When The Traveling Wilburys released their 'Volume 1' album in 1988, all the members took pseudonyms to create one family with the surname Wilbury.
George Harrison was 'Nelson' - Jeff Lynne was 'Otis' - Roy Orbison was 'Lefty' - Tom Petty was 'Charlie T Jr' and Bob Dylan became 'Lucky'.
The reason I mention that is because it was fun and interesting and quirky, but it was far from new.
Back in 1974 in Queens, New York, Jeffrey Hyman, Douglas Colvin, John Cummings and Thomas Erdelyi chose a collective surname and became respectively Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny and Tommy Ramone. The story goes that it was Doug Colvins idea, he'd heard that back in the early days Paul McCartney used the pseudonym Paul Ramone. He started calling himself Dee Dee Ramone and eventually persuaded the others to individually take on the name and use it for the group. Over the years 4 others would change their names with the sporadic addition of Marky, C.J., Elvis and Richie Ramone.
They gained fame and notoriety on the new punk scene from their regular appearances at the famous CBGB's club after making their debut in August 1974. The sets were only about 17 minutes long, but by the end of the year they'd played there 74 times.
When they released their first album in 1976, the self-titled 'Ramones', brevity was still the keyword. Containing 14 songs, the longest one was 'I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement' at 2:35 and the shortest was 'Judy is a Punk' coming in at just 1:30 !!
The LP did contain one of their most well known tracks though, 'Blitzkrieg Bop'.
Tommy Ramone wrote the song called 'Animal Hop' but it was Dee Dee who renamed it and changed the line "shouting in the back now" to "shoot 'em in the back now".
The day before New Years Day at the end of 2019, 'I Wanna Be Sedated' was played a lot because of the opening lines ..
'Now twenty, twenty, twenty four hours to go
I've nothing to do, nowhere to go'
(2020, 24 hours to go .. clever huh.)
The featured 'Mania' compilation contains 30 tracks with a few worth a special mention. 'Rockaway Beach' and 'Wart Hog' both start with Dee Dee doing what he did at live shows .. shouting out the tempo with a rapid '1-2-3-4'.
Buried on side 3 of the double album is a song you wouldn't necessarily expect, co-written by Sonny Bono, made famous in America by Jackie DeShannon and in England by The Searchers - 'Needles and Pins'.
This isn't the only odd cover The Ramones did. On different albums you can find a couple of surf songs gone punk !! 'California Sun' and 'Surfin' Bird' get the Ramones treatment.
One of my favourite Ramones songs is also a cover, from their album '¡Adios Amigos!'. Written by the man, the myth, the legend, Tom Waits, they do a version of 'I Don't Wanna Grow Up' that starts with the signature '1-2-3-4' and relentlessly belts out for the next 2:50 minutes. Most recently the song was featured in the movie Shazam! as the end credits rolled.
Sadly the four founding members have all passed away, Joey in 2001, Dee Dee in 2002, Johnny in 2004 and Tommy in 2014, but they left a catalogue of music, a place in history and whenever you see a photo of four guys in leather jackets leaning against a wall, you just KNOW who they are.
No comments:
Post a Comment