I had something else planned for this weekend but Sunday would have been Joey Ramone's 51st
birthday. I was reading some interviews today about the impact The Ramones had on people, mostly
other musicians. Someone said that they were his Beatles.
I was pretty down on the music scene around the mid to late 70s. I had stopped seeing the Dead in
1973, which had been a staple in my life since 1970. I hated the stuff on the radio. I hated
disco. Then some friends and I walked into CBGB and saw The Ramones. I couldn't believe it.
Barely three chords but you just sort of stood there thinking, oh yeah, this is rock and roll.
This is what was missing.
CBGB was crazy. We used to try to get the booth directly under the light man, which was up on the
right side of place as I recall. CBGB was really long and narrow. Maybe 25 or 30 feet wide? Maybe
200 feet long, something like that. A really long bar.
That booth was about 25 feet from the stage and very convenient for me because I could hang the
mikes from the light stanchions. Anyway, I taped this one, probably on a Sony TC153, on October
27, 1977. Usually we saw both the early and late shows, but this day we only saw the late show
because we taped Zappa at the Palladium earlier in the evening. Busy day.
Enjoy it kids. Happy Birthday Joey. Thanks for being in my life.
dgk