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[joeallonby]

While you're mixing postpunk and postmodernism, check out this eulogy for an
original punk. It's written by Ben Weasel from Chicago.


 Nobody played guitar like Johnny Ramone., NOBODY.

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Ben Weasel    Posted: Sep 16 2004, 10:06 PM



    
Joey¹s death seemed like a sick joke; Dee Dee¹s was the cruel punchline.
Learning of their deaths reminded me of my own age and mortality: life is
transitory, and death is final, and when it comes, there¹s little warning
and no quarter. Hearing about Joey and Dee knocked the wind out of me. No
more Joey Ramone, draped on a microphone looking and sounding like something
that had just landed from another planet. No more absurd, hilarious novels
and stories from Dee Dee. And no more brilliant songs from either of them.
The Ramones had always been there, and I guess I¹d figured they always would
be. 
But reading about Johnny Ramone¹s death this morning didn¹t knock the wind
out of me; it hit me in the face like a two-by-four.
Johnny was rock and roll - real rock and roll - personified, and rock and
roll doesn¹t die. Johnny was the one who had retired with grace and dignity
and sold his guitars, no longer having any use for the tools of the trade.
Johnny was supposed to get old with his wife and go to ball games and play
in his roto league and collect old movie posters and track down rare,
bizarre horror films from third world countries. He was supposed to live out
his life in relative comfort after having traveled the world so many times
over, inspiring so many of us to pick up guitars and make our own music,
even though we couldn¹t play ³Stairway To Heaven² and thought Eddie Van
Halen was an annoying wanker.
Johnny Ramone was never recognized as a revolutionary guitarist. Chuck Berry
gave us rock and roll guitar playing. Hendrix showed us what the instrument
was capable of in the hands of somebody with the ambition, vision and
tenacity to bend it to his will. But what Johnny Ramone contributed to rock
and roll guitar playing was just as important ­ maybe even more important ­
because he took the instrument away from the rock gods and handed it back to
the rest of us. Johnny turned the guitar back into a brutal, primal,
stunningly effective tool. He proved that you didn¹t need to be a virtuoso
to be a great guitarist. He reminded the world that rock and roll was
supposed to be fun.
Johnny never played flashy leads, and he was never taken seriously by
mainstream rock guitarists, and in fact he was only taken seriously by a
handful of critics years after he¹d changed rock and roll; after he¹d
brought back the immediacy and urgency and passion of rock and roll guitar
playing. Rock and roll had been voluntarily neutered when Johnny first
plugged his Mosrite guitar into his Marshall amp. He used the spare parts
that had been discarded by the rock gods in favor of pretentious,
opera-length solos to create a new monster; a huge, ugly, primitive beast
with fangs and claws. He didn¹t eschew convention ­ he spit in its face. He
attacked the strings like a crazed soldier pumping rounds into the enemy. He
didn¹t just play for a crowd; he assaulted them.
You¹ve got to understand ­ I wanted to be Johnny Ramone.
His attitude reflected his musical style. My brief conversations with Johnny
when I interviewed him in 1994 were a blast not only because I was able to
talk with my hero, but because he embodied everything that I¹d always loved
about punk rock. He was brutally honest, wickedly funny and by far the most
down-to-earth rock star I¹d ever encountered. By 1994, he¹d resigned himself
to the fact that the Ramones would never sell a million records. But if he
seemed to be tiring of fighting a never-ending uphill battle to get his
music heard, he didn¹t express any bitterness. He knew even then that in
spite of never getting the spoils, the Ramones had been victorious.
³At times I feel like maybe we deserved a little better,² he said at the
time. ³These bands all talk about how much they were influenced by the
Ramones but when they get big, we try to get on a tour with them and it just
doesn¹t happen. But I guess it ain¹t no big deal. I¹m thankful every day
when I get up that I can do this for a living.²
Johnny Ramone was supposed to be too tough to die.
Much has been written about Johnny¹s role as the leader of the Ramones ­ his
high performance standards, his business acumen and his tendency to rule
with an iron fist. Little has been written about the fact that he was trying
to work with a group of addicts and alcoholics, nor is it often suggested
that the band might well have imploded long before it did if Johnny Ramone
hadn¹t been around to run the show. For better or worse, Johnny never
claimed to be anything he wasn¹t, and if some in the Ramones camp didn¹t
appreciate that his leadership skills too often resembled his aggressive
style of guitar playing, they were still always there to write the songs and
play the gigs. If Joey and Dee Dee were the heart and soul of the Ramones,
it can¹t be denied the Johnny was the blood and guts.
Johnny Ramone was a guitarist years ahead of his time, and while he never
got his due, I still hold out hope that future generations of rock critics
will finally begin to understand the importance of what he did, and how
crucial it was to keeping rock and roll alive, not only when the Ramones
started ­ a time when rock and roll seemed to be in serious danger of
choking to death on its own excess and self-indulgence - but to this day.
Nobody played guitar like Johnny Ramone. Nobody ever will.
R.I.P.
BW 

on 9/17/04 10:56 AM, Dave Monroe at monropolitan at yahoo.com wrote:

> Which doesn't actually include Julian Cope's "World
> Shut Your Mouth," right?  I had to get the 12" and/or
> 45.  But if you're ever strapped, something tells me
> you could eat for a while off These Kids Today
> cruising eBay for records of their youth/immediate
> prehistory.  It's a pospunk seller's market there ...
> 
> --- James Kyllo <jkyllo at clara.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Julian Cope - World Shut Your Mouth
> 
> 
> 
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