After the tedious, repetitive and laborious process of getting the lights just right for the green screen, I have finally been able to lay down drum tracks onto a multi-track

Props to Meatpie and Alan for helping me with compression settings

I have chosen roughly 100 Ramones songs from the catalog leading up to Acid Eaters (since I have only listened to Adios Amigos once and don’t really care for it)
The first 30 have been recorded over the past 2 consecutive evenings
So far, I have relied on playing by memory and keeping time to a click
I can pat myself on the back for that one but keep in mind that I chose to record the material that is on both The Ramone and Sedated’s setlist
I have played and rehearsed these songs so many times that I can (& have) played them by memory
Mostly because...

There’s not much need to go into how important this album is because there will be a million articles telling you that story
What I want to do is talk about my own personal experience with The Ramones 1st Album

The first Ramones album was not my first Ramones ALBUM
That would be Rocket to Russia

I can’t remember when I bought the 1st album but I can remember that I had bought other albums, like Too Tough To Die before that

This was mostly due to the fact that most of my albums were used and you just didn’t even see the 1st album in stock at all
My exposure to the songs from the 1st album had come from “It’s Alive” which, at that time, was an import that I bought at Bill’s Records and Tapes

Once I finally did get the album, I noticed how basic it was, even for the Ramones
I had the luxu...

Gino who is the Dee Dee in Sedated- The World’s Greatest Ramones Tribute has a bunch of Ramones books and is letting me borrow them
I thought I’d tell you about the books I have read so far but I want to start with  the first Ramones Book I owned which is
“AN AMERICAN BAND”

This book was published May 15th 1993 by St. Martin’s Griffin and was written by Jim Bessman “in association with The Ramones”
That last part is very important because that means there is no real dirt in this book
People nowadays are spoiled by all of the in-depth stories they get from old rock stars who don’t have anything to lose anymore and don’t give a shit
This book was released 3 years before the Ramones would break up

Looking back on reading this book in 93 and knowing what I know now, I would say this book rea...

What started out as an off-hand idea to spice up my busking activities has evolved into a successfully executed concept
I’m not sure the exact date when I first formed the idea but my initial post was in August of 2015
https://wordpress.com/stats/day/rockula.wordpress.com
I don’t consider it official until April 1st 2016 when I played my first gig at The Underpass
Since than I have played a handful of gigs and tweaked the concept
My first shows were the entire 1st album but I would soon generate a new set of songs with better video and audio quality
My current set works fine but I need to expand my library
The second reason I want to create new backing videos is that I learned more about lighting and the relation to Green Screen

One of my biggest obstacles was not having a car
This severe...

******Click Here To Buy A Shirt******
The RAMONE-A One Man Tribute band T-Shirt is now available for purchase!

* My very first Ramones T Shirt from the Too Tough To Die 10th Aniversary Tour
I feel the need to address the reactions that some hardcore Ramones fans have when seeing how the band has achieved cultural acceptance
It is easy to feel like your culture has been yanked out of your hands and sold on E-Bay but read on and I will tell you that “It’s Gonna Be Alright”

There is a certain attachment that we ascribe to the things that help us deal with everyday life
We can all agree that music is the most accessible way to deal with your feelings and to express your own identity
There has never been a more perfect band to provide that kind of strength as The Ramones
Their minimalist approach to their songs also applied to the lyrics, which can range anywhere from hard and cold reality to complete...

The Ramones “Hard to Find” bonus tracks pt 1 “Street Fighting Man”
The Ramones “Hard to Find” Bonus Tracks pt 2- Smash You
The Ramones Hard to Find Bonus Tracks pt 3 “Can’t Say Anything Nice”

The Ramones Hard to Find Bonus Tracks pt 4- “Go Home Ann”

Let’s take a break from the Beggar’s Banquet 12″ singles as a source of “Non Album” tracks that could be considered “Bonus Tracks” back in the days before everything was available online in some form or another
Let’s talk about a track that became rare by accident

The average non-obsessive Ramones fan in 1991 would have a hard time knowing what was going on at the 2:57 mark on track 17 of their new album “Loco Live”
It seems there is an untitled song tacked onto the end of the song “Pet Sematary” that talks about huffing
The song i...

I am going to give away certain plot points and the ending but don’t think of this as a spoiler because it is easy to figure out the end
Since I am recommending audiobooks, I would suggest imagining it to be like a poem that lasts an hour and seventeen minutes instead of the traditional novel format
Since I have burned myself out on Zombie stuff on YouTube, I have turned to apocalypse and dystopian themes
I listened to apocalyptic book “The Scarlet Plague” by Jack London, which is set 60 years after a plague and it was pretty good
Then I saw one titled “The Machine Stops” by EM Forster, which was published in Great Britain in 1909
This is a dystopian story

The general framework is a bit different from the Orwellian ideal of oppressive government
Not only is the authority figure replaced b...

The Ramones “Hard to Find” bonus tracks pt 1 “Street Fighting Man”
The Ramones “Hard to Find” Bonus Tracks pt 2- Smash You
The Ramones Hard to Find Bonus Tracks pt 3 “Can’t Say Anything Nice”

In the previous installment, I covered how I had been buying the Beggar’s Banquet 12″ singles that the Ramones released in the UK.
I had started with the 12″ released after “Too Tough To Die”
I had enough money at the time to buy one of two 12″ singles that were released after the “Animal Boy” album
One contained the non album track “Can’t Say Anything Nice” and the other included “Go Home Ann”, whaich was on the single “Bonzo Goes To Bitburg”

I ended up buying the single with “Can’t” on it and never bothered to buy the one with “Ann” on it
I often wondered what that song sounded like
Now...

As I has stated in the lest installment, I bought a 12″ single from Bill’s records and Tapes at around the same time that I bought Too Tough To Die. I really liked the cover of Street Fighting Man but Smash You sounded like the songs I was writing (that sounded like the Ramones)
This song employs the technique of accentuating notes with crashes (think of the breakdown in Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy). I did that a lot in my new songwriting because it sounded cool. Of course, I over-used it but those songs don’t exist anymore, the tapes long since lost or recorded over.
This song was written by Richie but it adds to a list of songs where violence against women is covered...