Johnny Ramone: About to join Joey and Dee Dee?

As he grew up he realised that for all his guitar thrashing, he was a conservative at heart. He opposes abortion and gay marriage and thinks welfare benefits are too generous. “Everyone in America can succeed to at least the middle-class level if they work hard enough,” he said."

Well, I have to say I'm dumbstruck.

Exactly how many times have our paths crossed do you think, Mr. Grout?

(OK, that one's extremely unlikely)

Smiths Twice at Hex? 1st time, not Uni? Were rubbish and went off early (according to a mate who went to that one...)

Hambleden: if there was a band playing anywhere near Henley in 1983 the chances are me and my mates were there; do you happen to remember a bunch of pissed up punkers, probably with "The Damned", "Killing Joke", "Cr@ss" and "Sub-@ctive" on the backs of their leathers; probably being a total pain in the arse?!?

I was at that! 'Meat' tour right? James were absolutely on fire that night - as I said on that James thread - better than The Smiffs that tour. I don't recall a second Hex gig either.
And at the Univ - someone chucked beer ar Moz and he took them offstage halfway through the set.

I would have noticed punkers there. or anybody, come to that...

No, Backbeat band - R'n'B / Blues covers band with a brass section, right?

Alison Rolls of Between Pictures and.... (aaargh! another reasonably successful local band that had Ali McMordie of SLF on bass, what were they called....) Friction Groove later ended up as their lead vocalist!

Just because you didn't notice us doesn't mean we weren't there Mark - we frequently didn't get any closer to such events than the nearest pub (if we did turn up, it usually meant we'd just been ejected from the nearest pub!)

- Sub-@ctive
- Three Second Touch
- West One
- Shadowlands
- Holding Back The Sea
- The Storm
- Broken Dream
- Dream On

Regarding the general GOP/Johnnyness, Chuck E. called it in his review of the first album in Stairway to Hell.

I have seen SubActive and West One from Stew's list.

Were either of you at the Factory Recds evening at the Carribean Club?

nuts

actually make that sickening

Boys from Brazil I remember.

Owzabout owzabout ururururuh Elvis has left the building?

Boys From Brazil yes, definitely - they were very hotly tipped at one time.

Sheila Grant's Baby yes, we've discussed before.

Russian Drugs and Fractured ring only the faintest of bells.

Factory Records evening at the Carribean Club? I'm sure I'd have been there if I was about / knew about it - remind me!

What about (racks brain) K9's / Gene Kremer & The Bunkbeds? General Accident? Johnny & The Moondogs? A Fast Crowd / A1 Vegetables? Beevers? The Seize? Mighty Strypes? Legendary Flobs? Ant-Hill Mob? But...?? (or was it If...??) In Hill House?

and while i dislike his politics, i have always, and always will, worship the music that he was such a big part of. i take it for granted that my list of musical heroes is full of a lot of people i'd dislike a whole lot more if i met them personally, but since i don't have to meet them personally, i don't really care. if johnny was running halliburton, that wouldn't take anything away from how great "beat on the brat" is.

he's a tremendously underrated guitar player. he may not have displayed great range in his playing, but he did what he did with amazing control and precision, not to mention a world-changing sound.

Zerox? The Pierres? My Wife Drinks Pints?

El Seven anyone? The Runners From 1984 (who somehow ended up part of Death In June with Dougie Pearce from Crisis)?

Once upon a time I 'auditioned' for a band set up by 2 male nurses (not gay or owt etc), wanting to do covers for local pubs (Don't it make my brown eyes blue, Feelings, That's the way i like it...)..

Had some fun with them, but did not join (figured that there wasn't enough work in the area anyway, didn't want to do this in any case)..

A few years later (quite a few), answered ad for guitarist, went to a gig, Elvis HLTB - turns out it's the same band but only one member left and a completely different m.o. Keyboard guy (the one I knew) gave me a good rep (he was leaving), singer spit of Ian Curtis, was going to meet up again to talk about it, but then at end of gig band had big bust up and split up for three months...

umm, the heartthrobs?

and another band. But not the Crispys - the shadows of their overcoats never darkened Berkshire soil.

Mighty Strypes - yes. J+Moondogs - yes. AI Veg - yes. Ant Hill Mob - yes. Can't remember owt about any of them though. In HillHouse - yes k-rub

Diatribe - yes, the Kirby brothers. Great as a 2-piece.

Fractured - now going again : http://www.fractured.info/. Come see us in London or Brighton in April!!

If you want to know if I went to see Chumbawamba: at the Uni. (at least three times) / the old cinema at Cemetery Junction when it was being squatted / the old bus station when it was being squatted / a free festival of dubious legality on some wasteground next to the railway line behind Metal Box / The After Dark / Alley Cat Live; then why don't you just come straight out with it?

Timebomb was the friction groove single. I got it as a 'prize' at a local band's evening raffle.

Anyone else see New Order in May 1981 at RUSU?

Johnny & The Moondogs were in fact a 2-piece - tall lanky guy with blonde quiff singing and playing acoustic and a shorter dark-haired guy on double bass playing pschobilly 2 or 3 years before there was sucj a thing as psuchobilly.

They were regulars at The Monday Club (a "club" with no fixed venue that usually seemed to be on a Tuesday or Wednesday night between about '78 and '82 IIRC) if you remember that?

A1 Veg - two(?) piece, former members of A Fast Crowd (who were making wonderfully doom-laden / apocalyptic music in a kind of Bauhaus / Joy Division / Killing Joke vein as far back as '77/'78). Lead singer was a guy called Greg who had the most amazing voice - unfortunately A1 Vegetebales were totally disorganised and completely reliant on a drum machine that was appaliingly temperamental and totally unreliable. When they got it right they were magic 'though.

Ant Hill Mob - biggish band with percussion and a couple of horn players, used to come on stage dressed like gangsters in an old movie about the Mafia (cf: The Ant Hill Mob in Wacky Races?!) musically something like a cross between The Higsons and The Blues Brothers. Great fun live; not sure how good the actual songs were 'though.

Don't worry Marc - we only got told about the cinema gig at the last minute and couldn't do it either!

The cinema, we heared the day after. We'd have been there in 15 mins if they'd a caught us. Band had only been together 2 weeks but were OK setwise. 1st gig was after 4 ruddy months rehearsal. 1st gig was last gig lets not get into it....)

Oh sure, but he wasn't making the "serious press rounds" about it then. It also stings that he's doing it now that Joey's not around to defend his legacy.

Sorry Mick, that was a typo.

It's not exactly going to swing Michigan for him, is it?

(more Reading based off topic posts shortly...)

Would that be a bit like "When Insects Attack"?

Could we get Greg Evigan to do the links?

Anyway, this is just a rumor right? Has anyone else heard he was dying?

The Complaints; The Geisha Girls; Hollow Expressions; Shooting The Rapids....

There's another one whose name's eluding me: pub-rock type, bearded vocalist called Clive (who I think was a teacher?), bass player called Jo / Joanne - ring any bells with either of you guys?

Anyway, I saw Richard Hell & The Voidoids, with Marc Bell (later Marky Ramone of course) on drums, at Bones Club in Reading in 1977 - so you see, it's all linked?

When the band wanted to record "Chinese Rocks," a song co-written by bassist Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny disapproved of the reference to a strain of dope that was prevalent at the time. Ditto when the other guys in the band came up with "Bonzo Goes to Bitburg," a tune disparaging Johnny's beloved Mr. Reagan. (Sample lyric: "You're a politician / Don't become one of Hitler's children.") Both times, he lost. After all, a band is a democracy. "But I really enjoyed upsetting them," Johnny says of his former bandmates.

There were rays coming out of the tips of their fingerrrrrs!

Would you like to explain that one to the people of Grenada and Nicaragua?

(eeh I'm so in my little world.. everyones talking US foreign policy, and I'm here gently humming Complaints songs to myself..)

He and Greg (ex K9's and Geisha Girls) now own / manage the Purple Turtle bar chain.

Oh bollocks - I'll go downstairs and look at the tracklisting now. Hang on....

...right I'm back.

Shooting The Rapids/The Complaints/Deja Vu/Joker/Unlikely Lads/Shallow Tracks/Sideways Laughing/Boys From Brazil/Roja Lewis's Love Earth (!!!)/ Emotional Jacuzzi/The Gathering/Fair Exchange/Sometimes Sartre/A Nation Mourns/Burning Ambition

Blimey. The Gathering were from Twyford - we played with them a few times. We once played with Fair Exchange who were a sort of Geordie/Nazareth hard-rock power trio. Not a very good one at that.

I was in "Canoe Club" with Paul and Kevin from that band (predating STR), along with Dave (guitar). We were sort of like when REM first appeared on the Tube, I thought "That's exactly how we sounded. (STR were more Simple Minds)

Actually, the Gathering were from Henley & Wargrave - their lead guitarist, Andy Fenn, was previously in Sub-@ctive with me!

Sometimes Satre - there's a name I haven't heard for a while! I believe some of them subsequently went on join / form In Hill House.

Have you or Mark got the earlier Reading comp. album Beyond The River? There's some good stuff on there!

There was also a little local label that did some cassette releases including a couple of local band comp.s - Sub-@ctive were on one of those (a song called Sergeant) but I never actually had a copy myself 'cos they didn't send me one and I refused to pay for one of the sodding things when we'd given them a song FOC!

Do either of you remember Dig! Dig! Dig!?

How about Jo Jo Namoza? Their vocalist Frank McGhee's seems to be doing rather well for himself as an actor these days!

Some of those bands were the same people, switched round... (Hey Rolfey!)

The Stills (another Henley / Sonning / Nettlebed / Shiplake) band were on there too - Sub-@ctive gigged with them a few times. Their drummer (Pol Burton) was in the original incarnation of Transvision Vamp and played on their first album IIRC!

Some of those bands were the same people, switched round...

Are you thinking of The Beevers / [???? mind gone blank, bugger - I remembered it last night too]?

Yeah? Then why does it feel more real than anything that's happened in the last 10?

There was a really, enormously tall guy, balding, with a big black beard, used to live in Caversham and threw some excellent parties.... ummm.... and some other people.

That's right about Pop Records - they ended up having to stick all these little stickers on the records saying they were nothing to do with The Rank Organisation!

I remember turning up early at The Monday Club one night and being pressed into service helping them stick all these little labels on!

didn't he make the trains run on time?

Band - loose dub conglomerate with various female singer(s)/dancers and stuff. at one point everybody quit so Chris found another twelve people and carried on.

Sounds like the guy from Shrinking Men / Beevers, only I'm sure he had dark hair.

I don't remember Joy Division ever playing The Top Rank.... I saw them at Oxford Apollo supporting Buzzcocks in '79....

The only place in Reading where I ever saw The Rezillos was in the basement of one of the halls of residence on London Road.

The stairwell of Yield Hall car park (which was right opposite The Star of course) in particular had enormous.... how shall I put this.... personal significance!

I didn't recognise you without the orange hair, white goth-style face paint, tartan mini-skirt, ripped fishnets and black PVC stilletto boots!

Yes. Weren't they rockabilly?

Anyboy remember Teenagers From Outer Space? They were part of the Sheila Grant's Baby/A Nation Mourns/Fractured sort of collective thing. None of these were *proper* Reading bands really as we were students. I suppose ANM became a proper Reading band as we carried on after we left Uni.

I have reminisced about my memories of seeing her on the train between Reading to Paddington going to and from gigs elsewhere though!

Dig! Dig Dig! I guess you'd describe as post-punk. Great band. Sub-@ctive supported them once at a gig me and the guy I wrote the fanzine with organised and I auditioned for them once but sadly didn't get the job.

Rockabilly.... only Johnny & The Moondogs that I can recall...

Aaah yes, they used to DJ at the students night on Sundays at The Majestic in the mid-late '80's, didn't they?

Now who was the duo that Steve Rolfe was in. 'country acoustic' lots of drink songs and stuff. They released a three track flexi...

Weren't Military Surplus an early incarnation of Radical Dance Faction (RDF)?

Our singer's claim to fame was that she played a casio keyboard on the b-side (version) of their one and only single. (I forget which bandname they went under for it, it was pre-RAF anyway)

Can you imagine those two sentences together any other time? (re: Reading)

I once told Ade and Billy about a Damned gig where myself and a bunch of other guys were recruited to carry a coffin, containing Mr. Vanian, onto the stage at Hammersmith Palais.

They thought this was such a great idea that they decided to nick it with immediate effect.

Unfortunately however, they couldn't afford a proper coffin, so they decided to make one.

Out of plywood.

When we tried it out before the gig however, it immediately became apparent that this glorified tea-chest wasn't going to bear Billy's weight: when we lifted it up, there was a horrible cracking sound, and the base and Billy remained firmly on the ground on the ground!

Consequently, at the beginning of the gig, myself and 3 other guys had to carry the "coffin" through the crowd (Angie's Wokingham) and place it on the stage.

Meanwhile the stage was filled with so much smoke that the audience were supposed not to be able to see Billy scuttling across the floor on all-fours and climbing into it....

Did any of you guys run into Ricky Gervais during these times?

My mate N* is vain, self-obsessed, thinks he's got a nice smooth line in chat with the ladies (although actually it's painfully obvious that he hasn't), suffers from the delusion that he's a successful businessman, plays guitar and writes terrible songs which he'll immediately start playing to absolutely anyone at the slightest provocation, and has a goatee beard.

Hey, you don't think....

No, that's stupid - N* wouldn't have had a goatee beard when Rick Gervais knew him.

Some sort of New Romantic nightmare I believe.

My friend N*, at work, yesterday.

Must have been something do with the live music scene in Reading though, obv.

Underneath all that fire honouring zeal and the wildly raging apocalyptic fury, he's just a great big softie really.

[hastily assembles large pentagram out of Killing Joke sleeves and cowers at the centre]

if they happen to also write lyrics and/or sing, then i certainly care about what they write and sing about, too. but that's what i've got joey and dee dee for.

Do you really mean to say ALL who followed them? I can think of about nine-dozen bands clearly influenced by the Ramones who you'd be hard-pressed to call "musicians".

another way of looking at it is that it was a reaction against the elite and a celebration of the norm. what were the ramones but average fucked-up american kids just trying to be themselves?

and in monte melnick's new book it comes out that he was more than a Reaganite, he was a card-carrying member of the KKK (hence "the kkk took my baby away" as alex mentions upthread, written after he stole Joey's girlfriend) though there's a fair bit of conjecture that he just liked to wind people up with his redneck act & that he was actually not that much of an asshole.

At the time of their inception, though, the "elite" had become the norm (i.e. yawnsome Rick Wakeman rock, etc.), which spurned the band to get back to the roots of rock'n'roll (the norm you were alluding to, I believe).

I first read the rumour on the Gathering (the Killing Joke list), but there was no credible follow-up, which is why I thought I'd take the rumour here and see if anyone could verify it.

-- amateur!st

Jesus Christ, what prompted that attack?

but maybe the meanspiritedness was just in jest

i'm beginning to think that and if so i apologize

2/ it is surely possible to see punk as revolotionary, reacting aganst the (then) musical/cultural status quo, etc, or as reactionary, ie we don't want none of that fancy stuff, get back to basics, 3 chords, now start a band etc. I am fucked up in the head enough to like both old punk, and prog rock, so I can see both sides, for what that's worth (NOTHING haha)

3/ Dunno what to think about johnny ramone, really.

I don't think that makes you "fucked in the head" at all (but if it does, than I'm "fucked in the head" too).

(an excellent thread, that was, fritz)

This LP was discussed in great detail upthread! Looks like at least one copy made it as far as Huddersfield.