Full Moon

Artist of the “week” 3 July 29, 2008

This Week: the Ramones

Lead Vocals, Bass: Dee Dee Ramone

Guitar: Johnny Ramone

Drums: Joey Ramone

The Ramones are a punk Rock group that formed in New York in the 1970′s. They were not British, as some think, but only sung with a faux European accent. Their self-titled debut album, “the Ramones,” gained no attention and was merely passed off as incompetence, but ironically, the people in Britain actually saw potential in the Ramones. After their first four albums, the record companies tried to force the band to play a more “Radio Friendly” music. During the 1980 recording session of The End of the Century, producer Phil Spector drew a gun onDee Dee Ramone to force him to play a riff repeatedly. The End of the Century was seen as one of the band’s “not-so-great” albums, and indeed, it was seriously lacking in the band’s sigiture “buzzsaw sound.” After that, the band continued to release more pop-style albums, no doubt a futile attempt of the record company’s to get American airtime. Soon after, the band fell apart. Eight years after the break up, every band member except Dee Dee Ramone was dead (Dee Dee Ramone died in 2002 of a heroin overdose.)

here is the band’s most famous song, Blitzkrieg Bop: