RIP- Tommy Ramone-- Thank God For The Ramones… Or We Could Still Be Listening To Journey

Alan Grayson: "None of the Ramones started as a Ramone. But now we are all Ramones."

Yesterday Thomas Erdelyi-- Tommy Ramone-- passed away, age 62, after a struggle with bile duct cancer. He was the band's original manager but by the time they were ready to record their eponymous first album, he was also the drummer. He stayed with the band for their first 3 studio albums, Ramones, Leave Home and Rocket to Russia, as well as their first live album It's Alive and co-produced the latter three. (He also produced Road to Ruin and Too Tough to Die and the Replacements' classic Tim.) He wrote two of their earliest hits, "Blitzkreig Bop" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend."

Tommy's family, Hungarian Jews, was nearly exterminated by the Nazis. He was born in Budapest but the family moved to NYC when he was a child-- another immigrant who made America a richer and more wonderful place because we, as a nation, ignored the haters and nativist right-wing bigots and welcomed him.

As someone pointed out on Twitter this morning, every original member of the Ramones is now dead and every member of the Jefferson Airplane is still alive. That especially struck me because both bands were very important to me. When I was in college I was the chairman of the Student Activities Board and one of the first bands I ever booked was a little-known West Coast group with a revolutionary new sound that was helping change popular culture profoundly, the Jefferson Airplane. They slept on the floor of my house and the only music that meant anything to me was the kind of psychedelic music they and their peers were playing. I booked them all: The Dead, Big Brother, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Country Joe and the Fish, The Youngbloods, The Byrds…

As that scene was burning out and morphing into corporate rock-- think of an idealistic progressive political vision perverted by personal greed by fifth rate scavengers helping to morph it into the kind of corporate politics of your Steny Hoyers, Debbie Wasserman Schultzes, Steve Israels, Joe Crowleys-- I left America and lived in India, Afghanistan, Nepal and Amsterdam for nearly 7 years. By the time I came back even the fascists had long hair, smoked dope and liked "rock'n'roll" (if that's what you call formularistic commercial garbage by Journey, Kiss, Kansas and REO). I was only listening to the Ali Brothers at the time.

One day, soon after I returned to the U.S., I ran into an old friend in the street, Danny Fields who I knew from our mutual friendship with Jim Morrison. He immediately insisted I come see a band he was working with. I told him I wasn't interested in bands and that I had outgrown it. He was persistent and schlepped me down to some hole in the wall on the Bowery. He had taken over management of the Ramones after Tommy started devoting himself strictly to the music. My life changed that night-- completely changed, not just my taste in music-- everything… every single thing short of my core being. The hole in the wall was CBGB's and the band was The Ramones. The music was the next step forward for popular culture: punk rock. And Danny introduced me to Seymour Stein, president of Sire, who signed The Ramones and, eventually, hired me to run his company.

Tommy wasn't just the business-minded Ramone, he was the Ramone who always seemed the most level-headed and most forthright. He spoke his mind without the supercilious niceties that pervaded the music business at the time-- always. I'll always be proud that he was a friend of mine and that, as general manager of Sire Records, I got to work on bringing his music to a wider audience. Experience an early live Ramones show (1977) in the video up top, filmed in London. 

Dee Dee, Tommy, Joey, Johnny-- thank you