Tag Archives: punk rock

The Ramones – 40 Years of Punk Rock & the Blitzkrieg Bop

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The Ramones Album Cover - 1976

The Ramones Album Cover – 1976

The Ramones are legendary!  Formed in New York City in 1974 where they received limited commercial success.  Joey (lead singer), Johnny (guitarist), Dee Dee (bassist), and Tommy (drummer) were major influences on the Punk Movement in the 1970s in both the United States and United Kingdom.  In 1974 the band was formed. The Ramones had their first performance on March 30, 1974 at Performance Studios.  The Ramones had timing and luck on their side as a new music (punk rock) scene was emerging in Manhattan at two clubs – Max’s Kansas City and CBGB’s.  CBGB’s is known for the birth of punk rock and if the walls of that club could talk we would hear the stories of the B-52’s, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Blondie, and the Ramones.

In 1975 the band was signed to a deal with Sire Records by Seymour Stein.  The band was unique with songs built on rhythms and guitar riffs that makes the audience want to jump up and down as well as the lack of lyrical complications it was easy to just fall into the music.  The 70s become the age of music segregation – the hippy music that was all about the lyrics and the punk rock scene that was all about the rhythms, riffs, and bass beats.

The Ramones at CBGB in NYC

The Ramones at CBGB in NYC

The Ramones recorded their debut album which was released in April 1976 with a list of fourteen songs.  Dee Dee Ramone was the primary songwriter, even though credit was given to the whole band.  The album was produced by Craig Leon and Tommy Ramone with a low budget of $6,400.  When I saw that number I was in shock.  Try making a record that has the impact the Ramones have I would say you are crazy, but today I think there are more capabilities to make a cheap record than there were in the 1970s.  Today, you have computers that can be used to record and mix an entire album and release it, while back in the day you needed monstrous equipment to even develop and create a song; let alone a manufacturing company that had the ability to make physical records to be sold.

The band received glowing reviews from rock critics everywhere for the album “Ramones”:

Paul Nelson of Rolling Stones Magazine said, “Constructed almost entirely of rhythm tracks of an exhilarating intensity rock n’ roll has not experienced since its early day.”

Robert Christgau of the Village Voice said, “I love this record…For me it blows everything else off the radio.”

Unfortunately, even though they received love from every critic that listened, they did not receive the same welcoming by the public.  The album only reached 111 on the Billboard charts and the two singles “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” never charted.  Now, “Blitzkrieg Bop” is one of their most recognized songs with guitar riffs that repeat, drums beats that carry the lyrics, and rhythms that makes the awkward kid in me just want to bounce.

“Hey ho, let’s go
Hey ho, let’s go

They’re forming in a straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The Blitzkrieg Bop

They’re piling in the back seat
They’re generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The Blitzkrieg Bop.

Hey ho, let’s go
Shoot’em in the back now
What they want, I don’t know
They’re all reved up and ready to go”

It wasn’t until a brief tour in England in July 1976 when they began to gain popularity.  The Ramones performed 2,263 concerts and toured non-stop for 22 years.  In 1996 the band disbanded due to a slew of problems with various band members including drugs, drinking, OCD, and bipolar disorder.  In 2002 they were inducted into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame while in 2011 they received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.  By 2014 all of the original band members had passed away and all we have left now is their legacy and the punk rock music that started it all.  In April 2016 we celebrate 40 years of the Ramones giving the public music that made head banging appropriate in the car to lyrics you could never understand.

Click here for the album that started it all!

Songs & Artists that Shaped My High School Years

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GreenDayIt’s kind of funny to look back at your high school self where the smallest thing like getting a major pimple breakout could seem like the end of the world.  The fact that you felt that your parents couldn’t possibly understand because seriously they were never a teenager in your eyes.  The dramatics of a teen are hilarious to me now and I was not really a dramatic teenager, at least I didn’t think I was in the sense that everything was constantly the end of the world.  I did well in school, I was in dance classes in all of my free time, and the little free time I had I would hangout with my friends.

As a teenager I was really into pop-punk and punk-rock music.  Granted I also listened to a lot of pop music as well, like Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and N’SYNC, but I loved the thrashing beat of the drums, the bass pumping the song loudly into my stereo speakers, and the guitar solos the escalated the power of the song to a climax.  The early 2000s were a growth and comeback period for guitars.  You had artists like Blink 182, Simple Plan, Fountains of Wayne, Bowling for Soup, American Hi-Fi, and Green Day gain a huge following and popularity.

Simple Plan released their debut album in 2002-2003 called “No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls.”  Firstly, the title of this album is amazing.  It explains all the thoughts that you think as a teenager.  Life is just one big dodgeball game and you are constantly getting pelted without padding.  I don’t know if that was their intention of the title of the album, but I remember laughing at the album cover art when I got the album where it just showed one giant out of control frat party.  This album sold over a million albums in the United States and over four million copies worldwide.  These kind of numbers are unheard of today with the changing of music industry, but these numbers really shows the popularity of this group.  This pure pop-punk record had four major hits from it – I’m Just A Kid, I’d Do Anything, Addicted, and Perfect.  Perfect is one of my favorite songs off this album.  It reminds us that parents have such a huge impact on a kid’s life.  What you do.  What you say.  It means everything to a kid.  How you think of them.  Your reactions to their successes and their failures as well as their goals and aspirations.  Even as an adult their opinion still matters.

All you late 1990 and early 2000 babies I am about to educate you.  Fountains of Wayne and Bowling for Soup are not the same artist!  Stacy’s Mom – RIAA Gold Certified and Grammy Nominated song was done by Fountains of Wayne.  For all you parents yes this song is majorly inappropriate, but what song has ever actually been appropriate from the punk genre?  Bowling for Soup catalog includes songs like 1985, Almost, and my personal favorite Girls All The Bad Guys Want.  Girls All the Bad Guys Want was released in 2002 and was Grammy Nominated for Best Pop Performance by a Group or Duo.  It still remains a staple in my life when I need a good lets jump around on my bed like five year old, or reminiscing on the days my college roommate and I would totally lose it when this song came on while we were studying.

Who could forget artists like Blink 182 with their fast talking, guitar pushing, and totally crazy lyrics in songs like The Rock Show or when they got super serious in others like Stay Together for the Kids or I Miss You.  Blink 182 hit a high commercial success from 1999 to 2004 and even though they have broken up (yet again) I’ll never forget my teenage obsession I came to have with songs like What’s My Age Again or All The Small Things.

The band of my high school school career has to be and will always be Green Day.  Now all you punk rock fans out there are going to say they didn’t come out in the early 2000s.  Yes, I know they came out with their break through album back in 1994 and formed in the late 1980s, but they finally received the nod they deserved from the public and the music industry in 2004 when they released the rock opera that is “American Idiot.”  It debuted on the Billboard Charts at #1 and was the first of their albums to reach number one.  It won the 2005 Grammy for Best Rock Album and it went on to become a Broadway hit.  Their is no way I could pick just one song from that album as my favorite, but if I had to chose Jesus of Suburbia takes my vote.  It is a nine minute song set in five part story of someone’s life spinning out of control, lost in having nothing to believe in, to care about.  You can hit that wall whether you are a teenager or an adult.  It just becomes easier as an adult knowing that it is not the end of the world when something doesn’t make sense.  Your failure is not what defines you.  It is how you stand back up from the fall that helps you find the boulevard you chose to be on.

“To live and not to breathe
Is to die in tragedy
To run, to run away
To find what you believe”
-Green Day (Jesus of Suburbia)

Click here for the perfect early 2000 punk-rock playlist.

Band Spotlight – From Cherri Bomb to Hey Violet

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I have been following Cherri Bomb since coming across their first album “This is the End of Control” in 2012.  They had an epic punk rock sound, power house voices, perfect harmonies, and professional musicianship at such a young age.  Granted I’m not a musican, but I know a great sound when I hear one, and their songs were an edge that I hadn’t heard by an all girl group since the Runways.  In the music world, at least of girl artists, you mostly hear pop music; needless to say it was refreshing to hear this band.

These teenage girls were signed to Disney’s Hollywood Records on June 2011, opened for mega rock bands such as the Foo Fighters and the Smashing Pumpkins, and played festivals all over the world such as South by Southwest, Leeds, Reading, Soundwave, and Vans Warp Tour.  The band was represented by Samantha Maloney.  Maloney, who is an American musician and drummer opened numerous doors for these girls.  Unfortunately once they broke up, their manager and label bowed out as well.

When Hi or Hey Records (run by the pop band 5 Seconds of Summer in conjunction with Capital Reocrds) announced their first band signing Hey Violet, I knew I reconginzed the three girls from Cherri Bomb.  Of course being a stalker of music I had to figure out what happen.  I don’t think the fans will ever know what went down with Julia Pierce, Miranda Miller, Nia Lovelis, and Rena Lovelis.  There are interviews saying that Pierce was forced out, and there are others saying that she left on her own.

Either way, there is now a new group Hey Violet that has formed and bringing in a new sound of pop punk instead of punk rock.  Formed in Los Angeles, California this new group of Miranda Miller, Nia Lovelis, Rena Lovelis, And Casey Moreta are currently opening for 5 Seconds of Summer on their world tour.  This is giving Hey Violet a fresh start.  I know many people are upset about this change and with Pierce no longer being a part of the group, but if you listen to their sound they are on longer Cherri Bomb.  Their first released song “This is Why” sounds more mainstream.  Even though there are still guitars flooding the air waves they sounds more like All Time Low then The Runaways or Pretty and Reckless.

For old fans it’s going to take sometime to adjust to the changes that have been made, Pierce leaving, new members, and sounds changes, and new fans are going have to accept the comparison being made.  Change is good, and needs to happen to continue to have success and move forward.  In this case, we can anticipate Pierce putting out new music and putting together a new band, as well as Hey Violet’s up and coming album as the first group signed to Hi or Hey Records.