It’s been a while since I have written on this blog, so let’s get into that
musical time machine, the mythical ‘Vardis Tardis’ , voyaging back in Time, and
alight like Dr Who characters at the fabled 1980, the Ground Zero for my
musical taste, a time when the world was a very different place, politically ,
economically ,the climate was better, and of course I was young, searching for
identify, and meaning, which I found in music and books.
I have written a lot about the rock music, that I got into at that time, but
never really the punkier end of the spectrum, particularly, the Ramones or the
Damned, who I still return to every now and then, when my batteries need
recharging, so to speak!
These two bands were two of the punk era which I latched onto , as in my
mind at the time, their music was not particularly removed from that of my
favourite band , Motorhead, it rocked and it was loud and mostly fast.
Motorhead’s main man, Lemmy played bass for ‘The Doomed’ , a version
of the Damned, when bassist Algy Ward had split from the band, and he also
played bass for them on their stonking cover of The Sweet’s ‘Ballroom Blitz’,
the B-side of the damned good Damned single ‘I Just Can’t Be Happy Today’ from
their ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’ album.Motorhead’s connection to the Ramones would come years later with their tribute song entitled R-A-M-O-N-E-S, on their ‘1916’ album in 1991, and the two bands kinship as outsider rock bands, who at the time were like no others.
Going back to 1980, I bought the Ramones’ ‘It’s Alive’ double album , and was amazed at
the power of it , the rocking riffs, the shortness of the songs,’Hey we’re
the Ramones, this one’s called. Rockaway Beach, 1-2-3-4! heralded a
breathtaking stomp of guitar rock’n roll, short and sweet , a tad like the
football fan chants of Sham 69, backed by a faster , louder, choppier Status Quo,
but the Ramones were far, far cooler , they were from America, the U S of A, from
NYC, The Big Apple, New York, a place I was only aware of through cop shows,
and movies, seen on TV, and occasionally in the cinema, my family didn’t have a
video recorder, and computer technology was very much the stuff of TV programmes
like ‘Tomorrow’s World’, at that time, the stuff of sci-fi and my wildest
imaginings.
The Ramones were punk, like the Pistols and different to what we were used
to, they wore ripped jeans and leather biker jackets, when such outfits
declared to the world that you were a rebel rather than a follower of
mainstream fashion, ‘ a dedicated follower of fashion’, as Ray Davies famously
said in song. It is hard to imagine ripped jeans and biker jackets as
rebellious given the values and fashions of these times, but back then being a
rebel, or at least pretending to be one, was ‘cool’ , and good for your ‘street
credibility’, as folk said back then.
The Ramones have , over the years, become part of popular cultural history,
their music being referenced by Stephen King in his books, and also the theme song to the movie of his novel, ‘Pet Sematary’ written and performed by the Ramones.
King is a big Ramones fan , as is evidenced in his sleeve notes to ‘We’re A
Happy Family’ ( A Tribute to the Ramones) in 2003.
Reference has also been to the Ramones in the popular adult cartoon ‘Family Guy’, where the lead character Peter Griffin references the song ‘Surfin’ Bird’, throughout one episode to great comedic effect.
The Damned’s ‘Black Album’ was an album I also bought in 1980, the same day as I
bought Van Halen’s eponymous first album, a strange choice for the times, because
buying a punk and a metal album on the same day was something totally unheard of
among my peers of the time, but maybe provided a hint of the eclectic path of musical
taste I was to follow for the rest of my life. I love the bass sound on this album,
from Paul Gray , ex Eddy and the Hotrods, I often wonder if I missed my
vocation as a bassist, as I have always latched on to the sound of the bass in
music I listen to, be it the pounding rock bass of Lemmy or Rush’s Geddy Lee,
to the dub bass sounds of Jah Wobble and the rhythmic pulse of bassists like Paul
Gray.
This was a move into more sophisticated music, like ‘Curtain Call’, which I
would think could be compared to Scott Walker, a gothic ballad perchance,
also some punky tunes like ‘Sick Of This And That’, and ‘Hit or Miss’, which were my
favourite tracks, and the poppy ’60s influenced ‘The History of the World Part
1′, there’s a few musical influences going on here, (’60s psychedelia, prog and
punk rock rubbing shoulders with one another ), indicating a move from the ‘punk’ music of
the time in an album , that prefigured their move towards a darker ‘gothic’
direction, which they made their own later with ‘Phantasmagoria’ in 1985.
The Eclectic Audio Lab 