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Dee Dee and me

All right, I admit it, the fix was in from the start.  The Ramones won not only because they are, in fact, the country’s greatest rock and roll band, but also because my college-era band opened for them in 1982.  So there.

The exact date was April 14, 1982, and the venue was Wollman Auditorium, nestled in the southwest corner of the campus of Columbia University.  My band was Normal Men, generally New Wavey folks influenced by Elvis Costello, Roxy Music, Au Pairs, ABC, Echo and the Bunnymen and such.  It was our first major gig after six or seven well-received one-set wonders in the hothouse environment of fraternity gigs and lit-mag benefits that made up Columbia’s large and intense music scene.  The crowd was about 900 or 1000, or another power of ten beyond anything we’d seen before.  And, I’m happy to say, we rocked the house.

So after we broke down and began loading out, I ran into Dee Dee on the stairs, gave him the shock-of-recognition stare, said, “hey, you’re Dee Dee Ramone.” Whereupon he said, “you’re in the opening band, right?” I think I may have been carrying equipment at the time, but even if I wasn’t, my skinny tie (yes, dear friends, I was indeed wearing a skinny tie—a yellow one at that) would have identified me.

“Uh, yeah,” I wittily replied.

“How’d you guys do?” he asked.  This, I thought, was really above and beyond nice.

“Good, I think,” I managed to say, “we got two encores—the first one real, you know, the second one kind of a family-and-friends encore. . . .”

He actually brightened, and said, “wow, two encores, that’s great,” quite encouragingly, without faux surprise or condescension or anything.  At which point I thought it was incumbent on me, since this famous and influential rock star person had expressed some apparently real enthusiasm for our meaningless little opening set, to say something about his band and what it had meant to me, so, before the pause got too awkward, I said, “Um, can I just say, like, I think you guys changed pop music.”

Dee Dee’s eyebrows shot up.  “Really?” he said, as if no one had ever volunteered such a sentiment before.

“No shit,” I said, for having said the obvious, “I mean, your stuff came out when we were all sitting around listening to Boston and Steve Miller and shit, and, uh, it was like another world.  I mean, you know, punk just wouldn’t have happened without you.” I should have added that I was actually from Queens and knew whereof I spoke, but I didn’t have the presence of mind.  Anyway, he seemed sincerely touched, said, “wow, well, thanks a lot, man,” or something to that effect, to which I said, “no problem, you know, thank you,” because the truth behind this exchange, or at least one of the truths behind this exchange, was that I was already feeling stupid and guilty for talking to one of the Ramones as if they were already a museum artifact.  But he shook my hand and wished me luck, and I said, “have a great set,” and that was that.

Now, the reason I felt guilty about this is that by 1982, most of us hip and wannabe-hip kids at Columbia already spoke of the Ramones that way anyway.  Like yes, their first four records ripped the fabric of our lives and all, but c’mon, everyone jumped off the bandwagon after End of the Century, and that was already three years in the past, and the Ramones were fairly predictable stuff by that point.  And yeah, in one way it was cool beyond belief to open for them, but then again, the only reason they were playing Columbia was that they weren’t so huge an act that they couldn’t do so.  To wit: the year before, 1981, there was a rumor that the Clash were going to play the same place, Wollman Auditorium, but the gig was scrapped because there was no way that the school could handle the scalpers and the off-campus madness.  Later that year, of course, the Clash played their epic seventeen-show gig at Bond’s at 45th and Bway, and the crush and the buzz of that scene convinced everybody at Columbia that they were right not to have tried to squeeze the Clash onto campus.  The Ramones, by contrast, were a safer bet, and people were already speaking of them as if the spring concert were up between them and Chuck Berry.  Opening for them was a plum awarded to us by Columbia’s Band-Booking Powers That Be, and therefore a form of recognition that we had arrived locally, but it wasn’t even on the same scale of cool as the opening gig played by the Ex-Husbands, Columbia’s official coolest band during 1980-81 (they took over the mantle from the Casuals, who held the coveted distinction in 1978-79).  The Husbands, after all, had opened for Johnny Thunder and the Heartbreakers at Trax on 72nd Street, for goodness’ sake (and had gotten an encore, too).  And the Casuals, for their part, had played some similarly prestigious thing at Max’s Kansas City, though I forget who the headliner was.  Compared to those gigs (and I assure you that nearly everyone in the local music scene gauged themselves by those gigs), the Ramones at Wollman was minor-league.  Or so people said at the time.

Back then, I participated in that discourse too, knowing as well as anyone of my age and level of pop-cultural capital that the Ramones were basically done.  But at the same time I still thought it was a fabulous opening gig, one about which I was pretty much scared witless.  Nothing like screwing up in front of 900 people, you know, let alone in front of some of punk’s biggest Culture Heroes.  I remember wearing two sets of wristbands and repeatedly spraying my hands with antiperspirant during the set to make them sticky so I wouldn’t drop any sticks.  (Some of our songs were quite fast, and required crisp, precise drumming.  But I apologize for contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer.) And everything I said to Dee Dee was, of course, completely true.  I just felt very weird at the time talking to him as if he were already historical—which, however, he was.  But, in retrospect, he was already historical in the good sense, and he did seem genuinely pleased to be running into some college kid backstage who would say so.

I wouldn’t go into this level of detail except that, well, things have gotten distorted with time.  1982 is so very long ago that it sounds much cooler now than it was at the time to be opening for the Ramones—almost as if I’d been on the same bill with them at CBGB in 1976.  And people who came to punk late ("late" now meaning not “by way of Hüsker Dü in 1984” but “by way of Nirvana in 1991") are thus more impressed with this tidbit than they should be.  Ditto for my actual performances at CBGB in 1981-83, all five of them, none of which occurred on a night better than a Wednesday and none of which featured Dee Dee and his band. . . .

Brief epilogue: Dave Terhune, Normal Men’s lead singer and songwriter, now helps lead this talented bunch of losers as they rock various venues in New York, while guitar-and-sax man Larry Gallagher released his first CD about two and a half years ago; he also put in a few years with Joey Cheezhee and the Velveeta Underground.  Me, the last time I played in front of people was at Larry’s wedding.

But now I have the kind of story that 44-year-old guys tell themselves (and whoever else will listen) as they slip into their bathrobes and sit down with a nice cup of green tea.  Gabba gabba hey, everyone, and may Dee Dee and his mates rest in peace.

Posted by on 02/03 at 03:00 PM

  1. Are we similar in that we share a Columbia diploma?

    You double rock for that AND the Ramones, if it is to be true!

    Posted by AdorableGirlfriend  on  02/03  at  04:16 PM

  2. Aw gee; indeed the fix was in.  I guess that was what should have been expected (captcha word below: expect).

    I caught some of that tour in the Bay Area while teaching at Cal State.  They were consistently filling halls, inspiring young NorCal types to stay true to punk in the face of so much goo.  And Gilman street lives on.

    Posted by  on  02/03  at  04:59 PM

  3. Now you should figure out the all-time best Ramones song.

    If I were allowed to vote, I would vote “Needles and Pins.”

    Close 2nd Place: “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

    Posted by  on  02/03  at  05:23 PM

  4. Now there’s a great story, and you are only now telling us about it.  Next you’ll be telling us about the time you hammered Gordie Howe along the boards or stood next to Jacques Derrida in a mens room. Had I had a conversation with Dee Dee or any of the Ramones, that would have been the first thing you knew about me.

    Posted by  on  02/03  at  06:21 PM

  5. Michael wrote:

    “Dee Dee’s eyebrows shot up.”

    Whoa, I knew those roxxors were into drugs, but that’s a pretty heavy habit your friend had, Mr. Liberal Professor.

    With all of that left-wing folderol being poured into the porches of thine ears at Columbia University, I don’t suppose YOUR eyebrows ever had a chance to hear Mrs. Reagan’s simple, poignant plea: “Just say no.”

    Posted by William Bennet  on  02/03  at  07:21 PM

  6. Wonderful story indeed.  During the first NYC visit of my adult life last November, I spent an afternoon wandering around the Columbia campus and environs.  Talk about cultural envy: those kids actually get to attend college in such an impossibly stimulating milieu?  Sheesh.

    In contrast, I dropped abortively from the Alaskan tundra into a fourth-rate state university in Texas, and as a hopeless jazz geek came into punk very late, as in “by way of Nirvana circa 2002.” Currently working on a bamboo-flute cover of “Teen Spirit.”

    Next revelation: the Ramones!  Thanks for the ongoing education, Michael.  Small wonder I’ve been lapped so badly; it’s just beginning to sink in.

    Posted by  on  02/03  at  07:46 PM

  7. I saw ‘em at Bogart’s in Cincinnati in ‘78 and a magician opened for them.  I don’t think he got any encores, though.

    Posted by  on  02/03  at  07:47 PM

  8. Bill, it wasn’t that kind of “shot up.” Dee Dee merely raised his eyebrows.  You do understand the concept of “raising,” do you not?

    Posted by  on  02/03  at  07:48 PM

  9. I think in that context, though, one would say, “Ascended into his forehead.”

    Love,

    Hanna

    Posted by Hanna  on  02/03  at  07:54 PM

  10. Seems as good a place as any to slip in a rockstar story, not meant to compete with MB’s story, either in coolness or in analysis of the dubiousness of said coolness or in, uh, crispness or firmness. It’s just a story.

    I had a picnic breakfast with Ian McKaye and some friends about, oh, 8 or 10 years ago. Now, yeah, it’s not like having breakfast with Minor Threat and having Rollins steal your bike, or something, but: 1) Fugazi remains one of my favorite bands, and I think ‘The Argument’ is probably their best album since their first; 2) Mr. McKaye totally out McKaye’d himself.

    Background: You see, we kids tended to joke about his earnestness by replacing Minor Threat or Fugazi lyrics with “no running in the halls!” This event did not dissuade us from continuing this affectionate mockery.

    During breakfast my gf and I go for a walk and stop in a convenience store. Gf’s entranced by the candy packages and keeps picking up boxes, admiring, and putting them down. The owner gets nervous about these two punks possibly shoplifting and kicks us out. I wasn’t so punk that I didn’t see that the guy had a point.

    We get back to breakfast, and the gf is mighty pissed and embarrassed. McKaye asks what’s up, we tell him, and he’s just getting us all up to tell that fascist capitalist off, and I talk him out of it. But man, he so had not lost his edge. I was hella impressed.

    And that’s it. The great breakfast candy riot that didn’t happen.
    --

    MB: have you heard any of Dee Dee’s rap? It’s awfully clever.

    Posted by  on  02/03  at  09:13 PM

  11. My friend’s dad was Johnny Thunders’ bassist.  Now he’s a stockbroker on Long Island.

    Posted by antid_oto  on  02/03  at  09:54 PM

  12. What a great story!  Dee Dee was one of the coolest people ever.  AT the RockNRoll Hall of Fame induction Unlike Johnny who praised that loser, Junior, Dee Dee thanked the man Joey.  The Ramones may have been historically done by 82, but I caught them a couple of times in that period and they were still a wonderful live band.  Gabba-Gabba-hey.  Did this fix you choosing them as the best American band?  Sure, but they were definitely one of the coolest, most memorable and dumbest bands ever.  Rock Rock Rockaway beach.

    Posted by  on  02/03  at  11:13 PM

  13. Johnny Ramone Never Knew . .

    One, Two, Three . . .

    Posted by The Heretik  on  02/04  at  02:18 AM

  14. And the Clash shows at Bonds?  The wikipedia link you have here doesn’t quite match up with my recollection which is there were originally eight shows.  In typical New York club fashion, the promoter oversold all of the shows by 100% of capacity.  Went to two of those. I could be wrong, but one of the signs for Bond’s said simply Bonds, but there was another one that called it Bond’s International Casino, even after its short lived club days (or more aptly nights) ended. 

    I lived around the corner from Bonds for awhile at Eighth Ave and West Fortyeighth.  Times Square back then was a glorious dinge of a place rather than the Disney theme park it is now.  Good times.

    Might have seen you at Teacher’s Two.  Or not. Small world. New York.

    Posted by The Heretik  on  02/04  at  02:45 AM

  15. That’s weird, The Heretik—my first draft of this post read “epic eight-show gig at Bond’s,” but then I remembered that the Clash added some shows, but didn’t remember how many.  Two?  So I decided to check Wikipedia.  I thought seventeen was a bit high, myself, but you know me—I trust Wikipedia for 25-year-old Clash information.

    Side note:  although the white-funk outfit Miller, Miller, Miller and Sloan weren’t Columbia students, they were a Columbia-area band, and they arguably got the best opening gig of any of us—at one of those Bond’s shows.  I don’t remember which one, but I do remember the Clash booking a series of local bands as their opening acts, a different one each night.

    Posted by Michael  on  02/04  at  09:02 AM

  16. Hey, I saw Husker Du in 1984!  (Looking in vain for the umlaut on my keyboard.) At St. Andrews Hall in Detroit.  Roger Miller, from Mission of Burma, was the warm up.  He did a deranged cover of King of the Road, which I thought was pretty amusing.

    Posted by  on  02/04  at  11:34 AM

  17. Michael wrote:
    “Bill, it wasn’t that kind of “shot up.” Dee Dee merely raised his eyebrows.  You do understand the concept of “raising,” do you not?”

    I’ll have to check on that.

    If you have any questions just hold ‘em.

    (Heh, we’ve sucked you into a game of Texas Hold ‘Em for the past 6 years...)

    Okay, my attorneys, Fagan and Becker, told me to say this:

    “Well I been around the world
    And I’ve been in the Washington zoo
    And in all my travels as the facts unravel
    I found this to be true.”

    P.S., in the Truth is Stranger than Fiction Department, did you know that William Bennett opened for the Ramones, too? And I quote:

    “Mr. Bennett graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, majoring in music and psychology. As a young man he played in several bands, including the Immortal Primitives, which had some success and opened for the Ramones.”

    Truth be told, hat’s the William Bennett that owned the Off Wall Street Jam studio in NYC. smile

    Posted by William Bennet  on  02/04  at  11:53 AM

  18. I remember my senior year in high school (1977) and loving that first Boston album.  In fact I still do even though it marks me as a musical tool.  Soon however I wandered off to college in CA to be introduced to roommates who listened to the Sex Pistols and Television and the Ramones.  Plus Talking Heads played in the cafeteria on campus which eventually led me to watching the Plasmatics at CBGB’s in 1979 and wondering how I could have been a huge Yes fan.  All of this preamble to say how much I agree with your assessment of how these guys changed music.  It’s like rock music split into two streams, one of which launched the hair bands of the ‘80s and the other which rumbled along just below ground until the alternative explosion of the early ‘90s.  Without the Ramones we might still be listening to knockoffs of Poison and White Snake while contemplating middle age.

    Posted by  on  02/04  at  03:19 PM

  19. I saw the Ramones in 1976 in a bar in Asbury Park.  It was a few weeks after their first album came out.  For the first set, they played every song on the album.  For the second set, they played all the songs again.  For their encore, they played a couple songs for the third time.  It’s the best show I ever saw.

    Posted by  on  02/04  at  05:20 PM

  20. wondering how I could have been a huge Yes fan

    Um, because from 1970 until 1976 they were a great, great band? Just a thought. I saw them at the Hollywood Bowl in 1975 and they were amazing.

    I think the Ramones suck--really, really badly--so I just don’t get this whole Year Zero bullshit that the punks kept spewing. I’ll never forget the disappointment when I first heard the Sex Pistols.  After all the hype, I dunno, I was expecting something more than a Kinks/Who homage with sneering vocals. “Wow, this sounds so.....ordinary” thought I. I still love the album and God Save the Queen would be in my personal Top 10, but I’ll never, for the life of me, get those people that tossed out all their Who and Pink Floyd and Zeppelin records (and then bought them again when they came out on CD) just because the farking Ramones came along. 

    And the first Boston album is terrific--I refuse to blame them for Journey and so on.  Good music is good music, eh?  Maybe I’m alone, but all the cultural stuff that surrounds music takes a distant second to “Do I think this is any good musically”. The whole judge your Friday random 10 iPod thing based on the songs coolness factor blog meme is completely alien to me.

    One of the best concerts I’ve ever been to was Husker Du, The Minutemen and The Meat Puppets at UCLA in 1984 (?).  Husker Du just raged; what great songs. *Sigh* D. Boon.

    Posted by  on  02/04  at  06:58 PM

  21. Context is everything. (This is the second time today I’ve started a post this way.)

    The Ramones were a very different thing if you saw the MC5 in 1969 or 70, and if the guys in the your dorm at Michigan in 71 had Stooges records and talked about Iggy diving off the stage, the audience parting so that he cracked his head on the concrete. (He had successfully crowd-surfed before.) The seventies punk scene produced some great music, but for lots of people it was a reminder rather than a revelation.

    Speaking of close encounters w/ celebrity: Michael, how does it feel to be the Keith Richards of the blogosphere? Would you rather be Charlie Watts? Did your eyebrows shoot up when you heard?

    Posted by  on  02/04  at  10:25 PM

  22. No way, dude.

    Posted by  on  02/04  at  11:16 PM

  23. A charming little story, Michael. And, as the saying goes, you tell it so well.

    Requiescat in pace, Dee Dee. And Michael: Don’t go to the town called Toronto.

    Posted by wordlackey  on  02/05  at  02:26 AM

  24. Ah, well this story explains everything grin It would seem that Michael came by his version of musical snobbery rather more honestly than most…

    FWIW, by the time I got to Columbia (as a post-doc in 80/81---I taught CC that year), I had pretty much retreated to symphonic/chamber/vocal music, and in particular had begun my long excursion into the art song. My brief fascination with R&R in the late 60’s and early 70’s was over. I went to an opera (NYC not Met) and a recital at Lincoln center, but that was pretty much it for live music.

    Posted by Paul Lyon  on  02/05  at  02:57 AM

  25. I just wanted to mention—because I don’t think anyone has done so yet—that ABC is fucking awesome. I mean “Lexicon of Love,” anyway. Seriously, stone-cold pop tunes with just the perfect amount of irony and glam and whatever else makes perfect pop music. I only mention this because—unlike, say, the Ramones or Roxy—I think that ABC’s poppy sheen could be perceived as lame without the proper defense on their behalf. So here it is.

    Posted by  on  02/05  at  03:03 AM

  26. Um, because from 1970 until 1976 [Yes] were a great, great band? Just a thought. I saw them at the Hollywood Bowl in 1975 and they were amazing.

    I think the Ramones suck—really, really badly—so I just don’t get this whole Year Zero bullshit that the punks kept spewing.

    Oh, goodness, Henry.  You know what’s going to happen now?  We’re going to disagree about the relevant criteria of judgment about this, and slide right into relativism.  Or at least contingencies of value.  Here we go:  Yes featured a bunch of wonderfully talented musicians.  Any one of them, even on a bad day, could out-Juilliard Johnny.  But oddly enough, none of them could identify a decent melody, nay, not even if a decent melody were to bite Steve Howe himself in the ass.

    Besides, the genre does not always reward—or prize—the most nimble-fingered dudes in the house.  If you want crack musicians who really know how to rock, take the Attractions.  If you want crack musicians doing 20th-c versions of Brahms’ 4th and extremely clever renditions of Indian philosophical texts in 7/4, then, OK, have your Yes and like it too.  But some of us want a just plain great rock band, and we will continue to love our Ramones.

    Posted by Michael  on  02/05  at  10:57 AM

  27. OK—then I’ll talk about Dave Terhune. Oh how I love the Losers’ Lounge! I’ve seen them do various things, but my favorite has to be the quatorze juillet tributes to Serge Gainsbourg.

    But of course I can’t resist talking about the Ramones. I first saw them when I was 13 (1983, I guess) at a matinée show at City Gardens in Trenton. I was wearing grey corduroy pants and a striped polo shirt. I don’t remember much about the show, except that I ended up pinned to a stack of amplifiers on the stage and to this day have some problems with my right ear. My friend Jen lost her shoe. One year later I would be found in the same place no longer in corduroy, but combat boots and ripped fishnets being asked for change for the “pop” machine by Tommy Stinson. Rock and roll.

    Posted by  on  02/05  at  04:12 PM

  28. Johnny Ramone was a tremendous stylistic innovator—Tommy and DeeDee too, but Johnny was in front and was the most recognizably innovative (Tommy basically sped up the Troggs, right?).  Their excellent musicianship was reflected in their mastery of tempo and togetherness.  Their music stands up well technically, and, frankly, the buzz-saw style of guitar is hard to play, especially for a long time.  Like boogie-woogie piano—the left hand requires stamina.

    Good tunes too.

    And Joey had a lot of heart.

    For all that, I don’t like them much—two tunes, great; after that I’m bored.  Great story, though.

    Posted by John  on  02/06  at  04:42 PM

  29. The Casuals opened for the Ramones as well, in the spring of 1979.  The Ramones played very well; the Casuals had a disappointing evening. 

    After the show, there was an anti-nuke rally (unrelated to the show, related to a controversy over a proposed nuclear engineering lab on campus) which turned into a riot. A few months I met Dee Dee at CBGBs (he was quite a gracious and well-spoken guy when not being interviewed on-camera) and he said they were baffled by the riot, since the crowd inside the auditorium was rather sedate.  I told him it was an unrelated riot, and he seemed relieved--- though also jealous.

    Posted by Timothy Horrigan  on  02/06  at  11:54 PM

  30. Hey, the old band I was in played CBGB on three nights in 1997. I was an oldster already, though. And I’m thrilled to hear someone else insist that punk wasn’t an 80s thing. Every time I hear that I need to scream! I lived in a backwoods town, but there were people who’d actually moved there from places like NYC, so wow, those kids listened to cool mustic. Imports and everything.

    Yes. I’d forgotten they existed. (I haven’t been able to forget about Rush, having lived with a drummer for five years—not to mention the fact that Rush is the most popular drive-time music in the area.)

    Is there are club for us, the not boomers, not Xers?

    Posted by Bitch | Lab  on  02/09  at  02:52 PM

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