Ramones – "I'm Against It" (1978)

Well, I'm against it!

I'm against it!

Me, too!

(I could stop right there, making this the shortest 2 or 3 lines post ever.  But brevity has never been the soul of 2 or 3 lines’s wit, so that ain’t happenin’ – not today, and probably not ever.)

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The Ramones were having a very bad day when they wrote the lyrics to “I’m Against It.”

Here’s the first verse:

I don’t like politics

I don’t like Communists

I don’t like games and fun

I don’t like anyone

I don’t like politics either – or Communists.  

But I’m a big fan of games and fun.  (Perhaps the Ramones were being just a tad tongue in cheek here?)

The next verse goes like this:

I don’t like Jesus freaks

I don’t like circus geeks

I don’t like summer and spring

I don’t like anything

I can take Jesus freaks or leave them – the same goes for circus geeks.  (Speaking of Jesus freaks, when’s the last time you saw a Jesus freak?  They used to be a dime a dozen, but I haven’t run across a good Jesus freak in ages.)

Summer and spring are M-O-N-E-Y!  (More tongue-in-cheekiness, I suspect.)

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I don’t like sex and drugs

I don’t like water bugs

I don’t care about poverty

All I care about is me

The Ramones didn’t like sex and drugs?  Hahahahaha!  (You can’t kid a kidder, boys.)

Water bugs are certainly a nuisance – but the Ramones were probably talking about cockroaches, who many people refer to as water bugs.  (True water bugs – Lethocerus americanus – are unrelated to cockroaches.)

Lethocerus americanus

I know I should care about poverty.  But I can’t honestly say it’s a priority for me.

“All I care about is me”?  (For most of us, that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.)

I don’t like playing ping pong

I don’t like the Viet Cong

I don’t like Burger King

I don’t like anything

Ping pong isn’t a great game – but it’s not the worst.

The Ramones got it right about the Viet Cong – they were nasty little bast*rds.  And Burger King has always been second-best to McDonald’s.

“I don’t like anything” seems a little extreme.  I suspect the Ramones are serving us a heapin’ helpin’ of hyperbole.  (And if anyone knows hyperbole when he sees it, it’s yours truly.) 

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There’s another song titled “I’m Against It” that you need to know about.  We’re talk about it in the next 2 or 3 lines.  

In the mean time, click here to enjoy “I’m Against It,” Ramones-style.

Click here to buy the record from Amazon.

Ramones – "Blitzkreig Bop" (1976)

What they want, I don't know

They're all revved up

And ready to go

Have you ever been “all revved up and ready to go,” wanting something – but you didn’t know exactly what?

God knows I have been.  (Most recently, just a couple of days ago.)

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I recently heard Steven Van Zandt – among other things, he was Bruce Springsteen’s guitarist and a regular on The Sopranos – talking about the birth of punk rock on his “Little Steven’s Underground Garage” show on SiriusXM Radio. 

Van Zandt told how the Ramones – who were largely unknown in the UK at the time – made their British debut at the Roundhouse in London on July 4, 1976.  (Also on the bill that night were the Flamin’ Groovies, and the Stranglers – two of my all-time favorite groups.)

I understood Van Zandt to say that the Clash, the Damned, the Sex Pistols, and Chrissie Hynde (who would form the Pretenders in 1978) were present at that concert, and gave credit to the Ramones for inspiring all of them.

But when I sat down at my computer and started researching that legendary show, I found out that the Clash and the Sex Pistols were in Sheffield that night, playing at the Black Swan pub in Sheffield – which is a three-hour drive from London.

I think it’s safe to say that those two bands weren’t in the audience for that legendary Ramones show at the Roundhouse.

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At times, “Little Stevie” Van Zandt is so full of sh*t that his eyes are brown.  But I’m not sure that it’s his fault that he was wrong about where the Clash and Sex Pistols were that night.

In the classic 1996 book, Please Kill Me: the Uncensored History Oral History of Punk, Ramones manager Danny Fields is quoted as saying that Mick Jones and Paul Simonon of the Clash were at the Roundhouse concert.  He goes on to say that “Paul and Mick weren’t in the Clash yet” – according to Fields, they were “afraid to play until they saw the Ramones.”  

The Clash were brand new – in fact, the Black Swan gig was their first public appearance – but they had been rehearsing for a few weeks before their July 4 debut.  So Fields got it wrong when he was interviewed by the authors Please Kill Me.

The late Joey Ramone
(né Jeffrey Hyman)

The memory of the Ramones’ late bass player, Dee Dee Ramone, wasn’t any better.  He is quoted in Please Kill Me as saying that Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols came backstage to meet the Ramones at the Roundhouse – but the Sex Pistols were playing in Sheffield that night.

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The Ramones, Flamin’ Groovies, and Stranglers followed up their July 4 Roundhouse appearance with a show at a different London venue the next night.  Presumably that’s the performance attended by the Clash, Sex Pistols, et al.  

Mystery solved, thanks to good ol’ 2 or 3 lines!

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The Please Kill Me interviews of Danny Fields and Dee Dee Ramone included some very interesting stuff.  

Fields – who signed the MC5 and the Stooges to record deals before he discovered and signed the Ramones – was openly gay, and he was immediately attracted to Clash bassist Paul Simonon:

Paul was sitting around with these white socks and they were really dirty and I thought, boy, that’s cool.  I got a big crush on Paul . . . because I loved his socks.  They were really dirty thin white socks.  You could see where they started to get real dirty as soon as they got below the shoe line.

Former Sex Pistol Johnny
Rotten (né John Lydon) today

Dee Dee Ramone told an equally yucky story:

The Ramones always put a few drops of piss in anything they give their guests as a little joke.  When Johnny Rotten came to see the Ramones . . . he asked . . . if he could come backstage and say hello.  Johnny Ramone said it was alright and was very friendly to Johnny Rotten when they met.  He shook his hand, patted him on the back, and asked him if he wanted a beer.  Ha ha ha.

Johnny Rotten took it and drank it down in one gulp.  

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“Blitzkrieg Bop” was the first single the Ramones ever released.  It was also the first track on their eponymous debut album, which was released in April 1976.

Click here to listen to “Blitzkreig Bop.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Dictators – "Two Tub Man" (1975)

They all know that I’m the one

Not to let your son become

Sirius/XM has hundreds of channels, but the only two that I listen to regularly are CNBC and “Little Steven’s Underground Garage.”

“Little Steven” Van Zandt – a longtime member of Bruce Springsteen’s band who later became a regular on The Sopranos – has described the “Underground Garage” playlist as featuring mostly “the bands that influenced the Ramones, the bands that were influenced by the Ramones, and the Ramones.”

One of the bands that clearly influenced the Ramones was the Dictators, whose “Two Tub Man” – today’s featured song – I heard on “Underground Garage” earlier tonight.

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In 2016, “Handsome Dick” Manitoba of the Dictators said in an interview that the two bands influenced each other, but it seems to me that the Dictators – whose first album, Go Girl Crazy!, was released a year before the Ramones’ eponymous debut LP – were the influencers and the Ramones the influencees. 

From a 2001 appreciation of the Dictators in the Village Voice:

It’s been over a quarter-century since the band started delivering swift kicks to the groin of overproduced cock rock. . . . Go Girl Crazy! established a blueprint for bad taste, humor, and defiance that would be emulated by the Ramones and live on in acts like the Beastie Boys and Kid Rock. 

Michael Little of the Vinyl District website made the same point but much more emphatically in a 2014 review of Go Girl Crazy!:

[Y]ou can draw a direct line between [Go Girl Crazy!] to the Ramones and straight to the Beastie Boys. . . . If the Ramones (who later did a version of “California Sun” off Go Girl Crazy!) and the Beastie Boys didn’t cop their entire shtick from the Dictators’ debut [album], I’m Michael Bolton, mulleted version.

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Speaking of “California Sun,” click here to listen to the Dictators’ cover of that classic paean to California babes – it could not be more perfect.  

It pones both Ramones’ versions of the song – the one of the 1977 Leave Home album, and the much faster version that was used in the 1979 movie, Rock ’n’ Roll High School.

No one in the world loves Rock ’n’ Roll High School more than I do, but I think it would have been even better if it had featured the Dictators instead of the Ramones.

Unfortunately, the Dictators – frustrated by their three albums’ utter lack of commercial success – had broken up before that movie was filmed.

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Click here to listen to “Two Tub Man.”  In case you didn’t grow up watching “Wrestling from Chicago” when you were a kid – a 1950’s-era syndicated TV show hosted by Russ Davis that featured professional wrestling from Chicago’s International Amphitheatre – you may be confused by Handsome Dick Manitoba’s spoken introduction to the song, which name checks “golden age” wrestlers like Verne Gagne and Dick the Bruiser.

Verne Gagne

Click below to buy the record from Amazon:

Ramones – "Learn to Listen" (1989)

You gotta learn to listen

Listen to learn

I recently heard a nationally-syndicated radio talk show host say that when he was on the air, either he was talking . . . or he was waiting to talk.

Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction"

Which reminds me of an exchange between the Uma Thurman character (Mia Wallace) and the John Travolta character (Vincent Vega) in the movie Pulp Fiction:

Wallace/Thurman: “When in conversation, do you listen, or do you just wait to talk?”

Travolta/Vega: “I wait to talk . . . but I’m trying to listen.”

Good answer!  If Vega’s answer had been that he listened, she would have known he was lying.  

John Travolta as Vincent Vega

By admitting that he waited to talk, but going on to say that he was trying to learn how to listen, he struck the perfect balance between telling the truth and telling her what she wanted to hear.  

Another blogger has written that when he is talking to a person who disagrees with him on a certain issue, he’s not really listening either, but just waiting to talk:

[W]hile she’s making her arguments, I have an inner monologue going on inside my mind:

“Wow, that’s a lot of arguments she’s making.  Which one should I choose to respond to when she’s done?  Should I ask another question or make an argument?  When can I make MY argument?  What did my wife ask me to get on the way home?”

That’s not listening. That’s waiting to talk.

He now tries to silence that “inner monologue” while discussing the issue:

When the [other] person is talking, I’m trying to just be present in the moment with her.  I’m trying not to think about what I’m going to say next.  I’m doing my best to think about what she’s saying, and track with her ideas as well as I can.

When she’s done, I will need to take a few beats, and just . . . process.

Some people feel awkward taking eight seconds to process what the other person just said, but I think it’s great!  It shows this person that I’m taking her seriously.  It shows that I’m taking her arguments seriously. . . .

Disciplining myself to listen to people is helping me to not interrupt them.  That’s another bad habit I have.  I have all these thoughts about the issue, and it doesn’t take long for someone to talk about [that issue] before I’m ready to jump in with my go-to talking points.  Silencing my inner monologue and trying to love the person in front of me is helping me to interrupt less often.  I need to care about hearing and understanding what she has to say more than I care about her hearing me.

That last sentence is where this writer loses me.  I can’t honestly say that I ever care more about hearing what she has to say than I care about her hearing what I have to say. 

But I’m going to take a page from Vincent Vega’s book and say that while I care more about her hearing what I have to say, I’m trying to care more about hearing what she has to say.  That should work.

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“Learn to Listen” was released in 1989 on Brain Drain, which was the Ramones’ eleventh studio album.  

Brain Drain featured vocalist Joey Ramone, guitarist Johnny Ramone, bassist Dee Dee Ramone – all of whom were original members of the Ramones – plus drummer Marky Ramone, who had replaced the group’s original drummer, Tommy Ramone, in 1978.

Tommy Ramone (who was born Tamas Erdelyi in Budapest in 1949) appeared on the band’s first four albums, which are generally regarded as their four best albums.  But I think of Marky Ramone (who was born Marc Steven Bell in 1956) as the Ramones’ drummer because he appeared with Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee in the classic 1979 movie, Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.

Here’s “Learn to Listen”:

Click below to buy “Learn to Listen” from Amazon:

Ramones – "I Wanna Be Sedated" (1978)

Just get me to the airport

Put me on a plane

A couple of days after Christmas, my youngest child and I flew to Joplin, Missouri to visit my parents for a few days.

Actually, we flew to Kansas City and then drove to Joplin.  It takes about three hours to make the drive from the Kansas City airport to my parents' house, but flying to Joplin (which requires a connection via Dallas-Ft. Worth) takes two or three hours longer than flying nonstop to Kansas City.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other . . .

Terminal B at Kansas City International

Our return flight was delayed, so we had plenty of time to explore Terminal B of the airport.  Kansas City International has an unusual gate configuration, and is a very convenient airport to get in and out of.  But the restaurants and shops are nothing to write home about -- there's not much in the way of diversions if you have time to kill before your flight boards.

Most of the gates in Terminal B are assigned to Southwest Airlines, which was the airline we were flying on.  But I walked to the far end of the terminal, which was assigned to Delta, and was pleasantly surprised to find a Boulevard Brew Pub.

Boulevard, which is one of the most successful microbreweries in the Midwest, produces a number of very good beers.  About half a dozen were available on tap at the airport brewpub.

Boulevard beer taps

I sampled the Nutcracker Ale, a seasonal beer sold only in the winter, before settling on the Collaboration No. 4, which is a Belgian-style farmhouse ale that's a joint effort of Boulevard and Ommegang, another excellent microbrewery that's located in Cooperstown, NY. 

The last Delta flight leaves Kansas City at 7:30 pm, so the Boulevard Brew Pub shuts down at 7 . . . which meant I only had time for one beer.  But no worries!  Fortunately, Southwest now stocks Fat Tire, and I had a free drink coupon that expired the next day.

Missouri's state bird is the bluebird

Walking from the Boulevard brewpub to my gate at the other end of Terminal B, I was struck by he airport's intricate and colorful terrazzo floors, which are actually a work of art titled "Polarities."  Click here to read more about "Polarities," which was created by New York City-based artists Kristin Jones and Andrew Ginzel.

"Polarities" was installed in 2004, when the airport underwent a major renovation.  Kansas City requires that one percent of the cost of public construction projects be allocated to art, which meant that a total of about $2.5 million was budgeted for art for the airport.

There are dozens (hundreds?) of individual mosaic medallions in "Polarities," including these six -- each of which is about a foot in diameter:

Here's a closeup of one more of the individual "Polarities" medallions:

The Kansas City airport may be completely rebuilt in the not-too-distant future.  If that happens, it's not clear what will happen to "Polarities."

"I Wanna Be Sedated," one of the Ramones' most famous songs, was released in 1978 on the group's fourth studio album, Road to Ruin.

The song has been covered by many other performers, including the Offspring, Shonen Knife, the Go-Go's, and Vince Neil (Mötley Crue's lead singer).

Here's the "I Wanna Be Sedated" music video, which features (briefly) a 14-year-old Courtney Love.  

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Murphy's Law -- "Beer" (1986)

Why don't you drink f*cking beer?

What's the matter?
Are you [politically incorrect word that rhymes with beer]?

The two previous 2 or 3 lines have discussed There Goes Gravity, the new book by music journalist Lisa Robinson.

Have I mentioned that Lisa is a big fan of 2 or 3 lines?  

Lisa Robinson knew everyone from the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin to David Bowie to John Lennon to Elton John to Michael Jackson to U2 to Eminem to Jay-Z to Lady Gaga, so There Goes Gravity covers the entire musical gamut.

Lisa's true love was punk music.  That's not surprising given that she lived in New York City when its punk rock scene came of age.

The Ramones at CBGB

She and her friends went to Max's Kansas City and CBGB every night in the mid-seventies to hear Lou Reed and Patti Smith and Television and Blondie and the Ramones, who "took [her] breath away" the first time she saw them perform:

They rushed as breakneck speed through the shortest, cutest, and loudest songs I'd ever heard.  The best thing was that all their songs were under two minutes.  Their entire set at that time was only about twenty minutes, which, at that volume, was a huge plus . . . . I especially was fond of the lyrics in "Beat on the Brat" -- which basically consisted of repeating "beat on the brat" numerous times.

The New York Dolls

But Lisa's favorite New York band of that era was the New York Dolls, and her favorite musician was Dolls frontman David Johansen:

David was swagger personified.  He wore pumps.  Or a tube top, shorts, knee-length boots and a cowboy hat.  Apropos of nothing, he's burst into "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in the middle of some rock number. . . . David's onstage patter sailed above the heads of the audience, much of the press, and quite possibly his own band.

Lisa also traveled to London regularly, where she saw the Buzzcocks, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash.

The Clash came along and musically smacked me in the face. . . . I loved the Rolling Stones.  I loved Led Zeppelin.  I'd been turned on by the Ramones.  David Johansen was the wittiest, and certainly one of the best live rock and roll performers ever.  [Television's] Tom Verlaine's guitar playing was transcendent.  Patti Smith was unique.  But the Clash, at that moment, made everything that came before it seem obsolete.  This band mattered.

The Clash

When I went to hear Lisa discuss There Goes Gravity at a Washington, DC bookstore, I asked her to name some of the punk bands she had seen in New York back in the day who deserved to be better known today.

One of the groups she mentioned was Washington's Bad Brains, a hardcore punk that got noticed by a lot of people because all its members were black.  Black punk bands were as rare then as white rappers are today.  But the fact remains that Bad Brains was one of the best punk bands ever -- like Eminem is one the best rappers ever.

It's interesting that Lisa compares Eminem's appearance at Yankee Stadium in 2010 to a Bad Brains show she had seen almost a quarter of a century earlier: 

Eminem's set was stripped down, bare, intense, manic.  I hadn't seen anything quite that furious since the Bad Brains' raging set at the Ritz in 1986.

(I'm going to write about the Bad Brains in the future.  Hopefully, I'll be able to persuade Lisa Robinson to share more about that 1986 show she saw.)

Murphy's Law frontman
Jimmy Gestapo

Another great punk band that Lisa said had been overlooked by many people was Murphy's Law, a New York City band that formed in 1982.  (The group is named after the old adage that is usually stated as "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.")

You'd be hard-pressed to find a band with a more politically incorrect musical oeuvre than Murphy's Law, whose songs included "Beer," "Panty Raid," "Attack of the Killer Beers," "Quest for Herb," "Secret Agent S.K.I.N.," "Bong," "Big Spliff," "Beer Bath," "Hemp for Victory," and "Bitch."  So it might seem odd that a liberal and a feminist like Lisa Robinson would be a fan.

But for Lisa Robinson, "the lure was always the music."   In There Goes Gravity, she puts her money where her mouth is by praising a number of artists whose lyrics would give Tipper Gore apoplexy -- Eminem is probably the best example -- but whose music is undeniably original and powerful.

I share that point of view.  I've written about a number of songs by badly-behaved musicians whose lyrics may be characterized as violent, obscene, and/or misogynistic because those songs are artistically compelling.

While Mick Jagger once sang that "It's the singer, not the song," I would say just the opposite.  I think Lisa Robinson shares that point of view.

Here's "Beer," which was released in 1986 on the eponymous Murphy's Law debut album:

Click below to buy "Beer" from Amazon:  

And click here to buy There Goes Gravity:

Ramones -- "Rock 'n' Roll High School" (1979)

I just want to have some kicks!

I just want to get some chicks!

I have a very specific memory of watching a videotape of the movie Rock 'n' Roll High School 29 years ago while sitting on the floor with my oldest child in my lap.  (He was seven or eight months old at the time.)

When the Ramones kicked into this song, I picked him up and positioned him on his feet, facing me – holding his hands over his head to keep him upright, and bouncing him up and down to simulate dancing.  I loved it . . . he loved it . . . and if he gives me a grandchild before I croak, I'm sure said grandchild will love it when I do the same thing with him/her.

The Ramones

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Everything about Rock 'n' Roll High School (the movie) is wonderful – especially the cast and the soundtrack (which was heavy on Ramones songs).

P. J. Soles (as the bad girl)

The movie stars P. J. Soles as the adorable bad girl Riff Randell, who lives for rock and roll.  (P. J. debuted in my favorite soap opera of all time, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, but is better known for her roles in Carrie, Private Benjamin, and Stripes – where she played a female M.P. who became Bill Murray's girlfriend.) 

Dey Young (as the good girl)

Dey Young plays Riff's best friend, the adorable good girl Kate Rambeau – a goody-two-shoes who finally loosens up and lets herself go.  (Dey's older sister, Leigh Taylor-Young, was once married to her Peyton Place co-star, Ryan O'Neal.)  

For some reason Dey never became a big star.  Here she is today:

Dey Young at age 55.  (Hey now!)

The cast also included Vince Van Patten (Dick's son, who was a successful pro tennis player – a couple of years after appearing in the movie, he defeated John McEnroe on his way to winning a big tournament in Tokyo), Mary Woronov (an Andy Warhol protégé who appeared in a number of cult movies), Paul Bartel (who appeared in 17 movies with Woronov), and – last but certainly not least – Clint Howard.

Clint Howard with "Gentle Ben."

Clint Howard is the younger brother of Ron "Opie" Howard.  He starred in the TV series Gentle Ben when he was a child.  (The title character was a 650-pound bear who was Clint's pal.)  

I always thought Clint was the least appealing child star of his generation.  But he was really unappealing at age 20 when he played Eaglebauer in Rock 'n' Roll High School.

Clint Howard (as Eaglebauer)

Of course, Clint Howard was Brad Pitt compared to the late Joey Ramone (real name: Jeffry Ross Hyman), the frontman of the Ramones, who were the real stars of the movie.

Joey Ramone

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Rock 'n' Roll High School (which cost only about $300,000 to make) was produced by the legendary low-budget producer, Roger Corman.  

Corman is best known for directing a series of eight films based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe in the early sixties.  (All but one starred Vincent Price.)  He also directed a bunch of biker and psychedelic-trip movies aimed at the youth market and usually shown at drive-ins.

Roger Corman, who directed
The Pit and the Pendulum

Many notable directors – including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, and Ron Howard – worked with Corman early in their careers.  (Six of Corman's protégés won "Best Director" Oscars.)  

The actors who got started in Corman movies include Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda, Bruce Dern, Robert DeNiro, David Carradine, and Dennis Hopper.  (There were plenty of roles for really weird dudes in Corman flicks.)

The Terror was a 1963
Roger Corman film

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My second favorite Corman movie was 1975's Death Race 2000, a dystopian movie in which the United States has become a latter-day Roman Empire whose government keeps the citizenry entertained with gory sporting-event spectacles.  (Think NFL, NASCAR, and WWE all rolled into one.)  

The "death race" of the title is a coast-to-coast automobile race where the drivers – who include Sly Stallone, David Carradine, Mary Woronov, and Fred Grandy (who later played "Gopher" on The Love Boat and eventually was elected to four terms in Congress) – can score bonus points by running over pedestrians and spectators.  

Click here to see the trailer for Death Race 2000.

But as good as Death Race 2000 was, Rock 'n' Roll High School was even better.  Let's face it – I'm just a sucker for high-school movies . . . especially high-school movies featuring girls' gym-class scenes.

Click here to see that scene. 

(By the way, that piano piece that Riff scorns at the beginning of that clip is "Alley Cat," by Danish composer and pianist Bent Fabric, which was a top ten single in 1962.  I still have the sheet music to "Alley Cat.")

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The musical highlight of the movie is a five-song Ramones concert medley.  (Yes, that is a guy in a giant white-rat costume in the audience.)

Click here to watch that scene. 

[SPOILER ALERT!]

The movie's climactic scene features Riff Randell blowing up the school as the Ramones perform "Rock 'n' Roll High School."  (The film was shot on the campus of a defunct Los Angeles high school that actually was blown up for the movie.)

Click here to watch that scene.

Click here to buy a DVD of the movie from Amazon.