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I Wanna Be Celebrated
from: thejournalnews.com
by Billy Altman for The Journal News
Photos courtesy of: filmmagic.com
Back in the late 1970s, when punk was still considered very much a dirty word in the music industry, the Ramones used to end their live shows with lead singer Joey Ramone hoisting aloft a homemade banner whose message was, to the group's loyal faithful, as much a beacon of freedom as the one raised in New York harbor by Lady Liberty. "Gabba Gabba Hey" read the sign, echoing the climactic rallying cry of the group's song "Pinhead" — a tune inspired by Tod Browning's classic circus sideshow horror film "Freaks," and the gleefully maniacal chant that its misshapen title characters use to welcome those from the "normal" world into their misbegotten midst: "Gabba gabba/We accept you/We accept you/One of us/Gabba gabba/We accept you/We accept you/One of us."
It's been better than a quarter of a century since that banner was first unfurled, and a full 30 years since their August 1974 debut show at Hilly Kristal's seedy CBGB's was witnessed by a grand total of five warm bodies (six if you counted the bartender's dog). And yet, even though they never had a hit single or a hit album during their entire existence as a band — an existence that ended with a largely unheralded "retirement" in 1996 after an exhausting 2,200-plus gigs aimed squarely at the status quo of musicdom — the Ramones live on.
Mostly in spirit, to be sure: The September 15 death of guitarist Johnny Ramone from prostate cancer marked the passing of now three of the four original Ramones; only drummer Tommy survives his former bandmates. Joey succumbed to a blood disease in April 2001, and bassist Dee Dee Ramone died of an apparent drug overdose in 2002, right after the group's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But with the high-profile documentary "End of the Century" currently showing around the country, with Tommy working on a possible Broadway-bound musical based on their life story, and with never-ending testimony from musicians from the mid-'70s onwards that the Ramones were as influential to their own and successive generations as the Beatles were to theirs, the mass acceptance denied the Forest Hills misfits throughout their career seems finally to have arrived.
Tomorrow night, significantly on what would have been his 56th birthday, a benefit concert for prostate cancer research as well as the lymphoma foundation will be held in Johnny Ramone's name at Spirit in Manhattan. The show's producer is the person who designed that "Gabba Gabba Hey" sign, as well as the band's enduring "Hey Ho Let's Go" Eagle-with-baseball-bat logo — longtime Ramones artistic director/confidant Arturo Vega, who also took part in a similar concert that took place in Los Angeles (where Johnny had been living in recent years) just days before the guitarist's passing.
"It was Johnny's idea to do two shows, one on each coast, as a way to commemorate the group's 30th anniversary, and also to raise money for research for both prostate cancer and lymphoma, for himself and for Joey," says Vega.
This was the dying guitarist's wish, Vega says, regardless of the well-documented tensions between Joey and Johnny over the years — a romantic triangle in the early '80s ruptured their off-stage relationship, and the two never really spoke again, despite continuing to work together.
"He realized he was sick about two years ago, and the doctors told him right away that it was advanced, that it had been probably been undetected for at least three years, and that the fifth year was usually the crisis year — and they were right," says Vega.
Not that many people knew about his illness until it worsened. "John was always a very private person," Vega says. "And it really wasn't until he performed with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at a prostrate cancer benefit at the Palladium in L.A. in the summer that people started to find out. And since the doctors were trying to keep it in a manageable state, Johnny didn't want to dwell on it."
As the cancer progressed, however, the timing of the shows became more critical.
"The concerts turned into more of a tribute, and a way for him to kind of preside over the last Ramones-related event of his lifetime, and that became very important to him," says Vega. The Los Angeles show, he says, which featured the Chili Peppers, Rob Zombie, X, Henry Rollins and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, was "a real celebration. Johnny was all smiles, and if you knew him at all, that was pretty unbelievable in and of itself."
The New York concert is being headlined by Blondie, Sonic Youth and the Strokes — "about as New York as you can get," says Vega. Hosted by Joey's brother, guitarist Mickey Leigh, the show will also feature guest appearances by the likes of Andrew WK, JOAN JETT, Suicide's Alan Vega, latter-day Ramones bassist C.J. Ramone and Tommy Ramone. There will also be a special exhibition of Ramones memorabilia put together by Vega, highlighted by Johnny's white guitar ("Just to look at it up close; it's totally battle tested"), Joey's glasses ("they're amazing"), and a number of items very personal to Vega — including handwritten lyrics from their earliest days and the original Times Square photo booth Presidential Seal belt-buckle shot used for the back cover of the band's classic first album, and that memorable logo.
"I don't separate things like the good old days or the past," says Vega of his ongoing association with the band and its legacy. "It's just one continuous journey. In 30 years, there hasn't been any time that I haven't been doing things for the Ramones — even though they stopped playing eight years ago. For me, what started in 1974 has never stopped." As they say: Gabba gabba hey.
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