How did Joey Ramone come up with this strange stage stance - left knee flexed and thrust forward, right leg straightened and tensed? It looks kind of athletic - like the starting position of a sprinter or hurdler - and creates this effect of him almost poised to vault into the audience. But it's also like a freeze-framed stride. His incredibly long legs and praying mantis physique accentuate the startling effect of this stance. He also angles the microphone stand dramatically so that it spears towards the audience. Or perhaps it's for support, like those sticks that hikers carry....
Somewhere I saw a TV studio clip or promo that shot the Ramones from the side, so Joey's stance looked really aberrant - you could see what the right foot was doing, at times it was tensed at tiptoe. This below is not the video in question - the camera is shooting the band's front - but it has the best footage I could find of the stage stance, especially around 34 seconds when Joey leans in for the chorus, and again at 2.15.
There is a good view of the leg stride-splay in this Top of the Pop clip at 2 mins, and passim.
Oh and this one has some good knee-splay shots - seen switched angles from 44 seconds - and nicely accentuated by the holes in his jeans at the knee
I should imagine long term the strain on the left knee and the tendons and muscles in the right leg might have led to problems.
Then again he doesn't seem to have kept it up for the whole of the set - sometimes he'll jump up for more perpendicular stances.
Johnny Ramone is notable also for extremely widely splayed legs and a low-slung guitar posture.
Here Johnny has semi-adopted the left knee forward thrust and tensed right leg of Joey - whereas Joey is in a more perpendicular mode, really using his gangly height, with a stance that somehow seems to combine correct posture and slouch
My one sighting of Joey Ramone in the flesh is from when he was quite decrepit, in the late '90s. He used to live near a well-regarded cheese shop in the East Village. I remember being in there one time and he shuffled in, looking a bit disoriented, still dressed in pyjamas. I think he was looking to get a bagel (they had other stuff apart from cheese - the bagels were good and incredibly cheap). Or did I see him on the sidewalk immediately outside, while I was queuing inside? At any rate, he definitely looked worse for wear and a little dazed and confused.
Strangely, not five minutes later, striding purposefully down the street past the cheese shop, wearing some kind of rock'n'roll-flavored cowboy hat, came another CBGB-era legend: Marty Rev.
The Ramones - an odd one for me. If I hear them on the radio, which would be a vanishingly rare occurrence these days, I'll always turn it right up. But I can't imagine ever listening to a whole Ramones album. Their music has a combo of basic undeniable excitement and shallow inanity. Historical importance versus purpose-served-so-why-would-you-listen-now?
I seem to remember liking End of the Century. And "Don't Come Close". Those seemed to have a bit more feeling behind them.
One of the songs on End of Century where the team-up with Spector really works
Daniel Clowes video! From the '90s! With knee-stance displayed from multiple angles
I don't know why but on this turf I just find The Descendents more affecting
Not so much this song but Milo Goes To College era
Great image but not such a great band, imo. A bit too 2-dimensional.
ReplyDeleteApparently Joey and Johnny did not speak to each other for decades - had separate dressing rooms on tour, only communicated via intermediaries, refused to even look at each other unless they were on stage.
Was it a dispute over a girl? Or politics?
DeleteMy favorite story about the Ramones involves when they went on tour with Talking Heads. They were flabbergasted, somehow offended, that Byrne and co read books on the tour bus.
Both, with an emphasis on the former - Johnny stole Joey's girlfriend and got married to her, which inspired 'The KKK Took My Baby Away'
DeleteA little goes a long way (by design), but I have a sincere fondness for the Ramones, simply because they're such a CARTOON band. I don't just mean that they were influenced by them (although they were), but that they looked and sounded like a Mad Magazine parody of a smart-stupid rock band jumped off the page, and they wrote songs that were the equivalent of gag one-panels.
ReplyDeleteBuilding off that and the Clowes connection - the best thing I've ever seen done about them is the paperback anthology of tributes by underground/alternative cartoonists that came with a 2005 box set
https://www.scribd.com/document/39304460/Weird-Tales-of-the-Ramones
That's great - I'll have to add that to my 'cartoon continuum' folder.
DeleteAn early example of significant knees in rock (though sadly when he goes down on one knee, the cameraman cuts off the knees): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C79YHZqIE3I
ReplyDeleteI feel that the veneration of the Ramones is a clear example of that rather shameful American tendency for acts to believe that their duty is to serve as followers of a tradition, keepers of the flame. As if strict obedience to a genre's tropes demonstrates loyalty (and professionalism), rather than a lack of imagination. That America needs a constantly generating legion of Muddy Waters, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith, Tupac and Britney Spears reiterations. Pardon me, but I don't need Jeff Tweedy's well-mannered pastiches of Exile on Main St. and Grievous Angel.
The Ramones' contribution to that mindset is particularly aggravating. In the UK, punk begat post-punk, with its delight in experiment, mongrelism and audacity. In the US, punk begat hardcore punk (the name itself giving away the limpness behind the posture), with its radical stance of, er, punk, just played a bit faster and heavier. When you listen to a Ramones album, all interest dissipates by the sixth track. When you listen to a Minor Threat record, all interest dissipates by the sixth minute. Is that progress?
By the by, my left knee currently has bursitis (on the mend), and I spent the weekend bedridden, binging Adam Curtis' latest, slightly frustrating documentary series.
Well, to be fair to America, it's not like they didn't have lots of postpunk bands. And UK's equivalent of hardcore was Oi!, anarchopunk and the whole 2nd Wave of punk that came with Exploited, Vice Squad, Adicts, etc.
DeleteThat Freddie and the Dreamers clips is incredible - wonder if they came up with that themselves or it was on manager's instructions...
Oi! and UK82 were far duller than early American hardcore.
DeleteHere's a clip of Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse as Smashy and Nicey, featuring the aforementioned clip of Freddie and the Dreamers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOsN7DMTp7k
DeleteI acknowledge that I'm painting with a broad brush, but I stand by my assertion that American acts all too often are highly conservative in their lichen grasp to the moirés established by the most heralded musicians. Thus, the generic easily gains the status of the classic, by recognition of the respect they have apparently shown.
I'm reminded of this clip from The Decline of Western Civilization 2, where Penelope Spheeris interviews a bunch of aspiring musicians. Do they lack a thought in their head, or are the only thoughts in their head not theirs, but copies of copies of copies? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KqYSqIHU_s
In any case, one can't really say that Oi!, anarchopunk and UK82 grew beyond their cul-de-sacs (or farm collective in one instance). The reach of hardcore across a continent-sized country makes the comparison a little rocky.
US hardcore had one indisputably great record (Damaged) and a reasonable amount of 7/10 stuff (Bad Brains, things that Ian MacKaye was involved in). Oi! was basically 5/10 all the way through.
DeleteYes US hardcore is much more robust as rock music than almost all of that 2nd wave UK punk - and more fun (Angry Samoans, Flipper). Then you have the stuff that is actually stretching the form - Meat Puppets, Minutemen.
DeleteHardcore was widely proliferated in America but it largely left the mainstream untouched, unless we are counting Repo Man or the appearance of Fear on Saturday Night Live.
Whereas the UK Eighties second-wave punk thing was much more pervasive - Cockney Rejects, Exploited, others, appeared on Top of the Pops. Even Toy Dolls. And there can't have been a town in the UK that didn't have its clutch of punks mooching around the town hall fountain with the CRASS stencil on their leather jackets
Strangely, hardcore is a going-concern genre, with young bands forming and taking up the sound's continuance - like the critically acclaimed Turnstile, who gets high grades in Pitchfork and write-ups in the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/2025/06/06/turnstil-never-enough-review/
DeleteI don't think they are any young Oi! bands but I could be wrong. There are plenty of Oi! survivors still lugging their haggard bodies onto the stage.
Steve Ignorant is treading the boards as an anarchonostalgia act.
Okay, US hardcore wins in terms of long term impact on American political culture. Saw this in the New Yorker today, under the heading
Delete"Hardcore Dept."
"Could New York City’s Next Comptroller Be a Punk Rocker?
Justin Brannan, a city councilman from Bay Ridge running in the Democratic primary, used to play guitar for the hardcore bands Indecision and Most Precious Blood."
I don't think anyone out of Oi! ever got that far up the power structure.
But that said, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a former Oi! musician who is currently serving as a Reform councillor somewhere in the U.K.
May I point out that my initial contrast was between American hardcore and British post-punk, not Oi!, anarchopunk or the second wave of punk (though some Crass albums definitely count as post-punk, e.g., Penis Envy)? I fear a straw man's been assembled.
DeleteAnd there are two points I wish to make regarding that contrast with post-punk. Firstly, hardcore's swift codification of a sonic template meant it was readily incorporated into the standard model of rock (and rock criticism). One could say it was thus regressive, that it ultimately refused to deviate from the traditions of rock. That's not necessarily bad in itself, but I mourn the lack of challenge I perceive.
Secondly, that codification signalled that hardcore is at heart a genre for trainspotters. Saying that the qualification for punk is a high BPM and a length under two minutes is akin to pointing out that Thomas the Tank Engine should have screwlink couplers instead of the buckeye style couplers he's usually depicted with. It's that common phenomenon where outsiders form a group ostensibly to express themselves freely, then impose onerous dictats on themselves as a mark of belonging. By nature, hardcore limited itself.
I accept the possibility that I might have been unfair here.
I think it depends how expansive you make the definition of hardcore. I don't think Flipper were hardcore, nor were Meat Puppets or Minutemen after their first albums. I've always personally thought of hardcore as a very specific style, rather than as a scene. Think this is the greatest hardcore moment:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUHsBuCKSdI
Think it was Paul Rodgers who pioneered the "pushing the microphone stand diagonally forwards" stance, although he was a bit more animated than Joey:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI1FT0a_bos
I think it's supposed to signify resisting the headwinds of adversity and fate, pushing forwards despite all opposition.
I think you are right with Ramones about the headwinds thing - it is like he's surging forward in a wind tunnel. He seems to be clutching tightly to the microphone, hanging in.
DeleteWith Free it's more like a commanding, take-charge posture I think. He's really tossing it around, it's almost like he's dancing with it and the stand is a female dance partner. He's strutting and sort of leaning back on his hips a lot of the time.
The very thing here:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAnRzeTlMGc
Future none-New-Wavier candidate: especially in terms of New Wave as less of a break with or rejection of mainstream rock and more of a renewal of it, this is a key document
ReplyDeletehttps://archive.org/details/musikladen-beat-club-studio-the-cars-november-29-1978
Not a slam - I really like the Cars, and this is a killer set - but you could absolutely describe it as roughly what the Steve Miller Band was doing at the time, only better
DeleteYeah members of the Cars had been playing in one form or another for ages before New Wave, hadn't they? As far as back as the late Sixties. You can tell they can really play and that they have adapted to the new strictures.
DeleteI've mentioned it before, but it was as far back as the early 60s in Ocasek's case. The drummer was in Modern Lovers, and the guitarist went to Berklee - a weird mash-up of punk credit (though Rubinson didn't play much like Moe Tucker) and un-punk honest skill.
DeleteThere's some irony in that - Richard Lloyd said in a recent interview that one factor behind Television's 78 breakup was the immediate success of labelmates the Cars - as he recalled, the label sent them a copy of the debut, and their immediate reaction was 'oh - here's a version of Television that people WILL buy.' There's some truth to that - they shared an angularity and stark aesthetic, but sonically the Cars were fully acclimated to mainstream 70s radio rock, instead of being indebted to mid-late-60s/early 70s psychedelia, folk rock, and jazz. (Something I found out from the 33 1/3 entry on Marquee Moon: both Verlaine and Ficca both considered the Tony Williams Lifetime's 'Emergency!' with John McLaughlin and Larry Young a pivotal influence.) So although Television was the same age or younger, they sounded 'older' - the Cars fit well next to either Journey or Blondie, and Television didn't (the same qualities that made them an outlier in NY punk also made them an outlier in AOR)
Mainstream LATE-70s radio rock, that should say
DeleteI've always thought of The Cars as a polite version of The Knack, personally. More mature, less fun.
DeleteI don't think it's any exaggeration to say that the current popularity of the Ramones in the U.S. (and in other countries, sadly) is further evidence of the dumbing down of this nation and the inherent anti-intellectualism of America. I can't fathom the thought that there are people who actually consider such a musically conservative, limited, monotonous band their favorite. I feel likewise about similarly unadventurous bands like The Cramps and The Misfits. In this current climate, I think it's downright disingenuous, even dangerous, to celebrate bands who wore their anti-intellectualism and stupidity on their sleeves (or bare arms, in Lux Interior's case). I'd love to play some Roxy Music, Soft Machine, King Crimson, or Henry Cow for these types and see how they react to more challenging, intelligent, multi-layered music.
ReplyDeleteI think Lux Interior was quite clever - didn't he go to art school? They fit more the syndrome of the inverted aesthete syndrome - aka the trash aesthetic. Loving the dumb, the pulpy exploitation genre, the "savage" and primal. there is irony there. I don't think regular folks make a fetish of Russ Meyer, that's a cultivated sensibility. At least not since their original releases as soft porno.
DeleteAlso although I feel they got stuck in a shtick, I would speak up for the early Cramps albums, which have a lot of jagged noise elements alongside the time-travel retro-billy.
Misfits mystify me, don't seemthe appeal.
I have no idea as to Lux's level of education (Even when I did enjoy The Cramps, I never liked them enough to read up on their origins), but clever is the last word I'd use to describe him. He seemed pretty genuine in his love of terrible exploitation movies and lo-fi rockabilly/garage rock. I certainly don't hear any irony or cleverness in such execrable songs as Drug Train, Can Your Pussy do the Dog, and Bikini Girls with Machine Guns. They're just raw celebrations of the most toxic, debased human experiences and emotions. Russ Meyer's films at least have some historical value as examples of early American independent cinema and their role in the demise of the Production Code. The Cramps were just happy to wallow in ignorance of anything remotely intellectual and recycle the past. I'm as disgusted with artistic conservatism as I am with political conservatism, which don't always overlap, but do frequently go hand-in-hand (e.g., Johnny Ramone, Exene Cervenka and Billy Zoom from X, Moe Tucker). Lux probably didn't care about who was U.S. President one way or the other, but I could certainly see him swinging more rightwards.
DeleteReading this post on the Ramones reminded me of your takedown of the CBGB's scene from years ago, which is dead-on in pinpointing the artistic dead ends of the majority of the bands from that scene. No wave and mutant disco were far more artistically rewarding, diverse musical scenes from NYC and deserve way more kudos than trash like the Ramones, Dead Boys, and Mew York Dolls/Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers.