In his first months with the group he broke the tradition of adopting the Ramones surname and instead performed under the stage name Richie Beau. Reinhardt joined the Ramones in February 1983 before the release of Subterranean Jungle, and appeared in two music videos from that album, although he did not play on the record itself. Luckily, there’s never been anyone else quite like them, anyway.Life and career Ramones Ramones were essentially stuck on their own. Songs such as Swallow My Pride and the ensuing What’s Your Game are true blue masterworks, but they appear to be oddly out of time – they speak of decidedly un-punk crooners and candyfloss pop acts, and of a New York scene that was about to be taken over by groups who would alternately prize harsh textures, danceability and aggression over melodic smarts. It peaked at number 148 in the US and none of its singles made a dent. Leave Home succeeded in fine-tuning the Ramones’ music to more accurately reflect the internal battle between who they were and who they wanted to be, dialling up the handclaps and surf-pop backing harmonies to match Johnny’s scything guitars in the mix, but it didn’t make them chart fixtures. Image: Roberta Bayley / Redferns Missed the hit parade Played at more than 2,000 shows and on 15 records, it sold for $937,500 at auction in 2021. I also didn’t wanna get a guitar that everybody else was using – I wanted something that could be identified with me.”īy 1977, he had switched over to the white model that would become his signature instrument following the theft of his blue original, with a single-coil situated in the bridge and a Seymour Duncan humbucker at the neck.
Now I’ve gotten used to it and I like it. In an interview with Lester Bangs, reproduced in Everett True’s Hey Ho Let’s Go: The Story of the Ramones, he said: “I bought it because it was the cheapest guitar in the store.
He switched to Mosrites in 1974 after picking up a blue model at the legendary Manny’s Guitar Centre on West 48th and Broadway in Manhattan for a little over 50 bucks, coming to prize its thin neck and its compatibility with his go-to power chords. Image: Allan Tannenbaum / Getty Images Mosrite timeĪs Leave Home continued Ramones’ rapid creative roll, Johnny was settling into the rig that would essentially define his playing for the remainder of his career, with a Mosrite Ventures II guitar paired with Marshall 1959 Mark II Super Lead heads and Marshall cabinets. “It was an album that really changed the world,” was Joey Ramone’s hyperbole-free take in Please Kill Me. Tracked in a matter of days at Radio City Music Hall in New York for the princely sum of $6,400 – absolutely nothing next to the cash being wheeled out for the rock giants of the day – it broke punk open.
Their first album had been made in a short, sharp burst that translated into the buzzsaw energy of its short, sharp songs. Next to that record Leave Home is a far more authentic reach for mainstream acceptance built on the belief that, on their own scuzzy merits, Ramones songs were as melodically potent as anything swimming around in the upper reaches of the charts. The band would infamously give themselves over to pop on 198o’s End of the Century, enlisting primo arsehole Phil Spector – still at that point just the Wall Of Sound pioneer and not yet a convicted murderer – to buff their music to a shine. But it doesn’t take into account the intent and execution. Of course, that’s true on the surface-Ramones songs are Ramones songs. Rolled out in January 1977, the LP was initially dismissed in some quarters as a good release that doubled down on a successful formula.