George Dubose: Pictures worth a thousand choruses

Now retired and living in Germany, photographer George Dubose contributed work to numerous musical ventures. NYC Punk kingpins the Ramones topped the list ((in my estimation). 

George executed several classic covers, including Too Tough To Die, Animal Boy, and Mondo Bizarro. He later published a collection of beautiful b/w and color photos of the band, plus his own invaluable first-hand recollections of the photo shoots and what it was like working with Punk's preeminent time bombs.

George remains active. Gallery exhibitions and book compilations are among his present efforts. The below passages are excerpted from a 2010 online interview:

I see you began in photography around '77 (or was it earlier?) and that among your pre-Ramones subjects were Lydia Lunch and Kid Creole and the Coconuts. Any other early subjects/credits you'd care to mention?

I moved to NYC to apprentice myself to fashion photographers to gain training to be a portrait photographer, a la Yousef Karsch. I was invited to see the B 52s at Max's Kansas City and fell in love with the band's music from the first two bars. They played "Planet Claire" the music of which was "The Peter Gunn Theme" from my childhood's exposure to that television show.

Funny enough, Lydia Lunch and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks was the opening act that night at Max's and I didn't care for them at all. I didn't understand what Punk Rock was at that time.

I asked the B's to come to the studio where I was an apprentice, for a photo shoot that I wanted to present to Andy Warhol's magazine Interview. Unfortunately, Cindy Wilson had returned to Athens, GA, so Maureen the manager stood in for her in the photo. Interview published the photo and licensed it to a Japanese magazine called Studio Voice.

The next time I got the B's to come to "my" studio, the band was complete and I printed 1000 16 x 20 B&W posters, gave half to the band and sniped some of the rest to advertise the band's upcoming gigs. The posters, however, were stolen as fast as I could tape them up (I didn't know about wheat paste). I started selling the posters for 52 cents each or two for a dollar.

Two years later, I was contacted by Tony Wright from Island Records and asked to show my collection of the band photos I had from concerts and in the photo studio. I didn't know that the band had already decided on one photo from the second studio shoot.

Tony asked me to sepia tone the b&w photo and then he cut film overlays to colorized their clothing.

Tony hated the group and used the pseudonym "Sue Absurd" as the art director's name.

You did a number of cool covers for the Ramones. Any one particular favorite?

Roberta Bayley's first cover photo was how they really were, Too Tough to Die is how the band saw themselves, and Mondo Bizarro is how I saw them...

Quoted in the introduction, Daniel Rey called you "one of the few people allowed access to recording sessions, rehearsals, video and other 'insider' events" related to the Ramones. Any story not in your book you'd like to share?

Funny Daniel Rey mentions this. I once had a creative meeting for the cover of Brain Drain. The band didn't want a photo this time, so we contacted Matt Mahurin and bought an image from a painting by him, the back cover was a video still from the video "Lobotomy". While I was at the recording studio, Bill Laswell was producing this LP and wouldn't allow anyone in the control room AT ALL. Not even the band.

I was "upstairs" in a lounge area shooting billiards with Monte Melnick, the tour manager and I looked through a window down into the large recording room and I saw someone playing bass that wasn't Dee Dee. I asked Monte who was that and he said it was "just Daniel Rey adding a bass track". About an hour later, I looked through the window and saw Daniel playing guitar. Again, I asked Monte what was going on and he pulled down the window shade and said, "You've seen enough!"

Daniel Rey is a great musician, producer and guitarist...A lot of musicians contributed to Ramones albums without credit. Joey's brother, Mickey Leigh was a classic example...

You write that you had the best personal relationship with Joey. Was he individually creative? Could he have had a rewarding solo career?

I saw Joey performing with other musicians several times. I thought that Joey always performed '50s and '60s Rock'n'Roll covers superbly. I often told him that he should just do a solo album of covers. He never got around to it, unfortunately.

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Marky Ramone: Superhero in Chuck Taylors     

"I will keep doing this 'til my body tells me to stop,"  now 74 year-old Marky told Balkan Rock, last November.

Who among the obstreperous class of '78 knew that, in addition to putting a swift sneaker to increasingly moribund Corporate Rock Product and jazzing a generation of avenue-crawling outsiders and misfits with faith that they're not only valid but probably the most so, Punk, as birthed by the cretins of CBGB (da brudders at the fore), offered the youth-sustaining thaumaturgy Ponce de Leon craved? 

In order to be productive, of course, drive requires purpose.

Again, Punk proves itself: A sincere, gut-harbored belief smolders at the core of Marky's essence. Of seventies leather-mileau survivors -- iconic talents, groupies, visionaries, trendies, and operators -- Marky looms perhaps tallest. He circles the 2026 globe, spreading the blitzkrieg gospel to every far-flung megalopolis and thatched-hut village, deflowering puritan notions of genre propriety and respectable decorum wherever he smashes a cymbal.

His career as the dyna-wrist sparkplug behind Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee (subsequently CJ) is the stuff of carbonated lore. And his ongoing exploits in the identical capacity for successive assault assemblages not only burnishes credentials, but demonstrates strapping strength to endure.

Each of Marky's post-Ramones efforts have been true to the model. He always surrounds himself with hardy agitators easily up to the TNT task. Together, they drive fists through graffitied brick walls.

In 2024 EP Punkin' Out the Classics (Dog Snout), various erstwhile chart hits were subjected to psycho therapy. Strapped to a gurney were generational staples like "It's Not Unusual," "New York, New York," and "Octopus's Garden". 

Marky's artistic instinct to revisit standards was that of actors desiring to interpret Shakespearean protagonists, to impress personal imprints.

"Keep on Dancing" is a nonstop raver that probably plays on an endless loop in some party dimension we can only hope to reach. (The Avantis and Gentrys had waxed it, in the sixties.) As accounts at the time had it, songwriters had but a scrap; it was elongated by appending a drum solo / fake fade-out, then simply replaying the singalong scrap. 

In their accelerated reading, Marky et al repeated the artifice. Picture (with askew camera perspective) a top-down Mustang flying down a stretch of summertime white line, or a passel of heedless teens writhing in dance crazes at ocean's edge. 

The bubbly anthem was injected with a hundred surplus gallons of urban joy juice by Marky and his fast-footwork fellows, and meant 'good times for everyone.' It aligns with latter-day reinventions of JFK-era fare like "California Sun" (Dictators), "Seven Day Weekend" (Heartbreakers), and "Party Lights" (Walter Lure).

"Even when people say Punk is dead, there's a new kid in a garage playing three chords," Marky famously said. That common-sense optimism -- and the man's evergreen existence -- give us all reason to toast the morning sun.

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Videos: Marky's drum technique (3:34)   Ramones "Touring"   Marky Ramone & the Intruders: "Three Cheers for You"   Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg "Keep on Dancing"   Live at RiotFest (Sept. 20th, 2025)

Ramones

Live at the Roxy, August 12 1976   double LP

(Sire / Rhino)

Readers may be unaware that they enjoy the right to beat on any brat that disputes the sneakered Forest Hills foursome's Carbona supremacy. Should said brats so desire, they can find edification in these performances. Muscles, velocity, and outsider perspective packed into succinct sweet/sour fusillades take bricks to pinheads of conventionality.

Recommended: "Loudmouth," "Beat on the Brat," "Blitzkrieg Bop," "I Remember You," "Glad to See You Go," "Chainsaw," "53rd & 3rd," "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend," "Havana Affair," "Listen to My Heart," "California Sun," "Judy is a Punk," "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You," "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World," "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "Let's Dance"

No videos from new live release available at presstime. Studio versions: "Glad to See You Go"   "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend"   "Havana Affair"   "I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You"   "Let's Dance"

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All good cretins dwell near turntables

Future times will bring spectacular songs, in a number of styles and from sundry assemblages. But there will never again be tunes precisely of a sort with those wrought by the globally celebrated, glue-sniffing, bowl-cut, leather-enwrapped misfits from New Yorks' broken boulevards.

I call it the 'Ramones formula' - the seamless union of chewy-chewy Pop that once blared from cheap transisters that teens pressed to their ears while shooting sidewalk curls, and killer-chorded LOUD brutalities that separate skulls from spines and send grinning heads veering tiltedly into the Outsider Zone.

Lyrically, both the great unwashed of disposable drive-in subculture and agonized teen angels enjoyed portrayal:

"I'm just a comic-book boy / there's nothin' scary to enjoy / Freak admission, stroll inside / I was born on a roller-coaster ride"

"I kissed her and hugged her and I said good-bye, last thing I knew

she wouldn't make it alive / Oncoming car went out of control, it crushed my baby and it crushed my soul / Now all I've got is sorrow and pain, standing out here in the rain / The crash, shattering glass,
the sirens, and pain / It's driving me insane oh-yeah"

For their first several albums, the Forest Hills four credited all numbers to simply 'The Ramones.' It was in subsequent years that individual credits emerged.

Sources today differ as to which original member penned any given carbonated mini-classic. But among ones main tune-scribes Joey and Dee Dee -- bards of the Central Park Reservoir -- either authored solo or collaborated on, sometimes with Johnny and Tommy leaning in, are:

Blitzkrieg Bop / Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue / Glad to See You Go / Cretin Hop / I Wanna Be Sedated / Teenage Lobotomy /  Rockaway Beach / Pinhead / I Wanna Be Well / Sheena Is a Punk Rocker / Don't Come Close / Do You Remember Rock'n'Roll Radio /  Rock'n'Roll High School / Tomorrow She Goes Away / Psycho Therapy / She's the One / Go Lil' Camaro Go / Life's a Gas / She Talks to Rainbows / Pet Semetary / Makin' Monsters With My Friends.

The tenement fire-escape, outsider commandos were a prolific (not always) happy family. But the catalog is far too extensive for remark here. (In years ahead, subsequent members Marky, Richie, and CJ also contributed material.)

Sneaker imprint of the Ramones Formula can be found in a wide swath of contemporary endeavors, so profound is the torn-jeans pogoers' enduring impact. Zombina and the Skeletones, Brad Marino, Yee Loi, the 66ers, Poison Boys, Hillbilly Casino, and Sour Mash Kats are but seven that currently honor the Ramones in songcraft, spirit, or both.

(Again, many others exist.)

Punk at its core being an alacritous swipe against prevailing mores -- both musical and cultural -- it's completely in tune with the rebellion instinct that present-day provocateurs reject traditions and stitch novel menaces.

Hence, what ripsaw tunes now crowd beneath the Punk

banner tend more toward surly cacophony than bubblegum- confection Bay City Rollers huffing carbona in the closet.

Still, there is abundant value in incorporating past sways and gestures into fresh works. Such has often been the way of Rock'n'Roll. Of art through the ages, when you consult some hushed museum geek.

Da Brudders drank heavily from the pool of 1960s bands both obscure and chart-topping. Those combos offered much, long after initial splashes. And their notions lived on, albeit in acromegalic aspect, in the Ramones' Formula.

And though decades have passed, I still keep Ramones LPs beside my turntable. All good cretins do.

The 66ers

Have More Fun

(Rum Bar Records)

I call it the "Ramones formula" - the seamless union of chewy-chewy Pop that once blared from cheap transisters teens pressed to their ears while shooting sidewalk curls, and 'fun times for everyone' slam-bounce. It's difficult to pull off. The combo before us not only succeeds, but the originals (penned by guitarist/singer Steven Brookfield) turn listener musings to Boyce/Hart compositions or Freddy Cannon's shoot-the-chute, along with Dee Dee and Joey's beach-parties-idealized-from-tenement-fire-escape ones. Worth stressing is that heaping spoonfuls of personality lend piquance; exquisite harmonies fill blue skies, buoyed by knowing instrumental recreation. Beneath sunniness revs muscle. Fun is the word.

Recommended: "Holiday," "Southern Girls," "Malisandre," "Miss Summertime," "This Girl is Rude," "Veronika," "If I Could Surf," "Anything You Wanna Be"

Videos: "Holiday"   "Southern Girls"   "Miss Summertime"   "If I Could Surf"

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Yee Loi

"Poor Girl"   single

(Modern Sky UK)

What are three nice English siblings doing in a Ramonesified proposition? Drop-kicking it all over the club, is what. Rose channels I Don't Care callousness through wildside barre chord pandemonium and exploding throatery. Lead voice Tilda seems hostile toward her drum heads; she pounds at them as if they stole her cash. And bass monster Don Don does things to bass strings that likely violate statutes. Good things come in threes.

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Back In the Day, 2014

TV Tramps

Rip It Up!

(Little Dickman Records)

Among salient aspects (of which there are several - vivacity, brevity, and economy also being present) that this writer finds magnetic here is the gladsome absence of protracted commencements. Get in/make your point/get out is the superior teaching the Ramones schooled. The torn messengers here casting furiously veering chords waste zero moments on introductions, instead launching themselves (and us) on abrupt sound-sprees that end gloriously. All emergency rooms should pipe this for the tittilation of crimson-spraying basket cases.

Recommended: "Vampires," "Baby Girl," "Keep Your Mouth Shut," "No Ransom," "Rip You Up," "The Stuff," "Party Animal," "Whiplash"

Videos: "Vampires" (live)   "Keep Your Mouth Shut"   (live)

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Chinese Hoodie

Quick Pop Fanclub

(Self-issued)

Ska and Hardcore share tidal-wave habitat with Ramones-touched Pop swayings, and their ebullience locates this in unique placement. From the moment of ignition, breakneck rush rockets ever on; its destination isn't important - it's the fun of the velocitous journey that recommends in screaming tones.

The sole request properly extended to this combo is that they continue issuing similarly worthy discs.

Recommended: "Enjoy Yourself," "Rapid Express," "Cobra," "No Kidding," "True Duelist," "Cider Beach," "My favorite Things"

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The Shivvies

Punk Boys

(Shield Recordings)

In 1974, when a handful of Forest Hills boychiks lugged second-hand equipment into Hilly's dive, they surely didn't envision their eventual style would attain subgenre status. But "Ramonescore" now thrives. And in the hands of this Netherlands gang, the intoxicating amalgam of bubbblegum and buzzsaw-chording bombards to high effect. Originality appears in the form of lyrical particularity. (Sax-enriched Pop ballad "Crying All the Way Home" haunts long after its conclusion.)

Recommended: "Fighting Chance," "Runaway Girl," "No Can Do," "Rainbow," "Nobody Cares About Me," "Punk Boys," "I Don't Just Wanna Have Fun," "Weapon Of Mass Destruction," "Party All Night," "Outer Space," "SM 046," "Crying All the Way Home"

Videos: "Nobody Cares About Me"  "Crying All the Way Home"

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Outta Hand

Buzz Pop 3024   EP

(Self-issued)

That they open with a "Teenage Wasteland" reference signals good taste extending further back than whatever's presently blaring from earbuds. Their songcraft and blazing dispatch mark them as worth sustained regard. Wisely, the members take care that felicitous hooks, winning as they are, never becloud high-speed demolition -- indicating they've learned from Joey and the boys as well as the Townsend contingent.

Recommended: "It Was My Clone," "Robot Devil," "No AA 4 U BB"

Video: "It Was My Clone"

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Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg

"Keep On Dancing"   10" 45 rpm vinyl

(Guns Of Brixton)

Originally waxed by the Avantis and Gentrys in the early '60s. As one account has it, the songwriters had only a catchy scrap. It was elongated by appending a drum solo and fake-ending fade-out, then simply replaying the scrap. Mr. Ramone and pals repeat the artifice. Picture (with tilted camera view) a top-down Mustang flying down a stretch of summer white-line, or a passel of heedless teens writhing in dance-crazes at ocean's edge. The carbonated anthem gleefully wrought by Marky and his fast-footwork fellows is nonstop good-times lilt and aligns with latter-day reinventions of JFK-era fare like "California Sun" (Dictators), "Seven Day Weekend" (Heartbreakers), and "Party Lights" (Walter Lure).

"Keep On Dancing" shares vinyl space with accellerated readings of "New York, New York," "It's Not Unusual,"and "Octopuses Garden."

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CD REVIEW: Blacklist Royals "Semper Liberi"

The truest rock'n'roll bands have always been gangs, proudly living coolness out loud in the startled face of unsympathetic propriety. Early Stones, Dolls, Ramones, Clash, Social Distortion.

And Blacklist Royals. They merit addition to that shameful/shame-free record, flinging heedlessly as they raucously do technicolored, kicks-larded, and punchy rock'n'roll that defies dismissal, that by its raw power upends and obliterates beneath boot polished pretensions. Challenging guitars muscle at this music's fore, in LOUD and brash mien -- and, of course, formidable beats drive this funny-car pile-up -- but a satisfying abundance of variegation and lapel-seizing depth issue from swerving, spashing keys.

The primal spirit of genuine rock'n'roll breathes, still: Springsteenish everyman psalmizing, detonative punk, pixilated guitar-party bombast. The Blacklist Royals have a stake in The Music That Changed The World, and they're no less agressively in love with it than were any of their storied street-corner forebears.


RECOMMENDED "Howling At the Moon," "Rock'n'Roll"

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-- DC Larson