Yesterday morning I drove past a remote rural bus stop at which stood a middle-aged man wearing a Ramones Tshirt saying 'Too Tough To Die'. Sadly for most of the Ramones this hasn't proved true. When I sayed in New York a few years ago - in the band's native East Village - you could even buy T shirts that said 'Pray for Johnny', who was at that time the only surviving core member.
Coincidentally, over the last few nights I've been watching 'End of the Century', the recent docu feature on the seminal band. It's no great film but it's been nostalgic for me - the first gig I ever went to as a 14 year old (I've just looked it up online and it must have been Sept. 23rd 1984) was the Ramones at the Glasgow Barrowlands. Back then this venue was still the sweat and vomit-pot of legend. I still remember meeting my older brother Mark (pictured here with me recently) afterwards (we had gone seperately - it's not like you take your kid sister to see the Ramones, c'mon), after he's spent the gig inches from the stage. His Tshirt was shredded (a la Incredible Hulk) and he was lager-drenched but euphoric.
I don't remember much about the experience except the speed of the noise, and the profound sense that I was not going to be the same again. I have often heard creative people reminisce about these moments in their teenage years, when they realised (or is it that they decided?) they had turned a corner in their life. One occasion I have heard of was an early Sex Pistols gig (was it at the Royal College of Art or St Martin's?) at which it seems 80% of the audience have gone one to become noteable artists or musicians. I wonder what that power in moment or place is made of?
In the DVD extras (a favourite place of mine as I enjoy extended meandering interviews) not only do we see how profoundly different the band members were (a highlight is Johnny picking up the Hall of Fame award and thanking Bush and America - the audience applaud his irony as they can't believe a rocker is really rightwing) - we also get a sense of how miraculous the bands long career is. Apart from the series of more or less interchangeable drummers, each key member had serious addiction or personality disorders. But somehow - as my boyfriend Adam puts it - a 'concern for trousers' and immaculate 2 minute songs won out.
One beguiling interviewee (now playing guitar in the sky with most of the Ramones) is Joe Strummer (of the Clash), whose acting I also rate in Jim Jarmusch's 'Mystery Train'. He's full of praise for the tightness of the Ramones' live set, their concern for trousers and style generally. In one particularly eloquent passage, he states that 'bands matter so much more than individual artists because they symbolise something important to humankind about the importance of being together, working at something'.
