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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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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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