Linda Ramone said that while the rockers had to leave Queens to make their name, they would be pleased by the exhibition. "On one hand, they are a bunch of out-of-control punks on the other hand, it was really an art enterprise." "On one hand, they are great complainers on the other hand, they have these chants of uplifting phrases," he said. Marc Miller, who curated the exhibition, said that The Ramones were "a collection of contradictions." One highlight of the exhibition is a specially designed piece by punk-inspired Japanese pop artist Yoshitomo Nara of Ramona, the wide-eyed girl who appears in much of his work, with the motto "Hey! Ho! Let's Go!" Linda Ramone recalled that The Ramones for some time enjoyed a wider audience in Europe and said that, more than 20 years after their final album, the band's following may be strongest in Latin America. The exhibition shows pictures from CBGB - the legendary club on Manhattan's then-seedy Bowery where the band made its name - as well as posters from shows around the world. The Ramones' influence was felt not just in Britain.
The Ramones all took the surname, initially a reference to a pseudonym under which Paul McCartney would check into hotels, but they were not related. Singer Joey Ramone, who had an often tense relationship with Johnny, was a liberal Democrat. Johnny, who Linda said was a careful saver, surprised many fans when he later came out as a Republican. Linda Ramone said the band felt they would alienate listeners by discussing politics.
While US punk later turned political, The Ramones were best known for lines such as "I Wanna Be Sedated" - a response to boredom on the road - and "Hey! Ho! Let's Go!" from "Blitzkrieg Bop." "I don't think they were really worried that The Ramones were going to take over," she said. The president of the United States didn't know who The Ramones were," Linda Ramone said. Yet the punk scene that would soon shake Britain came with a political edge, with the Sex Pistols sneering at the royal family and The Clash taking the mantle of global liberation movements. The Ramones - playing, incidentally, on the bicentennial of the US Declaration of Independence - were the opening act but had a massive impact, with bands such as The Clash and Sex Pistols later citing the show as an inspiration as they witnessed the do-it-yourself vigor of punk. One section of the exhibition explores a historic concert - The Ramones' international debut at The Roundhouse in London on July 4, 1976. "The ripped jeans started because their jeans would wear out and they would rip." "It wasn't a fashion statement that's just how they looked," she said. "You have that whole crowd going back and saying that The Ramones are really cool-looking," she told AFP. Linda Ramone, the widow of guitarist Johnny who now works to preserve the band's legacy, said that his attire had a more basic reason - he was initially a construction worker. The Ramones' uniform of leather jackets and ripped jeans - along with T-shirts bearing the band's logo designed by Arturo Vega - has emerged as an international punk fashion symbol. The exhibition brings together memorabilia ranging from the Mosrite guitars that Johnny and Dee Dee Ramone would play low-slung to action photos of the band who kept the self-discipline to play 2,263 concerts over 22 years.Īlso on display are the rockers' clothes. The Ramones, whose original members are all dead, pioneered punk rock with its rough, distorted and intensely direct energy that came in spite of - or because of - the absence of formal musical training. The tongue-in-cheek press release starts off the exhibition, which opened Sunday at the Queens Museum and heads in September to the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles.
But a first-ever museum exhibition on the band also shows other sides of the musicians surrounded by the debauchery of the rock world, but who managed to keep a surprising amount of the straight-laced work ethic they learned in Queens. The Ramones of course went on to become musicians. The Ramones are a little of each," it informed. Youngsters from the New York borough's neighborhood of Forest Hills "either become musicians, degenerates or dentists. Before The Ramones became international icons, the band's first press release in 1975 introduced the punk rockers to the world as working-class men from Queens.
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