Johnny Ramone dead at 55

[LTR]

I posted in LBN, but thought it should also go in the lounge.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040916/ap_en_mu/obit_ramone_5

LOS ANGELES - Johnny Ramone, guitarist and co-founder of the seminal punk band "The Ramones," has died. He was 55.

Ramone died in his sleep Wednesday afternoon at his Los Angeles home surrounded by friends and family, his publicist said. He had battled prostate cancer for five years, and was hospitalized in June at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Ramone, born John Cummings, was one of the original members of the Ramones, whose hit songs "I Wanna be sedated" and "Blitzkrieg Bop," among others, earned the band induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

The band's singer, Joey Ramone, whose real name was Jeff Hyman, died in 2001 of lymphatic cancer. Bassist Dee Dee Ramone, who was born Douglas Colvin, died from a drug overdose in 2002.

[AlFrankenFan]

1. weird cause i made note of how many ramones shirts i saw today...

about 15. my condolences to his family. 55 is too young to die.

[short bus president]

4. "55 is too young to die."

Yeah. Unless you're 56.

;-)

[AlFrankenFan]

10. hehehe

you know what I meant ;-)

[Book Lover]

2. That's it!

I'm kidnapping the rest of them and sticking them in the fucking deep freeze. Godsfuckingdammit.

on edit: Go see the movie, dammit. http://www.endofthecentury.com/

[Renew Deal]

3. Too sad

Amazing how these guys are going down. None of them were old.

[alittlelark]

6. But they lived their lives in the fast lane

and they had a BLAST!!!!!

[Renew Deal]

18. Damn right.

And Joey put a song on his last solo albumn called "don't worry about me." I think he was sending a message. I got to shake Joey's hand once at the Continental in NYC. I can still see that moment perfectly.

[Spirochete]

5. Wow!

All of them almost at the same time. Just a year or two apart.
So ends the Ramones. R.I.P. THey will all be missed.

[tigereye]

7. this makes me sad

I knew he was ill, but I didn't know it was that bad. I miss those guys. :(

[bbernardini]

8. Oddly enough, I was listening to Frank Zappa when I read this.

He also died too young of prostate cancer.

(For the curious among you, I'm listening to the February 28, 1988 show at the Royal Oak near Detroit. Specifically, the opening number, "The Black Page".)

[jonnyblitz]

21. I happened to see him live in 1979 or so when I was only 14

or 15 in Portland, ME, I think at Cumberland County Civic Center. I was floored. He was AMAZING and I wasn't really one to listen to his albums. I was with older people who swore by him. He covered every style of music at this show quite nicely.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

9. How sad

they're all gone, and so young. Their music brings back so many memories for me. :cry:

RIP Johnny

[jonnyblitz]

11. Yup. I saw them a bunch of times...

some interesting stories from my past with the Ramones playin in the background. These guys seem to be dropping all at once. Was this one the republican Ramone?

[Kathy in Cambridge]

13. Yes

did u know there's a Ramones movie out?

[Book Lover]

14. Bit of a review

http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/05/01/film-christgau.php

The most vivid figure in Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields’ End of the Century was the least articulate and most archetypal of the Ramones: Johnny, the right-wing prole whose hard-ass sense of style the others nutballed and softened and accelerated and above all imitated. We felt we knew Joey the singer, Dee Dee the hophead, Tommy the conceptualizer. Taciturn Johnny was far less distinct, whether beating out his chords or glowering at assholes. But throughout this thorough, moving, long-awaited documentary, he talks more than Legs McNeil himself, in an accent outlanders will oversimplify as New York and connoisseurs of Queens English will pin down as Ridgewood or Middle Village. It’s an accent steeped in working-class repression—the accent of white men who think being in touch with your feelings is for fags.

In exchanges that had me cackling and wincing at the same time, Johnny makes clear that he’s no fag—when he finds himself "caring" after Joey dies, he’s so bewildered that he examines himself for "weakness." Granted, the two barely spoke once Johnny became the KKK who stole Joey’s baby away—and then made an honest woman of her in a union that’s lasted decades. But for a third of Joey’s foreshortened lifetime, they remained Ramones anyway, through five years of Marky rehab followed by seven of eager CJ replacing the one and only Dee Dee. Johnny and Dee Dee defined the Ramones, and Joey and Tommy interpreted them. But Johnny and Joey kept them going start to finish. While they were never again as primal or superb as on the four albums they sped through between 1976 and 1978, they recorded loads of fine music thereafter—much of which Johnny hated, but gabba gabba hey. No matter how pissed-off he was, he never let up on the downstrum. Exciting and absolutely right though their ’70s sets always were, the film establishes they kept the faith alive till the end, lifted by Joey’s goofy dedication and powered by the chords Johnny thrashed out like they were why he was alive. As unyielding in his aesthetic principles as he was in everything else, this reactionary was an avant-gardist in spite of himself.

[jonnyblitz]

16. i hope it's better then Rock and Roll High School.

that movie was lame I thought and I used to LOVE the Ramones.

[Book Lover]

19. It's a documentary

and has gotten good reviews. It's in limited release, though.

[jonnyblitz]

22. limited release. SURPRISE. like ALL movies I want to see.

only blockbluster crap movies play EVERYWHERE...

[Book Lover]

23. Check it out

You may be close by...

http://www.endofthecentury.com/listings.html

[jonnyblitz]

26. i am near New Haven, CT for the 19th. COOL. I should go!!

It's just down the road from me....:thumbsup:

[Kathy in Cambridge]

25. It's Playing at the Kendall

and probably playing in NYC somewhere.

[jonnyblitz]

27. at the Angelika in NYC.

It might have already played there I am too lazy to look at the site again I just remember seeing it listed for there. I wouldnt go there just for that..

[otohara]

12. RIP Johnny

5 years is a long time - I hope you were sedated....

[mike_c]

15. damn....

Make lots of noise in the next life, Johnny!

[NightTrain]

17. Wasn't Johnny the freeper of the group?

Or am I thinking of Dee Dee? :shrug:

[LTR]

20. It was Johnny

He was a Pubbie.

[enigmatic]

24. This Sucks

I met Johnny one time about 12 years ago backstage at a show and he was a nice guy; even let me do the "downstrokes" on his guitar for a few seconds.

Godspeed, Johnny.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

28. KICK