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His Philosophy

I was working on a different article for today but the first thing I heard on the radio when I woke up this morning was that Joey Ramone was dead. I don’t know if this is news to some of you, but he died Easter Sunday, April 15, 2001, from complications from lymphatic cancer. Here’s the Associated Press article.

Some of you may wanna take the day off, go home and put on your favorite Ramones album, turn it up to 11, beat your fist in the air, and thank Joey for the memories. It is now a national holiday. I give you the day off - take it. If you already have today off for Easter Monday, take tomorrow off.

I don’t even need to talk about how important Joey Ramone was to rock ‘n’ roll music. I don’t even need to talk about the way the Ramones revolutionized rock n roll, kept it alive almost singlehandedly, started punk rock music, were the absolute greatest punk rock band ever. The 814 folks know it, and you all know that shit. But I cringe to think of what music would be like if Joey Ramone had never lived, so I’m gonna write a short tribute here.

First I’ll let the man himself tell it:

“When we started out there was nothing….. We kind of got everything rolling for everybody else more or less. We kinda like blazed the trail.” – Joey Ramone quoted in an interview here: http://www.theroc.org/roc-mag/textarch/roc-08/roc08-09.htm

I’m just glad I got to see the band before they decided to call it quits. We went to see The Ramones on their last tour at the IC Light Amphitheatre in Pittsburgh. Usually when you go see an old band, there are nothing but old farts walking around bragging about how they used to see the band back in the day – but in the case of the Ramones you had your share of old farts, but there were a thousand kids there who weren’t even old enough to drive. Now that means something right there – when a bunch of guys in their mid 40s can make music so fuckin extraordinary that little kids still show up at their shows 20 years later, you got something REAL there. I think that’s pretty much unprecedented in music history. And “Blitzgrieg Bop” was one of the greatest moments in my personal rock show history. Nothing like it before or since.

I think what the Ramones meant for the people in the 70s was pretty much the same thing it meant for people in the 80s and 90s. They always rose above a sea of crap for those few who liked their rock raw and uncompromising. They always stayed true to the spirit of rebellion and originality and FUN that is what rock ‘n’ roll was always and should always be about. The Ramones saw trend after trend in their history, but, as the Ramones, never changed or compromised like so many other veteran bands do. They were as if not more important to rock n roll as the Beatles, the Stones, and Elvis.

There’s a helluva lot I could write about Joey here. I mean, look at the man. If you look up “stage presence” in the dictionary, there’s a picture of Joey Ramone, with his black mop and his pink sunglasses and his leather jacket and ugly sneering mug. But nothing I could say here could do the man’s life justice. So again here’s Joey with some wise words:

“There are people who think for themselves, but there's more who don't. Rock & Roll has always been about being an individual and not being a follower or a clone. That's what being a person is all about, being yourself and having your own ideas about things.” – Joey Ramone from http://www.theroc.org/roc-mag/textarch/roc-08/roc08-09.htm