Episode #72 | 2.16.21
The Ramones: TV Bombs, Psycho Therapy, Toilet Syringes, Turning Tricks and Saving Rock ‘N’ Roll
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In this episode
Sniffing glue, hooking for drug money, hurling rocks at the Beatles, and writing infectious sunshiney melodies about their grimy reality, the Ramones were what the world needed in 1976. As rock ‘n’ roll was getting bloated with excessive experimentation and unfortunate forays into disco, four cretins from Queens stripped it all away to two-minute three-chord anthems with hard, fast backbeats and buzzing guitars. They adopted the same surname to solidify their brotherhood, and they lived like brothers and fought like brothers to the very bitter end. Listen to hear how the Ramones saved rock ‘n’ roll.
Sources
Hey Ho Let’s Go: The Story of the Ramones, by Everett True
Lobotomy: Surviving the Ramones, by Dee Dee Ramone
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, by Legs McNeil
Rolling Stone: The Curse of the Ramones
VICE: Dee Dee Ramone - Portrait of a Punk
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Music
Score by Jake Brennan.
Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak