Welcome to Gabba Gabba to the Hey, a blog about my love for the Ramones...
Actually, it's not that simple. Anyone could have a blog about the Ramones and anything Ramones related, but what would set this one apart from all the others?
Well...
I'm not a fan from way back in 74' at the rise of CBGB's music scene. I also didn't get to listen to them during their "Baby, I Love You" era. Nor did I get into them when Green Day and Rancid cited them as an influence in the 90's.
The only time I was exposed to the Ramones was by the movie Carpool, a 1996 film starring Tom Arnold (I was young, my tastes were bad...let's leave it at that.), where the characters are in a car listening to "I Wanna Be Sedated". I enjoyed the song, but I didn't go and buy their albums the next day. Years passed on and I don't recall listening to them after that film.
12 years later, while searching for info on Pink Floyd's "Animals", I ran into music reviewer George Starostin's website, where he has this page within the site where he organized the albums by the ratings he gave them. Under Rating 14 (out of 15), he has albums he considers "Immaculately Ideal", and out of numerous albums by Bob Dylan, the Beatles and other bands, there was the Ramones's Ramones. Starostin writes:
Some take the soul out of rock'n'roll. Some put the soul back into rock'n'roll. This album IS the soul of rock'n'roll.
Interested by Mr. Starostin's statement, I took a chance and put my Christmas money into good use and bought 4 CD's:
the Ramones - Ramones
Lou Reed - Transformer
Iggy Pop - The Idiot and New Values
(The last two were also due to reading their reviews)
While I enjoyed Lou Reed and and Iggy, I can honestly say that I only listen to Iggy every few months or so (and it's mostly from Lust for Life or his work with The Stooges) and Lou rarely gets played, but that Ramones album has changed my tastes for the past two years. Since that purchase, I now own every Ramones studio album and I'm almost done owning all their official live CDs. It even opened a door to other genres that I never thought of listening to.
This blog is not from a perspective of someone "who was there", but it's from a fan who only started to listen years after the band became part of the Hall of Fame, after the deaths of their key members, and after their band shirts became ubiquitous. I am a postmortem fan of the Ramones, and this blog is about my appreciation of their music.
