One Of Us
Nobody played guitar like Johnny Ramone. Nobody.
Joeys death seemed like a sick joke; Dee Dees was the cruel punchline. Learning of their deaths reminded me of my own age and mortality: life is transitory, and death is final, and when it comes, theres little warning and no quarter. Hearing about Joey and Dee knocked the wind out of me. No more Joey Ramone, draped on a microphone looking and sounding like something that had just landed from another planet. No more absurd, hilarious novels and stories from Dee Dee. And no more brilliant songs from either of them. The Ramones had always been there, and I guess Id figured they always would be.
But reading about Johnny Ramones death this morning didnt knock the wind out of me; it hit me in the face like a two-by-four.
Johnny was rock and roll - real rock and roll - personified, and rock and roll doesnt die. Johnny was the one who had retired with grace and dignity and sold his guitars, no longer having any use for the tools of the trade. Johnny was supposed to get old with his wife and go to ball games and play in his roto league and collect old movie posters and track down rare, bizarre horror films from third world countries. He was supposed to live out his life in relative comfort after having traveled the world so many times over, inspiring so many of us to pick up guitars and make our own music, even though we couldnt play Stairway To Heaven and thought Eddie Van Halen was an annoying wanker.
Johnny Ramone was never recognized as a revolutionary guitarist. Chuck Berry gave us rock and roll guitar playing. Hendrix showed us what the instrument was capable of in the hands of somebody with the ambition, vision and tenacity to bend it to his will. But what Johnny Ramone contributed to rock and roll guitar playing was just as important maybe even more important because he took the instrument away from the rock gods and handed it back to the rest of us. Johnny turned the guitar back into a brutal, primal, stunningly effective tool. He proved that you didnt need to be a virtuoso to be a great guitarist. He reminded the world that rock and roll was supposed to be fun.
Johnny never played flashy leads, and he was never taken seriously by mainstream rock guitarists, and in fact he was only taken seriously by a handful of critics years after hed changed rock and roll; after hed brought back the immediacy and urgency and passion of rock and roll guitar playing. Rock and roll had been voluntarily neutered when Johnny first plugged his Mosrite guitar into his Marshall amp. He used the spare parts that had been discarded by the rock gods in favor of pretentious, opera-length solos to create a new monster; a huge, ugly, primitive beast with fangs and claws. He didnt eschew convention he spit in its face. He attacked the strings like a crazed soldier pumping rounds into the enemy. He didnt just play for a crowd; he assaulted them.
Youve got to understand I wanted to be Johnny Ramone.
His attitude reflected his musical style. My brief conversations with Johnny when I interviewed him in 1994 were a blast not only because I was able to talk with my hero, but because he embodied everything that Id always loved about punk rock. He was brutally honest, wickedly funny and by far the most down-to-earth rock star Id ever encountered. By 1994, hed resigned himself to the fact that the Ramones would never sell a million records. But if he seemed to be tiring of fighting a never-ending uphill battle to get his music heard, he didnt express any bitterness. He knew even then that in spite of never getting the spoils, the Ramones had been victorious.
At times I feel like maybe we deserved a little better, he said at the time. These bands all talk about how much they were influenced by the Ramones but when they get big, we try to get on a tour with them and it just doesnt happen. But I guess it aint no big deal. Im thankful every day when I get up that I can do this for a living.
Johnny Ramone was supposed to be too tough to die.
Much has been written about Johnnys role as the leader of the Ramones his high performance standards, his business acumen and his tendency to rule with an iron fist. Little has been written about the fact that he was trying to work with a group of addicts and alcoholics, nor is it often suggested that the band might well have imploded long before it did if Johnny Ramone hadnt been around to run the show. For better or worse, Johnny never claimed to be anything he wasnt, and if some in the Ramones camp didnt appreciate that his leadership skills too often resembled his aggressive style of guitar playing, they were still always there to write the songs and play the gigs. If Joey and Dee Dee were the heart and soul of the Ramones, it cant be denied the Johnny was the blood and guts.
Johnny Ramone was a guitarist years ahead of his time, and while he never got his due, I still hold out hope that future generations of rock critics will finally begin to understand the importance of what he did, and how crucial it was to keeping rock and roll alive, not only when the Ramones started a time when rock and roll seemed to be in serious danger of choking to death on its own excess and self-indulgence - but to this day.
Nobody played guitar like Johnny Ramone. Nobody ever will.
R.I.P.
UPDATE: The offical Ramones site has put up some great photos of Johnny, along with a few essays.
posted by Ben at 1:41 PM
