The Ramones
were many things, and gloriously so, from the moment of their
inception in Forest Hills, New York, in 1974, until their final
concert, #2,263, in Los Angeles on August 6, 1996.
They were prolific - releasing 21 studio and live albums between
1976 and 1996 - and professional, typically cutting all of the
basic tracks for one of those studio LPs in a matter of days.
They were stubborn, a marvel of bulldog determination and cast-iron
pride in a business greased ... (more)
The Ramones
were many things, and gloriously so, from the moment of their
inception in Forest Hills, New York, in 1974, until their final
concert, #2,263, in Los Angeles on August 6, 1996.
They were prolific - releasing 21 studio and live albums between
1976 and 1996 - and professional, typically cutting all of the
basic tracks for one of those studio LPs in a matter of days.
They were stubborn, a marvel of bulldog determination and cast-iron
pride in a business greased by negotiation and compromise. And
they were fun, rock n' roll's most reliable Great Night Out for
nearly a quarter of a century. Which seems like a weird thing
to say about about a bunch of guys for whom a show, in 1974 or
'75, could be six songs in a quarter of an hour.
The Ramones were also first: the first band of the mid-'70's New
York punk rock uprising to get a major-label contract and put
an album out; the first to rock the nation on the road and teach
the British how noise annoys; the first new American group of
the decade to kick the smug, yellow-bellied shit out of a '60s
superstar aristrocracy running on cocaine-and-caviar autopilot.
