Strummer had approached the Ramones after seeing them play in 1976, worried that his band's musicianship was still too rough for them to begin performing.
Johnny added, "We stink, really. But it's great."
Johnny Ramone, who died at 55 on September 15th, made the obituary columns everywhere, but none I read - and I saw a few - were better than the full-page one in the current Economist.
Here it is.
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Johnny Ramone (John Cummings), a punk rocker, died on September 15th, aged 55
By the middle of the 1970s, popular music had changed.
The punchy bubblegum sound of the 1960s was gone.
Instead the scene was dominated by musicians who wanted to elevate rock to the status of high art, with concept albums, rock operas and overblown guitar solos.
A typical track from the Sixties might be four minutes long; by the mid-1970s, ten minutes or more was not unusual.
Many fans despaired, feeling that rock had become bloated, pompous and pretentious.
The counterblast began on August 16th 1974, in front of a tiny crowd in a seedy New York bar called CBGB.
Four young men - Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee and Tommy Ramon - walked on stage.
The concert they gave was shambolic; they spent as much time shouting at each other as playing.
But they improved rapidly, and it soon became clear they had hit on something.
Dressed in ripped jeans, trainers and leather jackets (a uniform carefully modelled on the gear worn by New York rent-boys), the Ramones were the antithesis of the art-house pretension in which much of rock had lost itself.
Their formula was simple: no synthesisers, chamber orchestras or tedious showing off, just simple three-chord progressions wrapped in two-minute slices of buzzing guitar.
They belted out catchy, rapid-fire songs on the usual topics: teenage boredom, mental instability, drugs and disappointed love.
Their message was a liberating one: you didn't have to be a virtuoso to make music.
Anybody could do it, and technical skill was less important than having a good time and putting on a show for your fans.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
thanks Joe, I heard this last bit in one form or another many times when i was doing the interviews for the Encyclopedia of Record Producers: "I'm much better technically now, I know the studio and equipment much better and have a much better understanding of how to put it all toegether, but I don't have the crazy create spark I once had, I don't feel it like I once did. YOu have to strike when the creative iron's hot, not wait until you are 'good enough.'"
2 - Felch
He probably was a very difficult human being to be around when the Ramones were extant and he probably was a bit of an ignorant meathead in some cultural respects but can you imagine the Ramones lasting more than one album let alone almost twenty-five years without him? I can't. Rest in peace Johnny and I hope you make up with the great Joey Ramone wherever you may be.
3 - Eric Olsen
I agree entirely Felch, that their feud was never resolved is almost unbelievable, but it shows how stubborn and set in their ways people can be. YOu have to wonder if such ongoing, long-term animosity contributed to their health problems
4 - Felch
Good insight Eric. I don't doubt at all that the early demise of 3/4 of the Ramones (Only one of The Rolling Stones is dead for fucks sake!) was due to unresolved bad blood. Hell, the only reason Tommy is still alive is that he became their producer and quit touring with them. Stress, I believe is one of the greatest causes of cancer and I know there was some serious stress in the Ramones camp!
5 - Eric Olsen
exactly - very strange and interesting that they would choose to go on under such circumstances rather than going their separate ways, sort of like a bad marriage that no one wants to end
6 - Brady
I guess they were the "codependent" punk rock pioneers; needed each other so much it killed them. The gang mentalilty has its merits until it wears thin and becomes more of a crutch than a support system. With The Stones there seems to be more comraderie and autonomy (and more money) to keep them afloat amid the debauchery. Resentment seems to be more damaging to the health than years of drugs, booze and interesting sexual encounters.