The death of the third Ramone in five years (albeit the most unpleasant one!) prompted me to dig this review out of issue 21.

Hey Ho Let’s Go - The Story of The Ramones by Everett True.

I got this book for Christmas and it’s kept me obsessed ever since. Best of all it’s sent me back to the Ramones records. You might not think there was so much to say about 4 ‘brothers’ playing 3 chords for 22 years, but you’d be wrong. At the centre of the story is betrayal and misery : when the amiable, creative, legendary Joey had his girl friend taken away by business man and Bush supporting guitarist Johnny it was to lead to 15 plus years of touring with mutual dislike preventing the two from speaking. The band kept going as they knew they had what it took to be central to the main stream. However their record label did not know how to realise this potential, and the band ended and half its members died without them ever achieving the success their top rate pop songs deserved. But everyone else knew what The Ramones meant, with all the current US rock establishment (Green Day, Blink 172, Gun’n’Roses, U2, Metallica and everyone else) claiming them as their major influence and the band being inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. Not bad for four kids from Queens with cheap guitars singing songs about misfits, geeks and weirdos. Long live the Ramones!

Rosey