We got signed quickly, but it took a long time to make money, but now the Ramones are bigger than ever, they were 30 years ahead of their time, a sort of Vincent Van Gogh’ said the band’s only surviving original member, drummer Tommy Ramone. He was interviewed by Joe Escalante of the punk rock band The Vandals, during the 7th annual Johnny Ramone tribute at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
The weather was so great this Saturday evening, a perfect California fall day for a visit to the cemetery, where the tribute had drawn an eclectic crowd of people wearing black t-shirts showing a who’s who of the greatest punk bands, or more sophisticated punk-inspired outfits and of course, lots of tattoos.
John Cafiero, who manages Johnny and Dee Dee Ramones’ estate, organizes this big celebration each year with the help of Linda Ramone, and it is for a good cause as the proceeds benefit the Johnny Ramone Research Fund at USC Westside Prostate Cancer Research Center.
The whole evening was split between interviews, autograph signings and films after dark. The cemetery looked like a little Ramones fest, sponsored by 103.1, a LA radio which now only exists on the internet, with real size cut-out Ramones, a super-decorated Johnny tomb-statue with lights and flowers, a merchandize booth where they were selling tee-shirts and limited edition of a Misfits clear vinyl with blood red spots.
They had announced a double feature, first a rare footage of the Ramones, from the Don Kirshner’s rock concert, filmed in 1977 and screened in its entirety for the first time in decades, then an Ed Wood’s classic, ‘Plan 9 from outer space’ with Bela Lugosi, Vampira, presented in 3D.
Apparently Johnny had a thing for horror movies, John Cafiero said that he even wanted to be a filmmaker, as he thought the music could not last. He wanted to direct ‘Werewolves on Wheels’, a film blending outlaw biker stories with traditional horror movies.
The Misfits were the other guest stars of the evening, making quite an entrance with their weird, over-the top outfits and make-up, a cross between the Addams family and comic super villains, but they could get away with it, because, first, they are the Misfits, and second we were in a cemetery and less than a month from Halloween. Devilocked Jerry Only, wearing a spiky jacket, and ex- Black Flag Dez Cadena with his pancake green make-up, could not be nicer with fans, really accessible, responding to any request, signing bloody tee-shirts and hugging innocent little girls.
Joe Escalante interviewed the horror punk band and introduced, Rob Vannice, a young blond-hair guy with a Misfits tattoo on his calf, and the singer of a Chicago band Juicehead, which is currently touring with the Misfits. And when you know that the band is signed on John Cafiero’s label, Misfits Records, you understand better how all this is intertwined.
They played a few songs off his new album ‘How to sail a sinking ship’, which sounded like some classic power-punk with melodies, and Rob described the song ‘Better Days’ something with ‘a little bit of fiction’ but which let ‘the feelings come across’.
The Misfits were relaxed and funny, joking about the ever-changing line-up of the band, ‘I could fill a bus with the people I played with’ said Jerry Only, but he never talked about Glenn Danzig, whereas some people, at the entrance of the cemetery, were promoting Danzig’s upcoming show for Halloween in Los Angeles.
We had the chance to listen to a few tracks from their upcoming album ‘The Devil's Rain’ (their first full-length release of new material in nearly a decade) which should be out on October 4th, and he explained how they put it together in only 8 weeks, among Navajo Indians in Colorado; on the title-track, you could effectively hear thunderstorms like the ones that only break out in this part of the country. Dez Cadena said he sings on a few tracks of the album, like ‘Jack The Ripper’, a song ‘from his point of view’, as he ironically said. They talked about their tour, how they manage to play about 5 songs from each album, and how they own so much to bands like Black Flag and of course the Ramones. One thing they picked up from the Ramones that Dez had noticed when he saw them at CBGB: they didn’t stop between songs!
The evening was a love fest between them, the Ramones and the fans of both bands, ‘It means so much for us to be here!’ they said before going to the booth for autograph signings.
A few guest stars made a brief apparition, like Rosanna Arquette, drawing the raffle tickets and introducing ex-Sex Pistols Steve Jones, who used to have a show on 103.1 when the station was on the air.
This festival of special guests ended with the last survivor of the original Ramones, Tommy Ramone, who spoke about his first encounter with Johnny, at their high school cafeteria in Queens, ‘a too good school for us!’ as he put it.
‘Johnny was amazing, the most charismatic person I have ever met’ Tommy added before describing the music they were listening at that time. ‘It was all British invasion, the Beatles, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones, the Animals…’, but ‘we had strange taste and liked bubble gum’, he continued while dropping even more names, ‘Little Richard, Elvis, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers’, the music range was large which could explain why you can hear so many things in the Ramones’ songs.
Joe Escalante insisted on the Ramones sound, which ‘came from nowhere’ at the time, and asked Tommy how they described their music at the time. ‘Well, we didn't’ he replied.
Tommy, who was originally supposed to be the manager of the band, tried nevertheless to describe the music as the ‘most off-kilter, unique, special sound’, ‘they were already breaking grounds at the time, and I had to come up with an unique style of drumming because Johnny had an original guitar style.
‘We were really in love with rock and roll, and we were amazed we were doing it.’ He added and being a little nostalgic when saying it was magical how these different people melted and connected so well together around this unique sound.
It was a little difficult to realize that this short and articulate 59-year old man, who, with his glasses and grey hair combed backward looked a little bit like George Carlin, was part of that famous wild punk band.
After a few 3-D pictures of the Ramones projected on the mausoleum wall, John Cafiero announced that Johnny was working on his biography before he died, and that the ‘brutally honest Commando’ will finally be published next April 2012.
The evening closed with the projection of the 1977 Don Kirshner’s rock concert, as announced, a film that ‘catches us at our peak’ Tommy noticed.
According to him, it was filmed in front of a regular audience, and the director actually managed to capture all the intensity of what the Ramones were, as each member was equally contributing to the show.
Watching the film, you could tell how intense their presence was, but, beside their iconic look of Mickey Mouse short white t-shirts, black leather jackets, and long legs apart tight in ripped jeans, what was striking was the reaction of the crowd at the time, there were a few people jumping, but in general they were so calm! No moshing, no crowd surfing, no stage diving,… it would certainly be happening these days if the Ramones were all still alive.