Punk Rock Blitzkrieg

by Marky Ramone

  We called for a police escort back to the hotel. It was four or five police cars in front of us and a pair of police motorcycles on either side. The Ramones had been using the presidential seal since almost the beginning but this was our first presidential motorcade.

  Even as we caught our collective breath at the hotel, Ramonesmania reached out to us from the TV screen. Brazilian CNN was doing a story and we could see the word “Ramones” across the bottom of the screen. Above was clearly some sort of riot involving fans. A hotel waiter explained to us that there had been a promotion for a Brazilian cola where the inside of winning bottle caps could be redeemed for tickets to tonight’s Ramones concert. The problem was, there were about seven hundred winners and only about two hundred tickets. That left around five hundred cheated kids breaking windows and burning cars on the streets of Rio de Janeiro.

  The soccer stadium we played at that night held about forty thousand people. Every seat was taken, although few were ever actually used. The Brazilian fans liked to stand, sway, and sing along the entire show. There was a constant roar, half human, half jet engine. They were electrified by “Shock Treatment” and bouncing to “Do You Wanna Dance?” One young long-haired male fan had his moment in the spotlight when he jumped up onstage and stood triumphantly next to Joey during “Spider-Man.” Fittingly, the next song was “The KKK Took My Baby Away.” The kid was gone, too. The encore was six songs, ending with “Beat on the Brat.” We were a little beat, as well. We could have done another six, but we had to save something for the rest of South America.

  We wound up the tour in Buenos Aires, where it was more of the same bedlam. We had a night off before the final show, at River Plate Stadium. John’s fantasy was for the band to make a side deal and slip in an extra stadium show without management’s knowing. In this fantasy, the local promoter would bring cash in a suitcase. Instead, we were spending a quiet night in.

  We soon found out that would be impossible. Across the street from the hotel was a building under construction. There was a building boom in South America throughout the nineties, and here was another piece of it—a tall concrete frame structure with just the bare bones. No walls. No windows. But plenty of fans. Somehow they had hopped the tall fence surrounding the lot and climbed up the scaffolding to catch a glimpse of their favorite band.

  They were camped out all night on the open concrete slabs and looking our way. At least a dozen fans occupied the fourth floor directly opposite my room. They were on the lookout for Marky. I felt good, bad, ambivalent. Closing my curtain seemed like a snub. Opening the curtain seemed to encourage them, and for all I knew, one of those kids could get excited and take a fall. So I opened and closed the curtain a few times until the police finally came and escorted the kids off the premises. I hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. It was our second-to-last curtain call in South America.

  Eddie Vedder was our special guest the next night. Iggy Pop opened for us. River Plate Stadium held about sixty thousand people. Iggy had a rapport with the fans and had them standing. But the fever pitch went nuclear when the Ramones took the stage. Outside of festivals, where the band really shared the crowd and the energy with other bands, this was the largest Ramones audience we had ever played for.

  We launched into “Durango 95” with the “Adios Amigos” letters standing tall on the huge faux brick wall behind the drum riser. The crowd noise sounded like a 767 taking off in our ears with a high-pitched frequency numbing our hearing. I had the sound crew turn up the volume in my monitors. I rarely did that, but this was sink or swim. I looked over at John and he looked back at me. We were in for a long, loud ride. Our job was to keep it all together. That never changed.

  Over the next hour and fifteen minutes, we gave Buenos Aires everything we had. That included a “We’re a Happy Family” too fast for Joey or anyone either above or below the equator to keep up with. Joey’s voice was suffering here on the very last leg of the tour, and who could blame him? During the last gasps of the encore—“Brat,” “Chinese Rock,” and our Creedence cover “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” the entire audience stood and rocked back and forth. Some lucky fans, including a few kids not more than ten, surfed atop the crowd or rode on their father’s shoulders.

  It sounded a little sappy when I repeated it to myself silently, but the love coming back at us from the audience was something we could never forget. It was like that rock-and-roll saying about the love you take being equal to the love you make. Coincidence or not, this was the closest I had ever come to feeling like I was in the Beatles.

  Finally, when there were no more encores left in us and the houselights went up, we knew our time here was over. Still, the audience shook the stadium so that we could feel a dull and slow bounce in the concrete floor as we walked backstage. From the first crazed fans at the airport in Rio to the last hurrah in Buenos Aires, it had been an experience we could never have dreamed up. And I had it all on tape.

  With only a matter of days to go before our final show, August 6, 1996, it was a little strange to be playing Lollapalooza. The alt-rock festival started in 1991 by Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell had drifted away from its offbeat freak-show roots and gone sort of mainstream. For a lot of critics, the presence of Metallica underscored that point. Metallica came and went via helicopter and spoke to almost no one in between. It was a far cry from the exhibit tents of a half decade earlier where a performance artist demonstrated how heavy a weight he could hang from his nipple by a clothespin.

  But the rest of the bands got along well, and for the Ramones, as had become our unspoken mantra, it was again better late than never. A show on Randall’s Island—long home to a New York prison and sanitarium—was perhaps appropriate to be the last ever in our own backyard. Bands like Soundgarden and Rancid were eager to hear stories and hang out with us. This, too, was a relatively new experience for John, but it was an easy cherry to pop. He was admired and respected. A guy like John who had grown up idolizing John Wayne was now, after all these years, practically the Duke himself.

  Between sets, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden as well as Lars Frederiksen and Tim Armstrong of Rancid followed us back to where we were parked. They were not alone. At least a dozen members of various bands—Rage Against the Machine, Screaming Trees, Ben Folds Five—all wanted the same thing: to get in the Ramones’ van. Just to sit there and soak it in for a few minutes. It seemed, given its storied history, the van was the greatest place in the world to be. If they only knew.

  John’s house in Southern California was nothing Phil Spector would write home about. But it was nice, quiet, and, finally, after 2,262 shows, John’s piece of the American pie. He was proud as he showed me and Marion around. It was a suburban ranch house with a swimming pool. There were classic movie posters and celebrity autographed publicity photos all over the place, so it was definitely home. Some punk purists would have picked CBGB for our final performance, but America had gradually moved west, and so had Johnny Ramone.

  The Palace Theatre on North Vine Street in Hollywood was a classic Art Deco building renovated in the late seventies. There was a large balcony and the main floor that had been long ago cleared for dancing, which we hoped to see Ramones fans doing one last time in a couple of hours. This type and size of venue had been our bread and butter for many years. So except for the special-guest stars we had brought in and the movie cameras all over the place, it seemed like just another show.

  Even Dee Dee was up to his old tricks. He was in town to help send off the band he had cofounded a generation before. As always, Dee Dee had his needs. He knew my friend Barry and his girlfriend Karen lived in the area, would be coming to the show, and that Barry always had some of the best pot this side of the Sierra Nevada. Dee Dee asked me and Marion to ask Barry to pack along some of that choice California weed.

  When we all met up backstage and Barry handed Dee Dee what he came for, the next thing out of his mouth was more bizarre than any song he had ever penned on the back of an envelope
filled with Acapulco Gold.

  “I know you want to have sex with me and your girlfriend.”

  Barry and Karen looked stunned. It was so out of left field, it wouldn’t have even made it to an album as a bonus track. And this was before he got high.

  Onstage, we had a good set. Lars and Tim from Rancid helped us out with a few songs, including Dee Dee’s famous “53rd & 3rd.” Chris Cornell and Ben Shepherd of Soundgarden gave us an assist on “Brat.” Eddie Vedder pulled off his pinhead mask and sang lead on a cover of the Dave Clark Five’s “Any Way You Want It.” Motörhead’s Lemmy, a true friend and supporter going way back, sang his tribute, “R.A.M.O.N.E.S.”

  Then we said good night to an appreciative audience.

  Backstage there were no good-byes and no pats on the back. We just went about our business in the dressing room. There was too much to say and no reason to try to say it. I thought ending with a tight, workmanlike set was very Ramones. Playing to a medium-sized crowd was very Ramones. Doing what we loved among friends and not getting dramatic and campy about it was very Ramones.

  And there was one more thing. At Lollapalooza, we had been approached by a major promoter from South America. He carried with him a huge roll of paper containing thousands of signatures demanding that the Ramones play one final, final show in Brazil. He also carried with him a firm offer for that show: $1 million.

  John wanted to do it. Joey didn’t. John had his reasons—a million of them—and no one had to ask. Joey had his reasons, and we knew they were health related. Joey hadn’t disclosed to us exactly what was wrong with him and why his energy as of late was so sapped. But we knew something was not good. His skin was sallow and his eyes, even behind the prescription shades, a little dim. When you’re around someone for so long, you just know.

  I wanted to do the show and made my case to Joey. It was six weeks away. That seemed like enough time for him to go home, chill out, get his health together, and do one last monster of a set. The price was right, and the people of South America deserved a killer lasting impression. We were talking legacy.

  Joey said no. The health issues were real, but he was not by any means on his last legs. John was on one side, and that made Joey’s position final. Over the years, John had tipped the scales and they weren’t tipping back for anything.

  There was an old joke about the sadist and the masochist. The masochist says to the sadist, “Beat me!” The sadist says, “No.” When it came to making John twist and turn, Joey was willing to take a hit. Even a million-dollar hit. For better or for worse, that was also very Ramones.

  21

  A WONDERFUL WORLD

  Joey and I weren’t talking like old times, but at least we were talking. When the Ramones were winding down, Joey had a short fuse. Once the band ended, Marion and I weren’t running over to his apartment every night to have dinner. The hundreds of dinners over almost two decades at Cracker Barrels and random diners across the US were enough for a while. When Joey asked me to play in his new band, Joey Ramone and the Resistance, I resisted. I did a couple of shows and told him that was it. I had my own band and wanted to focus on that.

  By the late nineties we had all cooled our heels to a degree. Joey was very excited about his solo album and was working with a variety of top-performing artists on the project. He was still tight with his former girlfriend Angela, and had even written a song about going up to visit her in South Fallsburg in upstate New York. Angela had married someone else, but Joey was crazy about her kid and mentioned he was setting up a college fund for him.

  Perhaps most important, Joey had been sober for a while. It wasn’t through the approach I advocated—working a program—but sobriety was a good thing no matter how you got there. So I was happy to take his call and agreed to work on his album where my touring schedule permitted. The fact that Daniel Rey was on board as both guitarist and producer would definitely make things easier in the studio and reduce any remaining friction between me and Joey.

  Joey did have one serious problem, however, and it was getting worse. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma while the Ramones were still together, and by now we all knew the details. He was receiving chemotherapy on a regular basis. We could only assume treatment was effective, but at the very least, the side effects were horrible.

  He was losing weight, and Joey Ramone didn’t have a lot of weight to lose. He had good days and bad days, and on the bad days he didn’t leave his apartment. He was seeing a holistically oriented nutritionist. Knowing his condition, we now understood why Joey was so quick to bite in the final days of the Ramones. If only we had known then.

  Seeing what Joey was going through made me appreciate my own health even more. The world was filled with great things to do, and I was getting a chance to do them. I had started my own band, the Intruders, when the Ramones were coming down the homestretch. I had begun writing songs fairly prolifically by then, and it continued well past our final show. What also continued was the steady rise in popularity of Ramones music both at home and abroad. I was connected to punk music for life and wasn’t running from it. Just the opposite—I was running toward it. With the Intruders, I had the opportunity to promote the music I loved into the next millennium.

  The Intruders’ sound had some similarities to the Ramones’ but had a second guitar and was a bit fuller and heavier, a little bigger on the bottom. The crowds were also getting still bigger at the bottom of the world. By having bands like Motörhead and Iggy Pop open for the Ramones, we had effectively opened doors for them, and like the Ramones, they had a chance to extend their audience and legacy to the far reaches. When I first took the Intruders to Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, my own band members were initiated into the thrill and power of it all. The South Americans loved our songs—“One Way Ride,” “Telephone Love,” and especially “Three Cheers for You,” my punk tribute to South America.

  The Brazilians were highly appreciative when the Intruders opened for the Sex Pistols in Rio de Janeiro in front of more than forty thousand people. The Sex Pistols weren’t as fortunate. I loved the band and their music, but it was obvious they weren’t well rehearsed. They had recently gotten back together for a few big shows and it came off like they were just doing it for the money. The Rio audience must have thought the same thing because they started pelting the Pistols with cups, cans, and bottles. Forget “God Save the Queen.” God save the Sex Pistols.

  There were no hard feelings. At least as far as I could tell. I hung out backstage in the Pistols’ dressing room with bassist Glen Matlock and singer Johnny Rotten. Glen was the friendliest guy in the band and the one who, in my opinion, held them together. But when the guitarist and bass player from my band knocked on the door, Johnny Rotten wouldn’t let them in. On one hand, I understood the Sex Pistols didn’t know my band members from the halcyon days of punk rock. Still, I thought the no-admittance was very unpunk. It seemed that Johnny Rotten took the name “Intruders” a little too literally.

  Reuniting to make money and play in front of huge international crowds was the furthest thing from our minds when Dee Dee and I started the Remains. When I picked up Dee Dee and his second wife from JFK Airport in my 1996 Chevy Impala SS, I had the pleasure of meeting their cute Airdale terrier, Banfield. Dee Dee was relaxed and in a relatively good mental place. Not that he hadn’t expressed regret to me on several occasions over having left Vera, but at least Dee Dee seemed comfortable with who he was and the iconic punk status he would have for the rest of his life and beyond, whether he wanted it or not.

  We decided to make music just to have fun. No pressure, no expectations, no worries over money. We had money. We had fame. What we hadn’t had enough of when Dee Dee’s days wound down in the Ramones was a good time, and there really was nothing to stop us now. We decided to do a few shows, perform a few Ramones songs, maybe write a few new ones, and see what happened.

  Dee Dee played guitar and sang lead on some of the songs. While that might have surprised a few people, in the Ramo
nes Dee Dee was always writing songs on the guitar and then showing John exactly how to play them, right down to the fingering. Dee Dee was a good downstroke rhythm player who could also play lead. Dee Dee’s second wife played bass and did some of the singing. It was a blast playing clubs like the Continental. Performing at a little club with tables like the Long Island Brewing Company, where the band played at the same elevation as the audience, was not only a chance to reinvent classic songs like “Sheena” and “I Don’t Care.” It was also a way to exorcise a few demons. It had to be therapeutic for Dee Dee. On that particular night, Joey was supposed to come out and join us, but he wasn’t up to it. So Joan Jett joined us as a guest and helped out on vocals. It was like a revival meeting.

  Another band by the same name got wind of us and we had to change our name to the Remainz. Inevitably, the booking agents got wind of us, too, and wanted to book the Remainz all over the country. We turned them down but did agree to play out in LA. It was our second home and now John’s permanent one. I had no hesitation traveling with Dee Dee. He had leveled out. He was coherent. And he was doing it all with marijuana.

  Dee Dee was more of a pothead now than ever before. This wasn’t the perfect solution for Dee Dee’s addictions, but it was better than almost any other. I commended him on it. Relying on pot instead of the endless revolving pharmacy of chemicals he had been on for so many years was a vast improvement, and it showed in his behavior.

  Of course, he was still Dee Dee. He tried almost obsessively to cover his tracks. He would go to a department store, buy an air purifier the size of a small TV, and set it up in the hotel bedroom to mask the pot odor. Whenever we left a hotel, he left the unit behind and bought a new one for the next hotel. But the owner of one of the hotels could smell the Colombian Red through the HEPA filter and knocked on the door.