Category: Ramones

I suppose it was inevitable that the Ramones would make an appearance in this series.

And this song just feels a fun way to calm down after posting the latest holiday postcard from a few hours ago.

mp3: Ramones – Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue

From their eponymous debut album, released in 1976.   A song title that got the writers and readers of the UK tabloid press into a real tizzy and was the inspiration for at least one highly influential music fanzine.

JC

aka The Vinyl Villain incorporating Sexy Loser

#082: Ramones – ‘Beat On The Brat’ (Sire Records ’77)

Good morrning friends,

you may or may not know that The Clash have always been my # 1 band. Mainly because of the musical variety combined with lyrics which I could sympathize with – there weren’t all too many styles or ideas Strummer and Jones came up with in their career which didn’t fully meet with my approval.

So it is hard to tell why it is that The Ramones have always come in for me a close second. I mean, they were completely different, weren’t they? A million songs, all the same by and large: loud, fast, brute – most of the time fragility or tranquilness has always been a no-go for the band.

Thinking of this, I still cannot come to an understandable conclusion, even after all those decades. Perhaps it has something to do with the real origins of Punk (UK? US?) – a question which is still being debated today, although a thousand books have been written on the subject. Perhaps just one single date is important: July 4th 1976, that’s when The Ramones started touring the UK, promoting their first album, produced for $ 6,400 and already played to New York fans dozens of times in CBGB’s and elsewhere. On that evening they played London’s Roundhouse, sold out with its capacity of 3.000, supporting labelmates The Flamin’ Groovies, whom they completely blew away by all accounts.

At the very same evening, 160 miles up north, The Clash played their very first concert in The Black Swan in Sheffield – in front of a handful of people.

At the end of the day it’s all meaningless, I suppose, but one thing is granted: The Ramones have surely been amongst the very first who tried to do things differently over there in New York, along with Blondie and The Dead Boys, and they had a very hard time in finding even a bit of approval. I mean, we are talking 1975/1976 here, with prog rock still being the ultimate ratio – and everyone in those days who had the guts to try to blow away those cobwebs deserves my admiration. And yours as well, I would think.

Bearing all this in mind, there is no question at all that some of the early stuff has to feature here today.

Basically almost everything they did in their career was great, but the first album is a milestone, of course. Therefore, it makes sense to play something from it, one of the brothers’ earliest songs, in fact, their take on New York’s Birchwood Towers kids:

 

mp3: Ramones – Beat On The Brat

This obviously is a single (all really early works, although not released before ’77) combining three fantastic tunes – I could have chosen each of them, easily. And if you think 2:30 minutes is too short for such brilliance, let me paraphrase Johnny Ramone here—“they’re not short songs, they’re long songs played quickly”.

There are quite some things that have given me enormous pleasure in my life. One of those things is that I had the chance to see The Ramones in concert on quite a lot of occasions: a most wonderful experience, each and every bloody time!

Enjoy,

 

Dirk

I bought a second-hand CD a long time ago, specifically for the purposes of having a bit of fun on the blog, and I’ve decided to use the normally quiet festive period, when the traffic and number of visitors drops quite dramatically, to go with it.

The CD was issued in 1996.  It is called Beat On The Brass, and it was recorded by The Nutley Brass, the brains of whom belong to New York musician Sam Elwitt.

The concept behind the album is simple. Take one bona-fide punk/post-punk/new wave classic and give it the easy listening treatment.

There are 18 tracks on the CD all told.  Some have to be heard to be believed.

Strap yourselves in.

mp3: The Nutley Brass – Beat On The Brat

And, just so you can appreciate the magnificence (or otherwise) of the renditions, you’ll also be able to listen to the original versions as we make our way through the CD in random order.

mp3: The Ramones – Beat On The Brat

From the self-titled debut album, released in April 1976.

JC

I felt sorry that The Ramones departed the ICA World Cup on penalties in Round 1, losing out to Stevie Wonder after a 24-24 draw.

The Ramones ICA was the work of the much-missed Dirk, aka Sexy Loser.  I’ve been in touch, by e-mail, with our German friend who tells me that things at work and home are such that he’s not had the time, energy or inclination to get his blog moving again. I am hopeful, however, that he might be able to offer up an occasional guest posting here at TVV.

Dirk’s ICA didn’t include The Ramones biggest hit single, which reached #8 in mid-February 1980, during a nine-week stay in the Top 75.

mp3: The Ramones – Baby I Love You

It was also on the album End Of The Century, from which Dirk selected Danny Says for his ICA.  He had this to say about the album:-

“The album was produced by Phil Spector, famous through his work with The Ronettes, The Righteous Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, The Beatles and John Lennon, among others.

During the studio work, Spector’s recording methods were different from those the Ramones were accustomed to from their four previous studio albums. The band recorded their earlier compositions in the shortest time possible for the lowest feasible budget, with a relatively low production value. With End of the Century, the band experienced Spector’s infamous perfectionism, and a budget of $200,000 to fully record and produce the album.

This method of recording caused conflicts to arise. Bassist Dee Dee Ramone wrote of Spector’s obsessive techniques: “Phil would sit in the control room and would listen through the headphones to Marky hit one note on the drum, hour after hour, after hour, after hour.” During the recording of “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School”, Johnny was forced by Spector to repeat his part hundreds of times over the course of several hours. Sire Records owner Seymour Stein relates: “To Johnny, this must have been like the Chinese water torture.”

As for the decision to record Baby I Love You, it is alleged that Spector held the band at gunpoint to ensure they would cover the song, although the tale has since been suggested as an urban myth. Although not that well-received by the critics, it proved to be popular across radio stations, with all sorts of airings throughout the day, and subsequently bought by many tens of thousands of record buyers in the UK.  The fact it was a Top Ten hit hasn’t changed many folks opinions – a retrospective review of End of The Century for Pitchfork had Evan Minsker writing that “even with a full understanding of End of the Century’s context, “Baby, I Love You” is jarring” and “is a museum piece—a pound-for-pound attempt to relive Spector’s golden years”

The b-side to the single was the final track on the b-side of End of The Century:-

mp3: The Ramones – High Risk Insurance

As the back of the picture sleeve reveals, Baby I Love You was climbing the charts while the band were on an extensive UK tour.

I wonder if anyone actually went along to any of the gigs expecting to see a band playing with a full-blown orchestra……..

JC

The release, in May 1976, of the debut 45 by The Ramones completely passed me by. I was utterly in love with music at the time, but it was very much limited to what I’d hear on Radio 1 in the mornings or weekends, failing which it making an appearance on Top of the Pops. I was far too young to be listening to John Peel or to be spending precious pocket money on a music newspaper, especially not when there’s a set of football stickers to be collected…..

It would be a further year before I became aware of the New Yorkers, all thanks to Sheena Is A Punk Rocker crashing into the UK charts. I wasn’t entirely convinced by them as they sounded almost comedic when listened to alongside The Jam, The Clash, The Stranglers, Buzzcocks, The Damned, Penetration and Sex Pistols. It would actually take until the summer of 79, when a colleague in the shop in which I took my first full-time but temporary job, having learned of my interest in new wave, loaned me a handful of singles that I hadn’t much or any knowledge of.

This was the first time I knowingly listened to Blitzkrieg Bop as I had no idea that was the proper title of the Hey Ho, Let’s Go song. The second it started, I knew what it was as I’d heard it played a few times in record shops over the years but without ever having the courage to ask anyone what it was. The same went for any of my mates who might happen to be browsing with – none of us would ever dare let on we didn’t actually know the name of any particular great sounding record that was played in the shop.

It also just hit me as I was typing this that none of us actually had any older brothers who could introduce us to such music. At least I has the excuse of being the oldest kid in our family, but three other close mates who also liked a bit of new wave (certainly of the type we knew from the charts) all had big brothers who, to a youth, were obsessed by prog-rock. The nearest we had was Tommy’s older sister whose love of T-Rex, Bowie and Roxy Music had brought her into contact with stuff that I would later wholly embrace….but at 14/15 years of age, nobody listened to anything a girl said.

Enough of the reminiscing from a bygone era.

Blitzkreig Bop is an amazing burst of energy that still sounds incredibly vibrant and vital the best part of two generations later. It’s no surprise that young kids are still happy to be seen wandering the streets wearing their ultra-cool and hip t-shirts with a Ramones logo.

It’s a simple song, but that’s the biggest part of its attraction. Tommy Ramone wrote it as his own celebration of being a rock music fan and the excitement that comes with getting to see music up close and in the live setting. As he himself once said, “It is basically about a few kids going to a concert, getting away from it all and having a great time.”

Forget any nonsense you might read about it being linked to the might of the German airforce and military. This was written as a pure bubblegum pop song, partly as a response to what was happening with Scottish boy band, the Bay City Rollers who were tearing up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and who are one of those acts whose singles I did buy back in the day but have long forgotten about. Tommy had called the song Animal Hop but Dee Dee wanted to make it more punk-sounding and so he changed a line from ‘They’re shouting in the back now’ to ‘Let’s go shoot ‘em in the back now’ and suggested the new title of Blitzkrieg Pop, a move which probably made the managers of radio stations across the USA shy away from giving it some air time.

mp3 : The Ramones – Blitzkrieg Bop
mp3 : The Ramones – Havana Affair

I looked back at Dirk’s magnificent ICA on The Ramones and was surprised to find that he hadn’t found space for the debut single among his chosen ten tracks. Just shows how many great songs the band came up with over the fullness of time.

JC

AN EPIC GUEST POSTING by Dirk

of Sexy Loser fame

Hello friends,

as I said to JC: I really think this ICA – thingy wouldn’t be complete without an entry about The Ramones, surely one of the finest bands who ever walked the earth. If you are one of those rare creatures who never heard of them: four blokes from New York, all with the same surname, equally bad haircuts, a different drummer all the time, all dead by now. And what they really say at the start of ‘Pinhead’ is: “Gabba gabba, we accept you, we accept you, one of us”: that’s all you need to know basically.

So here you are, problem though is that everything has already been said and wrote about The Ramones, there are no clever anecdotes of my own I could come with for your enjoyment! Apart from one, that is. You’ll find it at the very end of this essay. So what I did eventually just was a copy/paste – job, because I found some quotes on various sites which could turn out to be of some interest at least. You can sue me later, Wikipedia …

Also the tunes should – at least by and large – be known by heart by everybody, so big surprises cannot be expected below, I’m afraid.

So, perhaps, at the end of the day this ICA will only make those of you happy, who, like me, had the chance to see the band live a few times within the last decades. And weren’t they just marvelous each and every time?! Hearing the songs again will bring back excellent memories of their gigs, that’s for sure. At least it worked for me!

With an output of 14 studio plus a few live albums in their career, it wasn’t that easy for me to decide for ten songs only. So I went the comfortable way, as I so often do, and concentrated on the first ten studio albums and chose one song from each of them. You see, I’ve been listening to these records for – partly – 40 years now, and of course there are some songs which I like a bit better than I like others. This changes on a daily basis though.

So here are my choices for today, folks, enjoy!

01 – ‘Beat On The Brat‘ (from “Ramones” (1976): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy)

“When I lived in Birchwood Towers in Forest Hills with my mom and brother, it was a middle-class neighborhood, with a lot of rich, snotty women who had horrible spoiled brat kids. There was a playground with women sitting around and a kid screaming, a spoiled, horrible kid just running around rampant with no discipline whatsoever. The kind of kid you just want to kill. You know, ‘beat on the brat with a baseball bat’ just came out. I just wanted to kill him.” (Joey)

02 – ‘Suzy Is A Headbanger’ (from ‘Leave Home’ (1977): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy)

“Suzy Is a Headbanger” was inspired by the 1947 film noir ‘Nightmare Alley’, with the lyrics detailing a female involved in the punk rock scene.

Most of the songs were written in the band member’s homes, rather than at a studio; “Suzy Is a Headbanger” was written in drummer Tommy Ramone‘s loft apartment. Joey Ramone later recalled:

“I wrote most of the stuff I contributed at my apartment in Forest Hills before I left and moved back to a place in the city. I had no amp at home, just an electric guitar. I recorded it onto a cassette and played that back at rehearsal. We had better production, we were playing a little faster, and we had a lot of songs accumulated. We were in really good shape for that album.”

03 – ‘Rockaway Beach’ (from ‘Rocket To Russia’ (1977): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Tommy)

“Rockaway Beach” was written by bassist Dee Dee Ramone, and was inspired by the Beach Boys along with other surf music bands. The title refers to a neighborhood and beach in Queens which Dee Dee was a fan of, as confirmed by Tommy and Joey.

04 – ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’ (from ‘Road To Ruin’ (1978): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky)

“I Wanna Be Sedated” was described by the author Brian J. Bowe as one of the band’s “most classic” pieces of music. After a show in London, Joey told manager Linda Stein: “Put me in a wheelchair and get me on a plane before I go insane”. This quote would be the chorus to “I Wanna Be Sedated”, whose lyrics invoke the stress which the band was under during touring. It is the most downloaded song from the catalog by The Ramones.

05 – ‘Danny Says’ (from ‘End Of The Century’ (1980): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky)

“Danny Says”, the third track, was a lyrical depiction of what the band constantly went through while touring—soundchecks, autograph sessions, interviews, etc. The title “Danny Says” refers to the band’s tour manager Danny Fields giving the members instructions, schedules, and demands. According to Joey, the ballad was inspired by Lou Reed, who had released the songs “Candy Says” and “Caroline Says”. Joey’s brother Mickey Leigh called the song a “masterpiece” and said it “remains one of the most captivatingly beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.”

The album was produced by Phil Spector , famous through his work with The Ronettes, The Righteous Brothers, Ike and Tina Turner, The Beatles and John Lennon, among others.

During the studio work, Spector’s recording methods were different from those the Ramones were accustomed to from their four previous studio albums. The band recorded their earlier compositions in the shortest time possible for the lowest feasible budget, with a relatively low production value. With End of the Century, the band experienced Spector’s infamous perfectionism, and a budget of $200,000 to fully record and produce the album.

This method of recording caused conflicts to arise. Bassist Dee Dee Ramone wrote of Spector’s obsessive techniques: “Phil would sit in the control room and would listen through the headphones to Marky hit one note on the drum, hour after hour, after hour, after hour.” During the recording of “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School”, Johnny was forced by Spector to repeat his part hundreds of times over the course of several hours. Sire Records owner Seymour Stein relates: “To Johnny, this must have been like the Chinese water torture.”

06 – ‘The KKK Took My Baby Away’ (from ‘Pleasant Dreams’ (1981): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky)

During early stages of the album’s development, Joey was dating Linda Danielle. After the album was released, however, Danielle left Joey and became Johnny’s girlfriend. Ramones’ road manager Monte Melnick relates: “Joey was devastated. It affected him deeply. Johnny knew it was bad and kept Linda totally hidden from that point on. She didn’t come to many shows and if she did he’d hide her in the back; she wouldn’t come backstage. He’d run out to meet her and leave as soon as they were done.” While Johnny would eventually marry Linda, Joey held a strong grudge against them both, and, though they continued to perform and tour together, the two rarely talked to each other. Joey explained that Johnny had crossed the line once he started dating Danielle, and noted that he destroyed the relationship and the band right there. Johnny defended himself by stating that had Danielle not left Joey for him, “he wouldn’t have even been talking about her and saying how much he loved her because he wouldn’t have been obsessed about it.”

Though it was long rumored that the album’s third track, “The KKK Took My Baby Away” was written about Johnny stealing Joey’s girlfriend, the song was reportedly written some time before Joey had found out about this. Joey’s brother Mickey Leigh relates: “The fluky connection between Johnny and the KKK raised a specter that keeps friends and fans speculating to this day. At the time, though, it had to be an unusual situation for him being that, as often happens with song lyrics, his words now took on a whole new meaning.”

07 – ‘Little Bit O’ Soul’ (from ‘Subterranean Jungle’ (1983): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Marky)

Johnny obtained more control over the musical style because the band members experienced conflict amongst themselves, specifically rooted in each member—excluding Johnny—facing issues with addiction. Both Joey and drummer Marky Ramone were dealing with alcoholism, while bassist Dee Dee Ramone was severely addicted to cocaine and was undergoing psychotherapeutic treatment.

In the cover photograph, Marky is featured peering out the subway window—Marky was positioned this way after Johnny asked photographer George DuBose to do so because “they were kicking him out of the band, but he didn’t know it yet.” Marky recalled that he “liked that shot, but [he] knew something was up.”

“I was lying on my bed, watching Kojak when Joey calls me and says, ‘Mark, I feel bad about this, but, uh, you can’t be in the band anymore.’ I deserved it. Joey was okay about it, but the others, forget it. No one called me after that. If it was today, Joey would’ve said, ‘Why don’t we take off for a month and you get sober?’ But I didn’t want to tell Joey or the band about my being in rehab, because I would’ve been admitting my guilt.” (Marky Ramone)

The album opens with two cover songs, the first, “Little Bit O’ Soul”, was originally written by John Carter and Ken Lewis. The second track, “I Need Your Love”, was first performed by Bobby Dee Waxman. Johnny thought that the fact that the album featured three covers (the third one being ‘Time Has Come Today’, originally by The Chambers Brothers) was a bad idea, saying, “we shouldn’t have, but I was happy with the guitar sound on it.”

08 – ‘Daytime Dilemma (Dangers Of Love)’ (from ‘Too Tough To Die’ (1984): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Richie)

The album marked the debut of new drummer Richie Ramone, who replaced Marky Ramone after he was fired for excessive drinking. The album’s lyrics were written mainly by guitarist Johnny Ramone and bassist Dee Dee Ramone, while lead singer Joey Ramone did not participate in the process as much as usual because he “wasn’t feeling well” prior to recording. Joey did, however, write the lyrics for “Daytime Dilemma (Dangers of Love)” after receiving help with the guitar part by Daniel Rey. Johnny Ramone recalled:

“As we got ready to make ‘Too Tough To Die’, we were focused in the same direction, and it made a difference. We knew we needed to get back to the kind of harder material we’d become known for. The pop stuff hadn’t really worked, and we knew we were much better off doing what we did best.”

09 – ‘My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg)’ (from ‘Animal Boy’ (1986): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Richie)

Side B begins with one of the band’s only politically based songs, “My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes to Bitburg)”. The lyrics comprised Joey, Dee Dee, and Beauviour’s feelings while watching US President Ronald Reagan visit military cemetery in Bitburg, West Germany to pay tribute to the victims of Nazism. In an interview with East Coast Rocker, Joey explained: “What Reagan did was fucked up. Everybody told him not to go, all his people told him not to go, and he went anyway. How can you fuckin’ forgive the Holocaust? How can you say, ‘Oh well, it’s OK now?’ That’s crazy!” Dee Dee also asserted that Johnny had made the band seem right winged. “It was the first time we could make a statement to show we weren’t prejudiced,” he explained. “We’d just had these skinheads at our gigs, punks walking around wearing swastikas.” Johnny disliked the song and refused to play the song live, saying Reagan was his favorite president of his lifetime.

10 – ‘Go Lil’ Camaro Go’ (from ‘Halfway To Sanity’ (1987): Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee, Richie)

Both the next track, “Bop ‘Til You Drop” and the fifth track, “Go Lil’ Camaro Go,” were described by True as “dire ‘fun,'” saying it sounded “as if they’ve been tossed off in a couple seconds—and probably were” and that Joey sang with a “drink-ravaged voice.” Thompson wrote that “Go Lil’ Camaro Go,” a duet with Blondie’s Debbie Harry, “had a style similar to bubblegum pop.”

At an East Hampton, New York, concert on August 12, Richie left the band due to financial conflicts; band members believed it also had to do with his love life. Joey would later state, “I felt screwed. Me and Richie were friends. He was more than just the drummer. But he was out for himself. He said he would do the New York shows for $500 a night. I’m sure he felt he had us by the balls, as our album was coming out.” Richie felt that he was not being paid enough for all he was doing with the band, and reportedly left to take a higher-paying job as a caddy.

Johnny took matters into his own hands, asking around to see if they could find a replacement drummer at least for the remainder of the tour. Clem Burke of Blondie filled in for Richie for two shows, performing under the alias of Elvis Ramone. Johnny deemed the whole situation a “disaster” because of Burke’s drumming style, commenting: “double-time on the hi-hat was totally alien to him.” Burke was criticized for playing “Durango 95“‘s fills incorrectly, and for misplaying the introduction on “Rock ‘n’ “Roll Radio”, forcing Johnny and Dee Dee to improvise on stage. He also was reportedly unable to maintain the faster tempo of the songs “Freak of Nature” and “Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment.”

Because of this, Marky Ramone, who was the band’s drummer before Richie and after original drummer Tommy Ramone, was asked to return. He had been fired after “Subterranean Jungle” partially for his style but mostly because of his alcoholism. Once he was sober, however, he began playing in Richie Stotts‘s heavy metal band King Flux, as well as his own band, M-80. Within the week Marky was touring with the band again.

And that’s it, friends! There was more to read than to listen to, I hear you say. And you’re right. Although, live, the band played those ten tunes even faster.

Which brings me to the promised anecdote, so bear with me when there’ll be even more to read for you:

With the pleasure I had to be forced to join the German Airforce back in early 1991 – obviously – as a consequence of having to give up my job for a year, suddenly came a substantial lack of money. So, on the weekends, when apparently the Russians were not supposed to invade Germany, and therefore only skeleton staff had to be at the fighter bomber squadron, I tried to earn some money. Luckily I had a friend from school who had become some sort of ‘manager’ for a ska combo from Krefeld, The Braces. They, in their turn, were lucky to participate in whatever ska wave it was that was hip at the time, the third or fourth, I never can remember these things. So at their gigs and at gigs for other combos I would help to set up the equipment , do the paydesk, be a runner, organize the prostitutes, theses sort of things. No, I made the last one up. Although, and this is true, on one occasion, where I did the backstage at a festival, Judge Dredd, who was bit of a ninny I thought, really asked me to get him a prostitute. ‘Bugger off’ I told him, so he continued drinking his free drinks instead.

Either way, in the summer of 1991 The Braces got the chance to play ‘Berlin Bizarre’, rather a big festival held a bit out of Berlin in a wonderful old amphitheatre in a forest. Quite why The Braces got the chance to play there, I will never fully understand. I mean, they played along with New Model Army, Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Fehlfarben amongst others … all big names, right? Perhaps I should mention they played at the very beginning of the festival, if memory serves correctly not even the sausage stands were opened at the time they entered the stage. Which sort of puts their appearance at this festival into perspective. Either way, the manager got hold of a fair amount of backstage passes, so we hired a minibus, threw in all of The Braces and their equipment plus a few close common friends of the manager and me.

Amongst those was the mighty Fatman, him and me started our apprenticeship together and worked in the same company for three years. Now, the Fatman had no interest whatsoever in indie/punk rock/alternative music/ska, he would listen to Elvis only. And I mean only. I think he owned every record that Elvis ever made. And that was quite a few, I suppose. Still we could convince him to join us, so he was put into the bus as well and off we headed to Berlin.

The festival started, and after The Braces finished the gig, a few of them decided to leave for a few hours in order to take the tram into Berlin and most of us joined them. The Fatman though was too tired, he didn’t want to go, he wanted to stay backstage and take a nap instead. And why not, I mean, the music was not of interest for him anyway (as they didn’t have Elvis on the line-up), it was a sunny day, and the backstage area was huge. Huge, and consequently a bit crowded with all sort of people who had access to it. Of course the stars had their own backstage area, even more important, set a bit deeper in the forest, the regular mortals like us wouldn’t be allowed to enter it. How we would have loved to have a few words with Iggy or one out of The Ramones, but even though our backstage passes read “Extremely Bizarre”, the security blokes wouldn’t let us come even close to the stars’ area.

Early afternoon we returned from Berlin and found the Fatman at a backstage bar in a grumpy mood. “What happened?”, I said. “Oh”, he responded, “I walked around a bit after you lot left, had a few more beers, and then I lay down in a corner on the grass to take my nap. And I just feel asleep when some idiot kicked my leg very hard, halfway fell over me and landed on my stomach. I opened my eyes, pushed him off me, shouted rude words at him and that made him disappear. He mumbled something, but I couldn’t understand him. I mean, I was half asleep, only when seeing his back I realized that this must have been a girl, you know, long hair and very skinny. I felt rather bad for calling her an arsehole, but she was already a few meters away. And, worse of all, I couldn’t dose off again after that.“ “No matter, Fatman”, I said, “these things happen”.

The evening came, we had even more beers, watched Iggy from our “Extremely Bizzare Special Tribune” and waited for The Ramones to come, they – rightly so, of course – were headlining the whole event. The mighty sound of “Durango 95” blasted out of the speakers whilst the fake fog disappeared more and more and very slowly you could start to see what happening onstage. We stood there in awe, waiting for The Ramones to become fully visible in the remaining fog. Only The Fatman sat, still not even slightly interested in what was going on. The fog went away, ‘Teenage Lobotomy’ was counted in and all of a sudden The Fatman jumped up from his seat, pointed at Joey Ramone and shouted at the top of his lungs: “See, that’s the stupid slut who woke me up!!!”.

Still, even today, nearly 30 years later, I can’t come overcome the fact that Joey Ramone virtually lay on The Fatman while I was strolling through bloody Berlin in the unbearable heat. Why didn’t I decide to take a nap instead?

“Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people.”
(Marcus Garvey)

DIRK