How'bout some RAMONES?

I just went to the library with my kids to drop off some books they'd taken out (goodbye and good riddance to Dr. Seuss' "HOP ON POP" -- haha), and I was surprised to find "I Slept With Joey Ramone" on the "New Release" rack. My town's library may be small but they're hipper than I thought. So I borrowed it, can't wait to read it. Though I am already in the midst of another book at the moment, it may get put on the back burner so I can read this one.

Thanks for reminding me of that book !
that's by Joey's brother, right?
Just booked it to borrow from my library now too.

mlotek wrote:

Thanks for reminding me of that book !
that's by Joey's brother, right?
Just booked it to borrow from my library now too.

Yep, Mickey Leigh is Joey's brother. The co-author, Legs McNeil, was the editor of "Punk" magazine back in the 70s and has written for everybody from Rolling Stone to Maximum Rock N Roll to the Village Voice over the years.

I started reading "I Slept With Joey Ramone" last night... I'm about 60 pages in so at the moment Mickey and "Jeff" (aka Joey) are still teenagers growing up in Forest Hills. From the sound of it, Jeffrey Hyman was a pretty screwed up kid. It seems like he never really got over his parents' divorce when he was very young, and was exhibiting symptoms of severe O.C.D. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) by the time he was in high school. Of course, in the mid '60s they didn't really have a name for such behavior yet, so he was basically labeled "nuts."

I finally got around to watching Too Tough To Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone. It's been sitting on the hard drive of my Tivo since September. Excellent performances by various artists paying tribute to Johnny and the Ramones. Most of the performances are inter-cut with folks talking about them. The concert was filmed 2 days before Johnny died of prostate cancer. The film ends with the dedication of his statue.

Man, I miss those guys.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I finally got around to watching Too Tough To Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone. It's been sitting on the hard drive of my Tivo since September. Excellent performances by various artists paying tribute to Johnny and the Ramones. Most of the performances are inter-cut with folks talking about them. The concert was filmed 2 days before Johnny died of prostate cancer. The film ends with the dedication of his statue.

Man, I miss those guys.

I gotta see this flick.

Fat Freddy wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I finally got around to watching Too Tough To Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone. It's been sitting on the hard drive of my Tivo since September. Excellent performances by various artists paying tribute to Johnny and the Ramones. Most of the performances are inter-cut with folks talking about them. The concert was filmed 2 days before Johnny died of prostate cancer. The film ends with the dedication of his statue.

Man, I miss those guys.

I gotta see this flick.

One of the premium channels was playing it. It might have been Starz, I don't remember. Like I mentioned, it played awhile ago, I just got around to watching it this weekend. I guess you could find it on NetFlix or something.

Schweet news here, folks... the Ramones' classic 1979 film debut, ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, will be re-released this May as a special deluxe 30th Anniversary Edition DVD from the good folks at "Shout Factory!" I have a well-worn VHS copy of the movie but till now, DVDs have been hard to come by. I am all over this as soon as it comes out.




Hype from the Shout! Factory web site:

Executive produced by Roger Corman and directed by Allan Arkush (Heroes), Rock ’N’ Roll High School boasts performances by the Ramones and stars P.J. Soles (Halloween) in the lead role of Riff Randell, Vince Van Patten (Hell Night), Clint Howard (Grand Theft Auto), Dey Young (Spaceballs), Mary Woronov (Death Race 2000), Dick Miller (Piranha) and Paul Bartel (Hollywood Boulevard).

Based on Arkush’s own high school fantasy, the 1979 cult film takes place at Vince Lombardi High School — the wildest, most rockin’ high school around! That is, until a thug of a principal, Miss Togar, comes along and tries to make the school a totalitarian state. With the help of the Ramones, the students of Vince Lombardi battle Miss Togar's iron-fisted rule and take their battle to a truly rockin’ conclusion!

Rock ’N’ Roll High School quickly developed a devoted following after its release in 1979 and became a mainstay of the midnight movie cult circuit. As with films like The Rocky Horror Picture Show, audience members began to dress up like the cast and the Ramones for screenings.
Arkush, a self-described “unabashed rock ’n’ roll fanatic,” chose the Ramones to star as the film’s musical heroes, as he felt they epitomized pure rock ’n’ roll. As Arkush remembers, “We staged a live, marathon show at the Roxy Theatre that consisted of 22 hours of nonstop Ramones,” and the tireless quartet also wrote two songs for the film: “I Want You Around” and “Rock ’N’ Roll School.” The Ramones were fans of Corman as well. Johnny Ramone said in an interview at the time, “When we found out Roger Corman was behind the picture, we said, sure, we’ll do it because we knew he had a reputation and we knew he made good movies.”

ROCK ’N’ ROLL HIGH SCHOOL 30th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION EXTENSIVE SPECIAL FEATURES INCLUDE:
• New Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer (1.85:1)
• Special Introduction And “Thank You” From Director Allan Arkush
• Audio Commentary With Director Allan Arkush, Producer Mike Finnell And Screenwriter Richard Whitley
• Audio Commentary With Roger Corman And Dey Young
• New Audio Commentary With Director Allan Arkush, P.J. Soles And Clint Howard
• Back To School: A Retrospective Including All-New Interviews With Allan Arkush, Roger Corman, Joe Dante, Dey Young, Marky Ramone And More . . .
• Staying After Class: A Roundtable Interview With P.J. Soles, Vincent Van Patten And Dey Young
• Interview With Roger Corman Conducted By Leonard Maltin
• New Interview With Director Allan Arkush Including A Look At Rare, Behind-The-Scenes Stills From His Personal Collection
• Audio Outtakes From The Roxy – Audio Recording Of The Ramones Shooting
• The Final Scene
• Original Radio Ads And TV Spots
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Original Theatrical Trailer With Commentary By writer/director/actor Eli Roth Courtesy Of Trailers from Hell.
• Additional Roger Corman Trailers
• And more TBA!

I've never actually seen that movie.

Killer!!!!! I knew they had released a few years ago and glad to see they are reissuing it again.

tohostudios wrote:

I've never actually seen that movie.

You should. You really, really, REALLY should. (Comic Book Guy voice) Best ...rock n roll comedy ... EVER.

manny wrote:

Killer!!!!! I knew they had released a few years ago and glad to see they are reissuing it again.

Yea, it's been released a couple of times previously, the last time it came out on video was in '99 or '00 and that's when I got my VHS copy (as I didn't have a DVD player yet). I then got a DVD player a short time afterward and thought about upgrading it to DVD, but for whatever reason the movie seemed to disappear from circulation pretty quickly. I think somewhere along the line the bulk of Roger Corman's catalog was absorbed by Disney (!) and they're being stingy about licensing them out. I myself would love to see his "Battle Beyond the Stars" and the original "Piranha" get DVD releases as well.

Hey FF - forgot to tell you, Di'Anno covered Blitskreg Bop at his show a few weeks ago as the final encore

thejokeriv wrote:

Hey FF - forgot to tell you, Di'Anno covered Blitskreg Bop at his show a few weeks ago as the final encore

Nice! I know Paul's a big Ramones fan. Must've been cool.

Fat Freddy wrote:

thejokeriv wrote:

Hey FF - forgot to tell you, Di'Anno covered Blitskreg Bop at his show a few weeks ago as the final encore

Nice! I know Paul's a big Ramones fan. Must've been cool.

It was!

Fat Freddy wrote:

I think somewhere along the line the bulk of Roger Corman's catalog was absorbed by Disney (!) and they're being stingy about licensing them out. I myself would love to see his "Battle Beyond the Stars" and the original "Piranha" get DVD releases as well.

I'm a prophet and I didn't even know it. Seems that Shout Factory has made a deal with ol' Roger for his entire library and will be rolling 'em out in bits and pieces on DVD and BluRay over the foreseeable future.

The first titles to be made available from Roger Corman’s Cult Classics presented by Shout! Factory are the memorable 1979 classic Rock ’N’ Roll High School Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray and the punk rock drama Suburbia in May 2010; and the much anticipated cult thrillers Piranha Special Edition DVD and Blu-ray, Humanoids From The Deep, Up From The Depths and Demon Of Paradise in Aug 2010. Other Corman classics slated for 2010 release include Death Race 2000, Warlords Of The 21st Century, Deathsport, Forbidden World and Galaxy Of Terror, among others.


So Piranha's coming to DVD too! and...F**kin' A! GALAXY OF TERROR! That movie freakin' ruled!

Fat Freddy wrote:

I started reading "I Slept With Joey Ramone" last night... I'm about 60 pages in so at the moment Mickey and "Jeff" (aka Joey) are still teenagers growing up in Forest Hills. From the sound of it, Jeffrey Hyman was a pretty screwed up kid. It seems like he never really got over his parents' divorce when he was very young, and was exhibiting symptoms of severe O.C.D. (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) by the time he was in high school. Of course, in the mid '60s they didn't really have a name for such behavior yet, so he was basically labeled "nuts."

good book. my step-son has severe OCD, so I can understand where Mickey is coming from. as for the Ramones, still one of my favourite all time bands that I never got to see live. not only did my wife get to see them live (around 1990-91), she got a back stage pass and got to hang out with Joey (who she said was totally genuine and down to earth, while the rest of them ignored her). My cousin saw them here (Vancouver) back in the late 70's for $5!

I love P.J.Soles
The 'girl next door' types are way better than string bean supermodels.

It was cool to learn she never heard of the band until the movie, then got along really well with them.
One of the few dvd's I am missing is Rock N Roll Highschool. Pretty sure it is out now and will buy it.
Read a few posts above in the thread for details on the dvd.

mlotek wrote:

One of the few dvd's I am missing is Rock N Roll Highschool. Pretty sure it is out now and will buy it.

Yep, the RNRHS DVD is indeed out now... I got it about a month ago for my birthday... geeked out big time on the multitude of bonus features. There's even a "reunion" interview with P.J. Soles, Vincent Van Patten and Dey Young where they trade stories and memories about making the film. Great stuff.

Learned something interesting from the interview w/Allan Arkush (director) on the DVD... before the studio settled on the Ramones, several other bands were considered for the movie. I had heard in the past that Cheap Trick were a possibility (they wanted too much $$ so the offer was withdrawn), but never knew that the then-relatively-unknown Van Halen were considered (their first album had just been released when the film was being made) - Arkush sez Warner Bros. Records told them "They're very visual, but they're pretty wild and you might not be able to control them." ()

Even weirder was that Arkush said they were seriously considering DEVO for the film at one point. That would've made it a totally different movie. Imagine the concert scenes! Riff and her friends could've been wearing yellow jump suits and "energy dome" hats, rocking out to "Girl U Want" and "Jocko Homo!" Not to mention that Riff would've been trying to schmooze Mark Mothersbaugh, who was even geekier than Joey Ramone!!!

Saw a story about this on last night's news, and it was in today's paper too:

HIGH SIGN FOR THIEVES
Officials say a metal homage to the late punk legend Joey Ramone may be New York City's most-stolen street sign.
The Department of Transportation recently had the "Joey Ramone Place" street sign reinstalled in Lower Manhattan for the fourth time since 2003. This time, it was raised 8 feet to curb temptation.
The New York Post says that puts it about 20 feet above street level.
The sign is at the corner of Bowery and East Second Street.

...Marky Ramone was on the late news last night talking about this and he sez "Da only problem is now you gotta be tall as an NBA playa to even see the sign."

I read that story on-line this morning and Howard Stern mentioned it on his show yesterday. That's pretty funny. Didn't the same sorta thing happen with the AC/DC street sign in Australia?

I'll admit late one night coming back from a wedding on Long Island years back I was seriously tempted to snag a sign for Rockaway Beach. Three in the morning and not a soul in sight. Ultimately my guilty conscience got the better of me and I realized I'd become an adult.

I'd love to have a Joey Ramone Place street sign in my basement. It could sit proudly with my Stan Musial and Kurt Warner autographed plaques.

Plus, back in my college days I stole a ton of signs. And barricades. Only ones with blinking lights. And mailboxes.

How the hell am I not in jail?

MetalGuy71 wrote:

I read that story on-line this morning and Howard Stern mentioned it on his show yesterday. That's pretty funny. Didn't the same sorta thing happen with the AC/DC street sign in Australia?

I walk past it all the time going to my girlfriends apartment in the CBD and sometimes i notice it missing.

tohostudios wrote:

I'd love to have a Joey Ramone Place street sign in my basement. It could sit proudly with my Stan Musial and Kurt Warner autographed plaques.

Plus, back in my college days I stole a ton of signs. And barricades. Only ones with blinking lights. And mailboxes.

How the hell am I not in jail?

You too? My roommates and I had quite a collection going at one point. Looking back now, I can't see what the point of it was. We'd hang them up on the walls of the apartment, but I don't recall a single chick being impressed with our thievery.

Those of you with young'uns might get a kick out of this: found this odd little children's band via Facebook. Meet THE BOOGERS.

http://www.meet-the-boogers.com/





Apparently they're from the Chicago area and they play children's songs in a Ramones style. They describe themselves as "The Anti-Barney" and "The Wiggles' worst nightmare!"

I checked out a couple of free MP3s from their site and yeah, this is actually pretty funny stuff with a definite Ramones vibe. They even threw a "Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!" chant into their version of the kiddie classic "Wheels on the Bus"

Looks like they have the seal of approval from some folks in the Ramones camp too -- former Ramones manager Monte Melnick is quoted on their site as saying "If the Ramones had ever made a children's album, this is what it would've sounded like. There'll be no stopping the kiddies from hopping after they listen to this music."

The cover to their "LET'S GO!" album was also drawn by John Holmstrom, the "PUNK" Magazine cartoonist who did the cover for the Ramones' ROAD TO RUIN album and the back cover drawing on ROCKET TO RUSSIA.

Way cool! I'm playin' these tunes for my kids tomorrow!