
The Curse of the Ramones - the-enemy
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/features/the-curse-of-the-ramones-20160519
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MrBuddyCasino
To whomever designed that website: thanks a ton. It consumed 100% cpu, caused
janky scrolling, and crashed Safari on my iPhone, repeatedly. The rest of the
time that stupid top bar got in the way and covered 1/3 of the screen, ruining
what could have been a delightful wake up read.

I sincerely hope Phil Spector pays you a visit once he gets out of jail and
consumes 100% of your miserable existence.

Sorry for ranting, but dear lord there should be laws against that.

~~~
tdubhro1
I never click on a rollingstone link since about 2 years ago when opening the
site on my android handset in the UK resulted in a malware popup that managed
to charge something to my phone bill via payforit.

~~~
drcongo
And you blame them for that, not Android or Payforit?

~~~
Xylakant
There's no particular reason you can't blame all involved parties:

    
    
      * android for allowing payforit to be invoked without user interaction
      * payforit for allowing fraudulent transactions
      * rolling stones for not vetting their advertising partners and taking money from scammers.
    

It's not like every party in the transaction couldn't do anything to prevent
the problem.

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alrs
I've told a variation of this story to a ton of people, to specifically
address the confinement of success.

They had the choice of sticking with the same colleagues they'd worked with
(and increasingly hated) for 20 years, or being record store employees.
Imagine if your livelihood was tied to working only with a few other people,
and one of them had a tendency to beat you up, one was a heroin addict, and
the other was an OCD acid-casualty. Imagine you had to live in a bus with them
for years on end.

~~~
bogomipz
Not really, Tommy left early on as the article mentions and had a decent
career as an engineer doing studio work, Dee Dee left in the mid-80s and
pursued a solo career. The only constants were Johnny and Joey. There were
other Ramones that article doesn't mention Elvis, CJ and Richie.

~~~
alrs
Dee Dee pursued a solo career and failed. He had to keep writing Ramones
songs, only without collecting any of the touring revenue.

IIRC, he was often somewhat in "debt" to the band, as they'd bail him out of
jail with the requirement that he would provide songs for the next album, even
though he was no longer a full member.

Career-wise, CBGB was a ticket to nothing. I've never bought a solo album by
anyone who was in Blondie, Talking Heads, or the Ramones, but I do remember
seeing that stuff in the used discount bins, unwanted.

~~~
bogomipz
We'll he collected publishing money,and a flat fee. He didn't do it for free.
David Byrne had an amazing and wonderful career and he came out of CBGB.
Blondie as well. I'm sure Blondie lives off of the publishing from songs on
Parallel Lines. A lifetime of passive income? I'm not sure I would call that a
ticket to nowhere.

~~~
alrs
If Blondie or the Talking Heads broke up after the first year we would have
never heard of them.

Byrne has done OK, but couldn't have bankrolled his label without his 80s
Heads income.

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ilamont
I've always thought that bands have a lot of similarities with small
businesses/startups/new ventures. A new band is a group of people with
complementary skills coming together trying to make something new or special
or worthwhile or even profitable.

Another similarity: Conflicts between founders. I was not surprised to learn
that there was tension in the band. However, The Ramones were extreme with
Johnny and Joey barely talking for many years. I find it remarkable that they
were able to keep it together as long as they did (The Beatles, if the stories
about Lennon/McCartney are true, did not last half as long).

About 15 years ago Michael Azzerad wrote a great book called _Our Band Could
Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991_. It has
some very good interviews with the founding members of various bands who came
after The Ramones, covering the bands' formation, songwriting/recording
approaches, success, and failure. The stories of Minor Threat/Fugazi/Dischord
are particularly interesting. Reading it I was reminded a lot of _Founders at
Work_.

This interview from AV Club (1) is helpful to understanding the parallels. A
sample:

 _AVC: What is the connective tissue that binds all of these bands together?_

 _MA: The epigram for Our Band Could Be Your Life comes from William Blake: “I
must create my own system, lest I be enslaved by another man’s.” All of the
bands in the book were creating their own system. That’s one thing. The other
is that they were part of a close-knit, interconnected, interdependent
community. You’ll notice how other bands in the book pop up in every chapter,
frequently. That’s no coincidence—it really was that tightly knit. People
shared everything: information, equipment, their floors, whatever. There was
strength in unity._

1\. [http://www.avclub.com/article/revisiting-book-
immortalized-8...](http://www.avclub.com/article/revisiting-book-
immortalized-80s-indie-punk-rock-s-231730)

~~~
puranjay
It's interesting to me that you say that.

Even two decades ago, the idea of a "solopreneur" was fantastical. You needed
people to run a business.

Today, you have bloggers, information entrepreneurs and affiliate marketers
making enough money to rival small businesses. And they often run without any
employees.

Similarly, you have the idea of the solo artist today who writes his own
songs, makes his own music, and even shoots his own music videos, then
releases them on his own channel and does his own marketing (Todd Terje comes
to mind).

This is possible because of the tools made available to solo artists today,
which are, surprisingly, similar to the tools used by solopreneurs (social
media marketing tools, access to freelancers, etc.)

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zck
There's actually an exhibit about the Ramones at the Queens Museum, less than
a mile from Forest Hills, where each of the Ramones grew up. I went on
Saturday. There's a decent mix of art, reviews, and equipment.
[http://www.queensmuseum.org/2016/01/hey-ho-lets-
go-2](http://www.queensmuseum.org/2016/01/hey-ho-lets-go-2)

~~~
GeorgeTirebiter
That exhibit will be in LA: September 16, 2016 - February 2017 at The Grammy
Museum [http://www.grammymuseum.org/exhibits/traveling-
exhibits/hey-...](http://www.grammymuseum.org/exhibits/traveling-exhibits/hey-
ho-let-s-go-ramones-and-the-birth-of-punk)

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dang
The documentary "End of the Century" covers the same territory (and a lot
more). It's a good documentary, but oh so sad. It has wonderful clips of Joe
Strummer talking about how great the Ramones were.

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ikawe
That article finally convinced me to install an ad blocker for iOS (1block).

Then I had to toggle off "block comments" to see what was posted here. :)

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JackPoach
Ramones!

~~~
osxman
This is the only reaction to the article that rocks.

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bogomipz
This article was terrible, I guess proof reading and spell checking aren't
important to Rolling Stone. I'm not sure what the point in the article is. It
would be nice if they focused on how influential and original the band was,
they wrote great pop songs, an American treasure. Punk wouldn't have happened
without these guys. Their tour of the UK in '76 launched a thousand punk
bands. If anyone is interested theres a doc called "Hey! Is Dee Dee home?"
Which is a candid hour'ish long interview of Dee Dee dishing all the stories.
Sadly he died not long after.

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jomamaxx
They were never that good.

They are a 'meme' band.

Some sideshow 'hipster' movement found them cool.

They are a brand.

One or two albums, great. Interesting. Maybe.

They don't make any more decent music so it's natural to break up if there is
no reason to exist.

Unless they can milk their fans for a generation and let them relive a few
moments ...

~~~
dizzystar
What is a meme band?

Sure, they were never huge and perhaps never that good, despite the fact
Johnny Ramone makes many top N guitarists lists and the band is consistently
ranked top N for both music and influence.

The 100 people who bought their albums created 100 bands. The influence of the
Ramones can't be overstated.

