Five years to the day after half a million rain-soaked hippies grooved and swayed to the psychedelic sounds of the Grateful Dead at Woodstock, four young men from Forest Hills, Queens, took to the stage of an East Village dive bar in jeans, motorcycle jackets and Converse high-tops to launch a two-minute sonic attack on everything those 60s icons stood for.
The date was August 16, 1974, the bar was CBGB and the band was the Ramones, giving their debut public performance. The rapidly shouted words with which they opened that show and launched the punk-rock revolution were, as they would always be, “One! Two! Three! Four!”
One eyewitness to the scene was music journalist Legs McNeil, the future co-founder of Punk magazine. “They were all wearing these black leather jackets. And they counted off this song…and it was just this wall of noise,” McNeil later recalled. “These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new.” The guys responsible for this new sound were Douglas Colvin, John Cummings, Thomas Erdelyi and Jeffrey Hyman, better known to the world as Dee Dee, Johnny, Tommy and Joey Ramone.
The Ramones’ sound didn’t even have an agreed-upon name until McNeil’s magazine codified the term “punk rock” in 1975. But the group’s members knew right from the beginning that they were out to provide a bracing antidote to the tamed and bloated corporate rock and roll of the mid-1970s. “Eliminate the unnecessary and focus on the substance,” was the way Tommy Ramone expressed the group’s philosophy many years later.
Following their now-historic debut performance on this day in 1974, the Ramones quickly became a force on the burgeoning underground rock scene centered in the downtown Manhattan clubs CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. With the release of their self-titled debut album in 1976, the Ramones may have failed to score a true hit, but they managed to inspire a whole new movement across the Atlantic, as groups like the Sex Pistols and the Clash rushed to embrace their loud, fast and unstudied approach.
When they toured England in 1976, Joey Ramone would later say, “All these kids came over to us and told us how we were responsible for turning them on, to go out and form their own bands.” As the Ramone’s manager at the time, Danny Fields, put it when assessing the impact of punk’s founding fathers, an entire generation of future punks looked at the Ramones and said, “Look at them. They can’t play. They’re terrible! They don’t know more than three notes….Let’s start a band!’
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Sheena is, after all, a punk rocker, now.
Might be interesting (for some) to find out how and where Iggy Pop and The Stooges fit into that 1974 timeline in the midwest, while The Ramones were turning heads out east in New York with regards to punk, and unusual music.
I Wanna Be Sedated is a fave from The Ramones, while Five Foot One by Iggy has a pretty good groove.
Absolutely awesome band. The energy of the whole punk scene was incredible. And no censorship, no rules, and no regrets.
One aspect only punks remember is the complete DIY nature of the scene. No sponsors, no big record labels, few clubs would book punk acts, no professional managers, everyone broke all the time but everyone kept going. The bands and the punks had to do everything themselves – management, promotion, create their own record labels (SST etc), fund their own studio time which is why records were of such poor quality – with the police always there to try and shut it down and bash a few heads while at it. For all that effort the scene produced no wealthy stars and only one producer that got rich (Golden Voice a la Coachella). Ramones were probably the closest punk came to “commercial success” and by rock star standards they were just middle class.
Stumbled on this over at Chief Nose Wetter’s.
…just crediting the source.
Pretty good talent, for one so young, IMO.
Third Rule is: Don’t talk to Commies.
Eat kosher salami.
I really wish I had seen even one band play at that club when it was still around. The legends that passed through there are staggering in number. The history of late 70s and 80s punk and “new wave.”
Indeed. Saw the Ramones 7 times, but never close to that atmosphere. The CBGB movie was really good, but don’t know how close to the truth it was. Went to the same high school with GG Allin however, now THAT was disgusting punk! Dude was disgusting, but crap it was FUN. Went to a show in Manchester NH where he shit on stage and flung it into the crowd. Dear God that was gross. Cops pulled the plug on his shows within ten minutes every damn show. These are really early ones, damn good tunes. I have cassette tapes made by him and a good friends band that have never been released. Good stuff.
https://youtu.be/sCU9XjI2oaE