beach

          Teenage Lobotomy

          Blitzkreig Bog

          I Wanna Be Well

          Glad to See You Go

          Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

          You’re Gonna Kill That Girl

          I Don’t Care

          Sheena is a Punk Rocker

          Havana Affair

          Commando

          Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

          Surfin’ Bird

          Cretin Hop

          Listen to My Heart

          California Sun (Joe Jones cover)

          I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You

          Pinhead

          Do You Wanna Dance?

          Chain Saw

          Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World

          Now I Wanna Be a Good Boy

          Suzy is a Headbanger

          Let’s Dance (Chris Montez cover)

          Oh Oh I Love Her So

          Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

          We’re a Happy Family