THE JOEY RAMONE INTERVIEW

"We spawned a whole new evolution of music" 1987.

In 2018, the esteemed sociologist and head-banger Dr. Donna Gaines, published a slim volume called Why the Ramones Matter (University of Texas Press). I assigned her preface to all my arts criticism classes at St. John's University, so cogent was its analysis of why she's identified with the Ramones both as a scholar and visceral fan of heavy music. She and I were Ramones fans from the beginning, 50 years ago. If you say the phrase "punk rock" to anyone, especially in New York, you should visualize one thing: the Ramones. They changed rock & roll, they changed fashion, they changed the way outsiders could find an umbrella under which they could bond.

Donna implied in her preface that it was anticlimactic to interview the band for the Village Voice in 1996: When you tried to talk to all four, the backbiting and personality conflicts were never far from the surface. Her point was you already knew what you needed to know every time you heard them perform, Dee Dee Ramone counting off the f…