When we were tagged punk rock in 1974, we were rocking the system in a time that was corporate . . . disco . . . it was like we were from Mars or something. There was the Ramones, Donna Summer, Disco Duck, the CB Song, Boston, REO Speedwagon, on and on. In those days it was just us. When we went over to England all these kids got turned on to our album and they all wanted to form bands like the Ramones...We're not big on labels ourselves, the Ramones kind of stood alone and still do, we always considered our music Ramones music but the press are always going to tag you or label you, which is sick but that's life. That's being a statistic, a number (laughs), take a number, like in a bakery!
~~ Joey Ramone

I spent several years, during the early-to-mid 1990s, either living with musicians or hanging out at gigs and demo recording sessions. Spent a fortune on Guitar Player, Guitar World and Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazines. We'd jam on the standards: Deep Purple's "Black Night", Black Sabbath's "Symptoms of the Universe", and watch Spinal Tap again for career advice. Sooner or later, someone would mention The Ramones.

I never counted myself as a high school fan, just as I never really got into the Violent Femmes. When I spent 1990 in the Girton College Boarding School, I gravitated more towards scathing anger and political commentary of the Sex Pistols and Dead Kennedys. I'd obviously watched "I Wanna Be Sedated" on Rage once too many times, and didn't appreciate the creation of the band's 'dumb' surface image. But then, I was too transfixed with the likes of Pink Floyd and Queen at the time, and didn't have a sense of humor.

Gradually I came to appreciate The Ramones from other bands: Motorhead's Lemmy yelling "R-A-M-O-N-E-S" with blitzkrieg precision, or Husker Du belting out "Sheena Was A Punk Rocker" with an intense fury. I was blown away by their 1996 final tour, but I don't have any revelations about meeting the band members.

So, I come not to bury Joey Ramone, who died from lymphoma (April 15, 2001), but to meditate on what I missed about the "Ramones Mania" that so enriched the lives of my high school and university friends.

Maybe it was that we were from an Australian country town that was dominated by education, health and defense industries, a town still riding high on a tourist industry that manufactured nostalgia, and Joey Ramone offered us hope for escape. Maybe it was that any teenage band could learn Ramones songs, knowing only a few chords (three chords were too many). Maybe the uber-cool New York City style impressed us. Probably it was the energetic riffing and infectious lyrics that were simply fun to listen to. No brooding self-introspection needed here.

I never really got the Zen of The Ramones until much later: I was too lost in the muscular improvs by Rollins Band and King Crimson. (Hey, I never said I was fast at grasping the nuances of everything: there's a great new band called Guns 'N' Roses who I heard on the radio the other day . . .)

The turning point came during 1994, when I got to see the music PR circus from the inside, co-ordinating material for Rabelais and writing reviews for InPress magazine. I appreciated for the first time how The Ramones, and Joey in particular, used their imagery as a disguise to cut through the industry's hype, excess, and sophistry.

After years spent on the outside looking into the Culture Industry (film, music and publishing divisions), I've concluded that we definately need more people with Joey Ramone's personal qualities: persistence in the face of critical indifference, an ability to do the job without the ego-attachments, and most of all, a sense of humor. If you can embody those qualities whilst jamming at the dissipative edge of chaos, then you'll understand why Joey Ramone was a role-model for The Offspring, Green Day, and countless other musicians. He was an individual who reminded us to laugh