The Ramones : Classic Or Dud

So I went to see what I thought was going to be a bunch of dodgy old punks on Saturday night and ended up seeing a dodgy old Scottish Ramones (this is a good thing).

Then I told my son (Mark, 5 and three quarters) that "Brian's band sound like the Ramones" and his jaw dropped and he said "THE RAMONES? REALLY? COOL!" and I think it's cool as fuck that my kid thinks it's cool that someone his dad knows is in a band that sounds a wee bit like The Ramones.

Then I listened to It's Alive this morning on the way to work and it reasserted itself as not only the best live album ever, but possibly one of the BEST ANYTHINGS EVER!

C.L.A.S.S.I.C.

Anyway, Weird Tales of the Ramones, anyone got it yet and want to tell me why I really need to buy it regardless of what I already own?

This is looking pretty classic:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ramones-Its-Alive-1974-1996/dp/B000EGEVZK

Finally, the It's Alive footage on DVD, with about, er, 100 other tracks!

DVD1:
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CBGB New York, NY (9/15/74)
Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement
Judy Is A Punk

Max’s Kansas City New York, NY (4/18/76)
I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend
53rd and 3rd

The Club Cambridge, MA (5/12/76)
Chain Saw

Max’s Kansas City New York, NY (10/8/76)
Havana Affair
Listen To My Heart

My Father’s Place Roslyn, NY (4/13/77)
I Remember You
Carbona Not Glue

CBGB New York, NY (6/11/77)
Blitzkrieg Bop
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
Beat On The Brat
Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
Rockaway Beach
Cretin Hop
Oh Oh I Love Her So
Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World

The Second Chance Ann Arbor, MI (6/26/77)
Rockaway Beach
Carbona Not Glue

The Ivanhoe Theater Chicago, IL (7/6/77)
Pinhead
Suzy Is A Headbanger

The Armadillo Austin, TX (7/14/77) Early Show
Commando
I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend

The Armadillo Austin, TX (7/14/77) Late Show
Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy
53rd & 3rd
Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World

Liberty Hall Houston, TX (7/15/77)
Loudmouth
I Remember You
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

Liberty Hall Houston, TX (7/16/77)
Oh Oh I Love Her So
Today Your Love, Tomorrow The World

Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert L.A., CA (8/9/77)
Loudmouth
Judy Is A Punk
Glad To See You Go
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment

The Camera Mart Stages New York, NY (9/3/77)
Swallow My Pride
Pinhead
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker

It’s Alive, The Rainbow Theatre London (12/31/77)
Blitzkrieg Bop
I Wanna Be Well
Glad To See You Go
You're Gonna Kill That Girl
Commando
Havana Affair
Cretin Hop
Listen To My Heart
I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You
Pinhead
Do You Wanna Dance?
Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy
Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue
We're A Happy Family

Bonus features:
- Dee Dee and Joey - The Beginning (Interview)
- Tommy - Forest Hills High School (Interview)
- Danny Fields - Revelations (Interview)
- Joey & Dee Dee - Influences (Interview)
- Joey & Danny - Artistic Growth (Interview)
- Violence? (Interview)
- What is Punk? (Interview)
- Tommy - How I learned to play drums and we got a record deal (Interview)
- Dee Dee - Coffee And Cigarettes (Interview)
- Johnny - Hard To Stop (Interview)
- Argentina - The First Time (Interview)
- Mandagsborgen (Interview)
- Sha Na Na Shenanigans (Interview)
- It's Not My Place (In The 9 To 5 World) (Video)
- Somebody Put Something In My Drink (Rare Video) (Rough Cut)
- Photo Galleries (Also Ramones fans got chance to send photos taken by them to the DVD).

DVD2:
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Musikladen Bremen, Germany (9/13/78)
Rockaway Beach
Teenage Lobotomy
Blitzkrieg Bop
Don't Come Close
I Don't Care
She's The One
Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
Cretin Hop
Listen To My Heart
I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You
Pinhead

The Old Grey Whistle Test London (9/19/78)
Don't Come Close
She's The One
Go Mental

Top of the Pops London (9/28/78)
Don't Come Close

Oakland, CA (12/28/78)
I'm Against It
Needles And Pins

San Francisco Civic Center, S.F., CA (6/9/79)
I Want You Around
I'm Affected
California Sun

The Old Grey Whistle Test London (1/15/79
Rock 'N' Roll High School
Do You Remember Rock 'N' Roll Radio?

Top of the Pops London (1/31/80)
Baby I Love You

Sha Na Na L.A., CA (5/19/80)
Rock 'N' Roll High School

Mandagsborsen Stockholm, Sweden (10/26/81)
We Want The Airwaves

TVE Musical Express Madrid, Spain (11/17/81)
This Business Is Killing Me
All Quiet On The Eastern Front

US Festival San Bernardino, CA (9/3/82)
Do You Remember Rock 'N' Roll Radio?
Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment
Rock 'N' Roll High School
I Wanna Be Sedated
Beat On The Brat
The KKK Took My Baby Away
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
Chinese Rocks
Teenage Lobotomy

The Old Grey Whistle Test London (2/26/85)
Wart Hog
Chasing The Night

Obras Sanitarias, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2/3/87)
Blitzkrieg Bop
Freak Of Nature
Crummy Stuff
Love Kills
I Don't Care
Too Tough To Die
Mama's Boy

Provinssirock Festival, Seinäjoki, Finland (6/4/88)
I Don't Want You Anymore
Weasel Face
Garden Of Serenity
I Just Want To Have Something To Do
Surfin' Bird
Cretin Hop
Somebody Put Something In My Drink
We're A Happy Family

R.I.T., Rochester, NY (10/8/88)
Do You Remember Rock 'N' Roll Radio
Wart Hog

Rolling Stone Club Milan, Italy (3/16/92)
Psycho Therapy
I Believe In Miracles
I Wanna Live
My Brain Is Hanging Upside Down (Bonzo Goes To Bitburg)
Pet Sematary
Animal Boy
Pinhead

Top of the Pops London (6/29/95)
I Don't Wanna Grow Up

River Plate Stadium, Buenos Aires, Argentina (3/16/96)
I Wanna Be Sedated
R.A.M.O.N.E.S.
Blitzkrieg Bop

(also, LOL at those reviewers going on about this without looking up the tracklist)

Oof -- might have to pick this up.

wow, overkill but I gotta have it. love dr. c on this thread, can't believe i never read it before.

R.I.T., Rochester, NY (10/8/88)

hmm. i saw them there in may of either '88 or '89. but given their touring at the time i guess maybe they played there twice in a year.

OMG hello birthday present!

The Dr. C breakdown of Ramones songcraft upthread just splattered my mind on the wall. So perfect.

Agreed. But the fact that he had to even MAKE that point makes me sad and frustrated. I'm all for skewering the sacred cows, but c'mon - how can anyone NOT like the fucking Ramones?? Possibly the most classic-est band evah!!! Upthread, all I see is more ILX Contrarian Rally nonsense...

"Tell me son, what is minimalism?"

Ramones are a band that always sound tremendous when I'm out somewhere, but never feel the urge to listen to at home.

They're a sort of necessary blast of rudeness. But not when I'm in a comfy chair.....

Does anyone have this yet? I ordered it online, expecting it any day now.

It's here! The box is very pink.

http://www.ramonesitsalivedvd.com/

I picked it up but it's a present for my brother-in-law so I haven't opened it. Looks really great, and my local record store has it on sale this week for $11 so I might just buy a copy for myself.

Just got it. I started with the archives, but I've gotta go to bed sometime so I used the handy menu to go straight to the 12/31/77 show.

95% of the first disc and the tracks I like on the second one = ULTRA CLASSIC.

Second disc gets progressively more painful to watch. Especially Joey. And Marky's hair.

Finished the New Years '77 show and went on to the second DVD. This first thing from Bremenpalast or whatever is really good. But yeah, I'm afraid of what is to come.

Looking forward to more Road To Ruin stuff, though.

I vote dud. I don't give bands any credit for being "influential," so they don't score points with me there. I just never feel like listening to those albums. Nobody I have ever known likes to play those albums. I find the music average at best, and the singing to be a real downer. Yeah, I guess I find the singing to be a big buzz kill. That said, I don't hate them that much, and maybe I even like 5-10 songs. I just find them closer to dud than to classic.

You can't hate "It's Alive" the album though, or can you?

I don't hate the Ramones. I think I just like them best in small doses. Classic radio should play them a bit more. I never hear them played.

Those first three albums ALWAYS SOUND AMAZING. Doesn't matter where you are, what you're doing, or how you feel. They fucking rule. How many albums in rock history can you say that about?

Bought the DVD but haven't had time to watch...can't wait!

Great songwriters. A pity all of the arrangements on those first albums sound exactly the same though.

The Ramones are one of those "I can't trust the opinions of someone who doesn't like them" bands.

I like all their albums, even 'Halfway to Sanity' (search: "Go L'il Camaro Go"), and they def. had a quality surge at the end.

The Rainbow performance is so nostalgic on the DVD. I wasn't there, but it captures exactly how I remember how people looked in '77: the full cliche punk look, people wearing school ties and having the non-punk shortened fringe look, people with 70s long hair attending punk gigs.

And Joey look so vulnerable when he punches the air, moves around, or even just having trouble keeping up with the music at some points.

How can a guy calling himself "Nicky Lo-Fi" not dig the Ramones 200%?

Why don't "classic rock" stations ever play the Ramones? God knows they're old and classic enough. Q-104.3 in the NJ/NYC area still plays the same friggin Pink Floyd and Eagles crap they've been playing the past 15 years. No wonder radio's a rotting corpse.

unrelated, I just hacked my iPod Touch to get internet radio.

love

I'm going to have to give "It's Alive" another listen because frankly I don't understand all the love for it here (compared to their studio stuff, that is).

yeah I've never heard it, was surprised by all the praise it gets on this thread.

I have been in a serious Ramones-hole for the last few days though, everything up through Subterannean Jungle.

Timely thread - I've been listening to the first 2 albums a lot lately. Need to get Rocket to Russia. You always think that you know what the Ramones sound like - listening for the few well-known elements of their sound - but they can still surprise after so many listens. I guess it's fair to call them minimalists, but only if one keeps in mind that minimalism can be liberating as well as restricting. A monolithic focus can produce something that dwarfs the scale of something that tries to do too much. If the Beatles and their followers had taught rock to be sophisticated (gradually forsaking the innocent rush of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" for the irony and multiplicity of the White Album), the Ramones went backward (to the '50s rockers) in order to move forward, though preserving the irony.

I don't know what's wrong with me I've been in a real "New York state of mind" recently - I went from that Dion album to a VU/Lou Reed binge to the Ramones

people that don't understand the ramones don't understand that they were an art band.

"I'm going to have to give "It's Alive" another listen because frankly I don't understand all the love for it here (compared to their studio stuff, that is)."

It's a concentrated shot of the original material, which was already ultra-concentrated: Quadruple strength, with additional live-sound roughage.

The Ramones are one of those "I can't trust the opinions of someone who doesn't like them" bands.

― Colonel Poo, Friday, October 26, 2007 6:00 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark Suggest

OTM

They just seem so eminently likable, like all their famous songs are so hummable and I love Joey's Ronnie Spector schtick.

It's Alive = 28 songs, less than 56 minutes. More like 54: something. Also fun: the sprawling two-CD It's Alive video collection includes film of half the album's tracks. Great!

http://www.geocities.com/geeesevvon/ramones/pics/joey-and-spaceman.jpg

Eminently likeable? Not sure about Johnny...And Dee Dee's books are a bit psychotic in places.

band and their material /= individual bandmembers

Classic band - verging on genius for first few albums. But ultimately I think of them as almost tragic - that Ramones documentary was so sad.

Best bonus track = S.L.U.G

New book by Joey's brother Mitchell, aka Mickey Leigh.

Which is kinda not that well-written.

That "Weird Tales" anthology.

The book you get with it.

It's worth it.

11 songs in 20 minutes. Amazing.

Man, that totally hit the spot. Made my day, maybe my week.

wonderful <3

So great. Thanks.

You see that and you wonder why the Ramones weren’t big stars right away in the US. I think it was down to the radio formatting at the time.

Force of nature. That's why It's Alive! is my favorite Ramones album, it's like a freight train.

that "all downstrokes" rule was punishing.

Did you subject yourself to that rule at any point, TSF?

only long enough to prove to myself those guys were crazy.

There are other situations where people do it, but maybe not ever single bar(re) of every single song.