"Does This Bus Stop at 53rd and 3rd?"

I had no idea this even ever happened! Sure, I know Bruce originally wrote "Hungry Heart" for the Ramones after he ran into Joey in 1979, but apparently this meeting with Dee Dee happened much earlier, in '77 at fabled Max's Kansas City. The mind it do boggle. Will ever wonder what they talked about...

Remembering Joe Strummer (1952 - 2002)

On this day in 2002, the world lost one of rock'n'roll's greatest frontmen, Joe Strummer. Born John Graham Mellor in 1952, he embodied the busking British folkie, squatting in abandoned high rises during the early '70s, and then joined the pub rock ensemble the 101ers. But as a member of the Clash from 1976 to 1986, Joe rounded the world, galvanizing audiences with lyrics exposing global injustice, urban poverty, ghetto criminals, institutional racism, and ruthless political machinations in fiery live performances that still boggle the mind and inspire the heart.

Effortlessly mixing the intensity of punk rock with the sounds of reggae, R&B, rockabilly, rap and even some gospel and bizarre sound collages, the Clash were the premier band of their era, particularly with their essential 1979/80 album, London Calling. Today many of the Clash's songs, like "Spanish Bombs," "Tommy Gun," "White Man in Hammersmith Palais," and "Straight to Hell," have become classics and the band has become a part of rock's mythic pantheon of legendary performers, inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame just after Joe's death.

After the Clash broke up, Joe floundered about for over a decade, performing solo at times (I saw him in 1989, a wonderful show). But he returned in 1999 with a new band, the Mescaleros, and a newfound passion for performing. They released two terrific albums, Rock Art and the X-Ray Style and Global a Go-Go. Audiences came in droves, kids too young to have seen Joe during his '70s heyday, and people a generation older who couldn't believe their old hero still had the drive, the chops, the energy of a rock'n'roller half his age. Joe was back to stay, it seemed, reinvigorated and armed with music that spanned the planet and lyrics at once tender and surreal, funny and heartbreaking.

But it was not to be. On December 22, 2002, Joe came in from walking his dogs at his country home at Broomfield in Somerset, England, sat in his living room, and died peacefully of a heart condition no one even knew he had - not even himself. He could have died at any time during his 50 years of life. Fortunately, we got many good years of Joe Strummer's intelligence and compassion, his commitment and his insight, his fury and, indeed, his personal style, and for that, I'm ever thankful.

Joe and the Mescaleros on David Letterman, 2001:

Joe Strummer (Letterman 10-03-2001)

With the Clash on Fridays, 1980:

The Clash on Fridays - "London Calling"

On SNL, 1982:

The Clash - Straight To Hell

On Tom Snyder, 1981 (my favorite live Clash performance!)



With his first band, the 101ers, c. 1975


The Grammys tribute to Joe with Springsteen, Costello, Grohl & Co., 2003

LONDON CALLING BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & FRIENDS

Countdown to Halloween: Iron Maiden, "Phantom of the Opera" (1980)

Iron Maiden, with original singer Paul Di'Anno, performing their metal classic, "Phantom of the Opera."

Countdown to Halloween: Glenn Danzig's Horror Biz

New Jersey's misfit icon Glenn Danzig has gotten terrific mileage out of old horror movies. Beginning in the late '70s, he's made a whole career out of it with his three bands, the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig. From bands logos to flyers, albums covers to lyrics, tattoos and clothing, Danzig's whole persona seemed to be a mix of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and a Frank Frazetta Conan painting. Which is awesome.

I Wanna Be a Horror Movie Star: The Ramones Meet Stephen King

"Lewis turned on the radio and dialed until he found the Ramones belting out 'Rockaway Beach.' He turned it up and sang along - not well but with lusty enjoyment."
from Pet Sematary by Stephen King, p. 52

When I was a teenager in the mid- to late-1980s, two of the biggest stars in my personal universe were punk rock kings the Ramones and bestselling horror writer Stephen King. I couldn't get enough of either one, and spent plenty of time and money getting my hands on everything related to them. Didn't matter that I had to be at school in the morning; I'd be up until 2 a.m. with Night Shift or 'Salem's Lot or Different Seasons listening to Rocket to Russia or Pleasant Dreams or Animal Boy. Weren't those the days?

King had referenced the Ramones in several of his books, and King is name-checked in a Ramones song or two, but it wasn't until 1989 that these two mighty heroes of mine joined forces in what at first seemed improbable: the Ramones would perform the title track for the movie adaptation of King's gruesome 1983 novel, Pet Sematary.



Since their debut album in 1976 the Ramones had never been shy about incorporating their love of horror movies; songs like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Pinhead," and "I Don't Want to Go Down to the Basement" are charming tunes influenced by the genre. Alice Cooper they were not, but performing in the Lower East Side throughout the '70s brought them in close proximity to the original grindhouses. The influence couldn't help but rub off. Here they are on MTV. Jeez, something about the Ramones on MTV in 1989 just seems wrong.



Written by Dee Dee Ramone and Ramones collaborator Daniel Rey, "Pet Sematary" appeared on their 1989 album Brain Drain. While the movie itself leaves much to be desired in many respects, I think "Pet Sematary" is one of the band's better latter-day songs. I particularly love how they incorporated their patented "don't wanna" sentiment into the chorus.



Performing with World's Most Dangerous Band on Late Night with David Letterman reveal a not-too-uncomfortable-looking Joey and Johnny without, oddly, Dee Dee or Marky. Check out Paul Shaffer's look of utter befuddlement at 1:54! Awesome. And half of the Ramones on Letterman just doesn't quite fit.

But the Ramones, who should have been the most popular punk rock band of all time, performing one of their greatest songs on behalf of Stephen King, pop-horror's greatest practitioner? That seems most right of all. And yet...

"In the night when the moon is bright,
Someone cries, something ain't right..."

This post is part of the Countdown to Halloween.

The Public Image, Y'all: Rip Torn in Payday (1973)

"Argh! Fuck y'all! I'm not public property!" So growls country star Maury Dann in the little-known 1973 character study Payday. A road movie taking place over two frenzied, pill-popping, Wild Turkey-guzzling, bird-hunting and groupie-fucking days, Rip Torn gives it his Method-acting best as the kind of man who knows he can create any kind of mess and his handlers will pick up the bill. "You're just a rich little child with a lot of toys," a woman tells him, but you've pretty much figured that out by that point. Payday invokes the madness of the road--if it doesn't quite achieve full-on insanity, it reaches a decent point of intoxication and sleepless edginess.


Dann is equal parts Hank Williams and Barnum & Bailey, but he's got the attributes reversed: he's not that talented in the art of country music but can certainly take advantage of all the suckers that surround him; he likes to get fucked up but actually might not be that great of an entertainer. Despite ostensibly taking place in the honky-tonks of the era, only the opening sequence gives any real glimpse of that world, with Torn wailing away on the corny "She's Just a Country Girl," (all songs are by Shel Silverstein) winking and mugging to the desperately unhip patrons.


The face Dann presents to his fans is one much different from the one he shows in the backrooms and hotel rooms and parking lots and even at his old mother's rundown rural home. Sly, charming, and ingratiating when socializing with regular folk, he's willful and destructive behind the scenes and not above cheaply "seducing" one of the prettier "unhip" patrons or smarmily trying to get out of a speeding ticket. Still it's painful to watch the his humiliation at having to brown-nose an unctuous DJ ("Pigfucker son of a bitch") at a hick radio station, trying to get out of a public appearance by presenting the guy with a bottle of Wild Turkey while on the air ("Here's some game birds I shot"). We can see how promoters pressured and used veiled threats on stars--and how much the artists resented it but felt powerless to fight back. But Maury Dann is not exactly afraid of fighting back. He's a precursor to the "outlaw country" stars like Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson that would soon rejuvenate the genre.

His manager, no-nonsense, Pepsi-swilling Bob (Jeff Morris) routinely gets Dann out of scrapes ("I don't care how you fix it, get me out of this town tonight"), and the affabale, chauffeur/wanna-be chef Chicago (Cliff Emmich) does whatever Dann wants--and eventually takes the biggest fall of all for him. The two women along for the ride are Mayleen (Ahni Capri) his "girlfriend," and Rosamond (Elaine Heilveil ), a young groupie Dann pilfers from his soon-to-be estranged best bud Clarence (Michael Gwynn). Rosamond and Dann have sex in the backseat of his Cadillac while they think Mayleen is asleep next to them. This of course turns out terribly. Mayleen confronts the younger woman in a gas station ladies' room: "You'll never see 21 birddogging other women's men. Get the message?" Rosamond, suddenly wise beyond her years, lights a smoke and coolly replies, "I believe I do--do you?" Zing!

But ultimately, all women are expendable, interchangeable, left on the side of the road. Literally so, for Mayleen, abandoned with a wad of cash that Dann tells her is more than she's worth. Uh, zing?

I took great pleasure in seeing the details of period and place as the entourage of good ol' boys swung through the '70s South: men's hair severely parted and oiled, gas-guzzling American cars made of steel and leather, cowboy-style Levi's, enormous belt buckles, and long-sleeved pearl-button-snapped Western shirts that any y'alt.country dude would kill for.

Its screenplay by cult novelist Dan Carpenter, Payday, despite good characterization, seems a tad under-ambitious, indifferently directed by Daryl Duke (Silent Partner). In the dramatic confrontations Torn is doing most of the heavy lifting. Still, the climactic sequence, which finds Dann taking off in a Cadillac into the country in a desperate attempt to escape his fate while ruminating acidly on his childhood, is well-done and keeping quite in character. The title Payday implies not only his getting cash for his appearances but also the movie's final scene. It's worth sticking around for. Grab a bottle of Wild Turkey and enjoy.

No Such Thing as a Cretin: The Ramones' Rocket to Russia (1977)

It's about summertime and I've been cruising around in the new ride, blasting an oldy-old favorite: the Ramones' third album, Rocket to Russia. It was perhaps the second or third Ramones album I owned back in the mid-'80s, and I wasn't expecting much as my friend who gave it to me told me it wasn't as good as their debut. How wrong he turned out to be.

Released in November 1977, at the commercial, pop-cultural height of the filth and fury known as Punk Rock, Rocket to Russia was make-or-break time for the band. Sire Records was gearing up for some serious sales and betting a lot on the band. It's no wonder, then, that the album has the band's cleanest, leanest, most accessible sound, refined to defiant, power-chorded perfection, with Joey Ramone's shouts, hiccups, and croons perfectly suited to the full-throated singalong quality virtually every song here has.


How any rock lover can resist the obvious, sugary-yet-substantial charms of intro tune “Cretin Hop” with its no-nonsense two-chord shuffle that opens the album escapes me. Once Dee Dee's bass and Tommy's drums wallop in, the song immediately introduces the album’s good-time freakshow tone.

“Isn’t a song about cretins in poor taste?” an interviewer asked guitarist Johnny Ramone back in the day. “No,” he said, “because there really isn’t any such thing as a cretin anymore. Same with pinheads. If we did a song about retards, that’d be in poor taste.” Holy shit—he’s dead fucking right! You’re gonna have to trust me on this—it was in a fanzine I bought at a Ramones show in 1989 that was actually a reprint of a fanzine from the ’70s—whew.

There's the nihilist's anthem "I Don't Care," a punk dirge in which Joey declares "I don't care about this world/And I don't care about these words." "Ramona" is a bittersweet confection with a lovely melody about a girl and the kids who love it loud; ditto the poison-pen love letter “Locket Love.” One of Joey's earliest songs, written before the Ramones, is the plaintive ballad "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow" (a roaring cover by Ronnie Spector in 1980 with Cheetah Chrome on guitar truly does the song justice). Can’t go wrong with the delights of the covers of “Do You Wanna Dance?” and the live staple "Surfin' Bird." These two songs are a perfect example of what endeared me to the Ramones when I was a teen, that they seemed to get it right: innocence without irony, absurdity without cruelty. Wouldn’t it be funny if we, you know, covered a forgotten one-hit wonder pop song with power chords, tuneless vocals and an irresistible beat?

Of course there are the stone-cold classics: "Teenage Lobotomy." "We're a Happy Family." "Rockaway Beach." No Ramones show would be complete without them. And then there's the song that I consider to be just about the most perfect pop song ever written, "Sheena is a Punk Rocker."

An ode to free spirits and non-conformists everywhere, to New York City, and to the power of identity that the best rock'n'roll provides, "Sheena" is everything that makes the Ramones great in 2 minutes 47 seconds:

"Well, the kids are all hopped up and ready to go/ They got their surfboards and they're heading/ to the Discotheque a Go-Go/ But she just couldn't stay/ She had to break away/ Well New York City really has it all—Oh yea-ah, oh yeahhhh!"

Second verse, same as the first. A put-the-top-down, fist-in-the-air, sing-along radio-friendly classic if ever there was one. However, when it was released as a single, radio stations took one look at the phrase "punk rocker" and recoiled in fear. Really. It's funny to think today that that phrase once struck horror into the stoutest of record company hearts, but it's true. Once the American music industry saw the Sex Pistols, punk was simply "safety pins, vomit, anger, snot." The whole thing was terrifying, mystifying, verboten.

Ah well, surely the less-threatening sounding "Rockaway Beach," with its Beach Boys-go-garage vibe and unforgettable chorus ("Rock-rock, Rockaway Beach/It's not hard, not far to reach/ We can hitch a ride to Rockaway Beach") would leap to the top of the charts and ensconce the Ramones in the nation's warm bosom.

Except that this sunny, funny, delightful little ditty was released in the dead of winter. And it died. And that was it. Rocket to Russia, charting at Billboard #49 (1980's End of the Century would chart a few spaces higher) stopped cold. Despite relentless touring (for the next 19 years!), the spectacle of Punk Rock was a "dangerous" one, and any band associated with it was thrown out with the bathwater. Plus, audiences outside of New York City's Lower East Side just couldn't get with four geeky-looking guys in motorcycle jackets, Captain America T-shirts two sizes too small and ripped-up blue jeans—straight-leg, not flares!—not when there was John Travolta looking so suave and so dapper in his disco get-up. But come on, people, look at these fucking hipsters!

Today the reputation of the Ramones is beyond reproach; unbelievable as it may seem to all those radio DJ detractors and pretty people who were busy buying up those Styx, Foreigner, ABBA, and Bee Gees albums in 1977, they are firmly established as one of the most important bands in rock'n'roll history. Who ever would have thought?

Well, all the cretins, pinheads, and teenage lobotomies throughout the world, that's who. There are such things after all.

Currently listening: David Johansen, David Johansen (1978)

After the breakup of the New York Dolls in the mid-70s, singer David Johansen released his first solo album in 1978. It's been out of print for ages, and I've been waiting for somebody to re-release it, and lo and behold this year that's what happened. Let me tell you what: this is one rockin' album, maybe even better than the Dolls' second, Too Much Too Soon. It's rife with all that smart-ass charm and Noo Yawk attitude Johansen wielded so well, plus some classic '70s production--you know, lead guitars squealing out of your speakers over chugging rhythm tracks, thanks to Johnny Rao and guest appearances from ex-Dolls guitarist Syl Sylvain and Aerosmith's Joe Perry.

The David Johansen Group

But there's also some serious girl-group and '60s soul going on here, from the Stonesy ballad "Donna" to the West Side Story-esque, the rather epic "Lonely Tenement." Vocally, I think the singer's in top form; he's rife with sass and humor and pathos and yearning. Johansen's voice always reminded me of Louis Armstrong, crossed with a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character whose name I can't remember, am I right?

The opening track is perhaps his most famous solo song, "Funky But Chic," and sets the tone and 'tude for the rest of the album in the same way "Personality Crisis" introduced the first Dolls album in '73. "Funky funky but--oh chic!" Hilarious. If you'll recall, chic was a big word in the '70s. So was funky. Great choruses on "Pain in My Heart" and "Not That Much" ("She said, 'I'm in love with you daddy/But not that much'"). "Cool Retro" is good but a bit diminished somehow; Joe Perry's guitar seems mixed down--on purpose?! I'm sure it was a rave-up live, maybe down at Max's Kansas City or the Bottom Line.

Girls, he likes 'em hangin' around

If you're DJing some dingy bar you could throw any track on and skip nary a beat; sitch a track between some vintage Cheap Trick or that solo album from Ace Frehley. Perhaps some Ronettes and Shangri-Las along with old-school Aerosmith, or follow up the Johnny Thunders solo masterpiece "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" with the equally awesome "Frenchette." Syl Sylvain co-wrote this last song, which starts off as a pretty piano ballad but turns into a tough rocker with a real girl-group vibe. Love the lyrics: "You call that lovin' French but it's just Frenchette/I been to France... It's just like all your leathers baby/They don't scare me, I know it's only leatherette." As a suffix, -ette was big in the '70s too, if you'll recall, and David Jo scores off all of 'em, using the pretenses of a suitor as an excuse to not get serious--"I can't get the kind of love that I want, that I need... so let's just dance." Really. Always good advice.

And here's a gorgeous and blistering "Frenchette" from MTV's 1982 New Year's Eve Party.

Currently listening: Foreign Affairs by Tom Waits (1977)

"Oh half drunk all the time and I'm drunk all the rest..."

The Tom Waits album that completes my collection (pretty much besides some B-sides collections). Foreign Affairs, the fifth from the his late-nightness, occupies the same dingy romantic crossroads that earlier masterpieces like Small Change and Heart of Saturday Night did, a five-alarm pile-up of Raymond Chandler, Jack Kerouac, Louis Armstrong and Bernard Herrmann (I'm not linking to any of those guys; Jesus, people, if you need me to, yr readin the wrong blog). You got your upbeat-beatnik spoken-word hopscotch (titled "Jack & Neal," natch), your film noir track ("Potter's Field," complete with movie soundtrack-style orchestral backup), your melancholy last-call lament ("Foreign Affair"), your nostalgic tearjerker lullabye ("Sight for Sore Eyes"), and the Bukowski bar-narrative "I Never Talk to Strangers," probably the album's best track. Bette Midler (remember, she had some weird street cred in the '70s!?) stops by for a drink in this charming tune, one of my favorites of his songs--in short you get everything that Tom Waits did so well in the '70s.

But in all honesty, there's nothing here as iconic as "The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)," "I Hope I Don't Fall in Love with You," "On the Nickel," "Better Off without a Wife," or "New Coat of Paint", either melodically or lyrically. I'm not surprised he bailed on this style an album or two later; the Hoagy Carmichael-style piano tipplings and drunken-pun couplets were beginning to wear a little thin. There--I said it!

Soon he'd run off and join the circus sideshow band for the rest of his career. Everybody's got their own tastes, but I guess I like drinking to songs about drunks and diners and dives and dames and the vista of an America long gone than the kaleidoscopic dark carnival he's been doing since. Now don't get all huffy; I love Swordfishtrombones as much as the next hipster at the bar... it's just that I'm more likely to stumble out from it into the night singing "Wasted and wounded/It ain't what the moon did/Got what I paid for now..."

Johnny's Gonna Die

Up from the red-leather remains of the New York Dolls rose the Heartbreakers, founded by ex-Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders (né Genzale) and handsome-devil drummer Jerry Nolan in 1975. Leaving their former band members in Florida with some guy named McLaren so they could score smack back in the Big Apple, Johnny and Jerry tapped proto-punk poster-boy Richard Hell for their new ensemble. CBGBs and Max's Kansas City were their battlefields and they were an integral part of this febrile, fertile spawning ground. You know the litany of names: the Ramones, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, etc. etc. Though Hell froze up and departed, the Heartbreakers, eventually released only one album, the sonically-challenged L.A.M.F. (Like, of course, a motherfucker) in 1977. This recent mix, from re-discovered tapes, sounds wonderful, less muddy, and all sleaze.

What makes the Heartbreakers great is simplicity. They reduced twenty years of rock and pop and rhythm and blues into 3 minute rave-ups that always leave the listener wanting more. Johnny's guitar-slinging rings true, always teetering on the edge of collapse: it's chaotic and exhilarating. Blistering leads, solos that sound like a strangling cat, chugging rhythms like the subway trains roaring beneath the city streets.

Songs like "Get Off the Phone," "Going Steady," "Baby Talk," and "Let Go" are trashy rock'n'roll rave-ups, with all the requisite elements: catchy choruses, sleazy good-time lyrics (the ones that make sense, anyway; Johnny weren't no English perfessor), driving drums, and immediate gratification. A song like "One Track Mind" is a beautiful thing, all irresistible chorus and air-guitar glory. "It's Not Enough" is a reflective ballad-sorta thing, with Johnny lamenting how "You can give me this/You can give me that" but it's not enough. "Pirate Love" exists only for the dual-guitar solo that rivals anything the Dolls ever laid down.

Then there are the classics, the signature tunes that no Johnny Thunders performance was complete without: "Born to Lose," (or, alternately "Born Too Loose") which opens the album with an out-of-tune guitar whine, and lyrics revealing again just what a poet of the streets Johnny was: "Nothin' to do/Oh nothin' to say/Only one thing that I want/It's the only way/I said hit it!/Baby, I was born to lose."

"Chinese Rocks" is perhaps Thunders' most famous song even though it was written by fellow junkster Dee Dee Ramone. Anyone unsure as to what the song refers can be sure, it ain't nothing like Pop Rocks.

"The plaster's fallin off the walls
My girlfriend's cryin in the shower stall
It's hot as a bitch
I shoulda been rich
But I'm just diggin a Chinese ditch
I'm livin on Chinese rocks
All my best things are in hock
I'm livin on Chinese rocks
Everything is in the pawn shop"

These songs depict the downside of downtown and how the jungle could eat you alive. Johnny's status as a stylish, decadent loser who strutted those mean streets is legendary. As Wayne Kramer (MC5) said of Johnny: "He could snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

The Heartbreakers weren't really a punk band, even though they rounded out the legendary Anarchy tour of the UK in late '76 with a couple bands you mighta heard of, the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Rumor has it--actually, it's more than rumor, it's fact--that the Heartbreakers introduced heroin to the much younger and more naive UK punks, and Nancy Spungen went looking for Jerry Nolan and followed them there. You know what happened after that.

The band was never able to secure a record deal with an American label due to their, uh, extracurricular activities, so eventually they broke up. Johnny would put out a decidedly mixed solo album a year later (So Alone) and continue to travel the world as a performer. Shows were plagued by his drug use, his attitude, his poor guitar-playing. I never got to see him perform, and odds are that if I had, I'd've seen a shambles of a set. In April of 1991 Johnny Thunders was hauled out of a grimy New Orleans hotel, his lifeless body doubled over from the effects of countless drugs. It's not enough, is it, Johnny? No, I guess it never is.

Well, all that don't matter. What does matter is that if you care about real rock'n'roll you need this album. It rocks like nothing else I know, but fits kinda between the raunchiest Stones and the Replacements (whose "Johnny's Gonna Die" is an ode to Thunders), Guns N' Roses, my beloved Hanoi Rocks, very early Motley Crue (like just their first album) and other (good) hard rock of the '80s. Practically every hard-rock/glam/metal guitarist that tosses a mane of out-of-control hair with a sneer and screech copped it from Johnny (who of course copped it from Keith Richards, let's be honest here). Johnny deserves to be remembered for his single-minded rock tunes, his dedication to the rock'n'roll lifestyle, and also for one of the coolest rock "nom de guerres" ever--I mean, "Johnny Thunders" how cool is that?! Thanks Johnny Rock on RIP!

I said hit it...