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[joeallonby]

Ben is very much a Ramones disciple. Screeching Weasel actually did an
entire cover of the first Ramones album. I don't think he would take kindly
to the "surfing on Johnny's corpse" image. Be that as it may, I thought his
eulogy was moving and heartfelt.

I used to do a cover of W.P.O.D., so I'm familiar with the Tubes oevre.

We are way off topic here.

Peace,
Joe

 on 9/17/04 1:26 PM, C. F. Albert at calbert at hslboxmaster.com wrote:

> 
> This kind of stuff has almost become cliche, Weasel should be
> ashamed.....it is nothing more than surfing on poor Johnny's corpse....
> 
> Check out the remarkable work of the 18 year old Roger Steen. No gratuitous
> string stretcher he....
> What he wrought on The Tubes "Remote Control" is both 'bounded" AND
> otherworldly....The climbing crescendo lick on Only the Strong Survive
> still gets me standing up and flogging the air guitar, 25 years later......
> 
> And Roger did this without a need to dress up, or play any role...looked
> like your average high school marching band member......
> 
> love,
> cfa
> 
> 
> 
> 
> At 11:53 AM 9/17/2004, you wrote:
>> 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.
>> 
>> Track this topic | Email this topic | Print this topic
>> 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
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> __________________________________
>>> Do you Yahoo!?
>>> New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - Send 10MB messages!
>>> http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
>> 
>> 
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