dee dee ramone

Dreaming - New York Junk (Tarbeach Records)

"The poet's gut reaction is to search his very soul..." -Dee Dee Ramone

"The Gutter Angels up in Heaven/ looking down upon us all/Bless the homeless/Bless the dope fiends/Bless the sidewalks where they fall”.  -Puma Perl 

Covid Sunday, diggin' through old boxes and pulling out stacks of magazines and letters and relics from a long gone and probably mercifully half forgotten, stinky basement, punk past.

It's better than I thought it would be. Sort of.

Once upon a time I lived in a share house with a New Order fan.

Don't you dare pity me.

Anyway, this muffin collected live tapes of New Order. Every time he got one, he'd play it. Loud.

Like I said, don't pity me. I can do that for myself.

Ex-Ramones and Voidoids drummer, author and sc-fi fan Marky Ramone starts his first Australian tour in almost a decade this week. Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg reprises the back catalogue of the Ramones with Marky driving the backbeat behind a crew of hand-picked punk rock players.

Pete Howlett of Adelaide band The Pro-Tools was given the chance to pitch him 10 questions. Here's the result.  

Pleasant Dreams - Ramones (Rhino Records)
Pleasant Dreams Demos – Ramones (bootleg)

(Written from 23 May through 3 July 2023)

Ever notice how our first impressions are the strongest? That whatever we encounter first, stays with us, often for decades, and often despite intellectually knowing that that first impression is in fact wrong?

Like lasagne sticking to a carpet (don't try this at home) or a losing soul clings to pride, with both pasta sauce and draining soul not having a clue about what they're sticking to, or why, or even that they are sticking to anything.

Similarly, what we discover when we're young often stays with us no matter how wrong we might be. 

_{Joey Pinter, Walter L:ure and Daniel Rey.}

When we were young and skinny and fearless, it was easier to celebrate the ch-cha-cha-changes, than it is now, when so many of our favorite places, people, bands, and way of life are just vanishing a little more each day. I can't keep up with all these changes.

In my head, I'm still a new wave kid with a Walkman. Probably listening to the Cult"Love", on 10, right? Making rehearsal tapes on a boombox in the basement. You could save 20 or 30 dollars, and come home from the big city record store with a new t shirt, some little buttons, a copy of "Flipside" or "Maxiumum Rock And Roll", some Jesus & the Mary Chain and Bauhaus postcards to send to your goth girlfriends in far away cities, a Gene Loves Jezebel or Flesh For Lulu promotional poster the nose-ringed death rocker cashier gave you for free, and a whole stack of winning indie punk $1 vinyl from the cut out bin. Those were different times.

For most of us, there ain't no rock ‘n’ roll no more, just the ludicrous worship of bullshit do nothing politicians, media monopoly lies and propaganda, and cos-play lab-coated scientific astronaut rich people on TV, and/or, always more blandly insufferably mediocre and meaningless mainstream garbage like the Foo Fighters - there's nowhere to go, no more basement shows. No real underground bands or real underground rock press in Amerikkka.