He was replaced by Marky, who was fired for alcoholism in 1983, to be replaced by Richie – both men are still alive. Tommy Ramone played on the band's first three albums, co-producing two of them, before leaving in 1978, ostensibly because he was exhausted by the constant touring but later admitting that he had quit in reaction to being "physically threatened by Johnny, treated with contempt by Dee Dee, and all but ignored by Joey". Of the other founders, Joey Ramone died of lymphoma in 2001 Dee Dee was killed by a heroin overdose in 2002 and Johnny died from prostate cancer in 2004. They had gone through five record labels. Their extraordinary gigs featured barely a breath between songs, and they toured relentlessly until disbanding in 1996. Without him, the band would not have made as much great music at any point in its life span.Unpretentious and leather-clad, with holes in the knees of their skintight jeans, the band played their guitars badly and their drums maniacally, bridging the gap between rock and punk. He was the complex and addled essential spirit at the center of the Ramones’ brilliant and damaged story. Dee Dee continued to write for the band, contributing several notable songs to Mondo Bizarro (1992) and ¡Adios Amigos! (1995). “It’s hard to get anywhere in life, and when we did, we just threw it all away.”Ĭhristopher Joseph Ward replaced Dee Dee on bass as CJ Ramone in 1989, and remained with the group until it split in 1996. “Why we didn’t stick together, I don’t know,” Dee Dee later wrote. The record failed in all respects one critic reviewed it as “one of the worst recordings of all time.” In 1989, Dee Dee kept his word: He left the Ramones, catching the others, especially Johnny, off guard. “You’re a fucking white guy who can’t rap.” Dee Dee in fact released a (sort of) rap album in 1988, Standing in the Spotlight, under the name Dee Dee King. According to Marky, Dee Dee once sat at the back of the van announcing, “I’m a Negro! I’m a Negro!” It drove Johnny crazy. One day he showed up with spiky hair and gold chains, proclaiming a new devotion to hip-hop. He sent signals that he intended to make a change. But Dee Dee grew tired of the Ramones and their fights. Johnny tolerated the usage as long as it didn’t interfere with the band’s live shows – and it never did (“Dee Dee was on the road with hepatitis and could still play fine,” said Johnny). He had used hard drugs since he was a child, had been diagnosed as bipolar, and often mixed mood-disorder medications with cocaine. The trouble was, Dee Dee’s problems proved irrepressible. The one album that broke the hex was 1985’s Too Tough to Die, a triumph that saw the return of producers Tommy Ramone and Ed Stasium.ĭee Dee had always written from his own fucked-up perspective, but in songs like Too Tough’s “Howling at the Moon,” he turned his own ruination into a human concern that looked outward (“I took the law and threw it away/Because there’s nothing wrong/It’s just for play”). The writing went deeper, and Joey’s voice took on more character – a mean drawl in some songs, a haunted wraith in others. On some of these, it sounded as if the Ramones were competing with their own shadows they played faster, harder, as if trying to catch up with many of the hardcore bands – Black Flag, Fear, Circle Jerks, Discharge, Crass, Suicidal Tendencies, among others – that were running with the Ramones’ original template of short songs and high-speed beats. The label brought in new producers for five of their next six albums: Pleasant Dreams (1981), Subterranean Jungle (1983), Animal Boy (1986), Halfway to Sanity (1987) and Brain Drain (1989). After End of the Century, Sire kept treating the band’s music as a problem that needed to be solved. The Ramones kept their secrets well they would go onstage night after night for a decade and a half after the schism between Joey and Johnny.
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