5. RamonesRamones
EC: The first album – nineteen-seventy-one-two-three-four-five-six. The black and white one. ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’. It’s classic. Of course, from New York, Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny, Tommy. Now all dead.
GM: Oh shush. That’s a bit harsh!
EC: They are! Incidentally, when I was a teenager, I was in the Nu-Sonics.
GM: This was Edwyn’s band around the same time as this Ramones album, with some of the same members that eventually formed Orange Juice.
EC: And I can remember maybe about 1977 or eight, the second hand charity shops for clothes. The Davy Crockett look! Wanting to look right.
GM: You didn’t throw things together. You worked quite hard on your look. It was seriously considered. Edwyn was a good monitor of the charity shops. It was a serious job.
EC: It was!
GM: Before I met Edwyn, when I was in university in Glasgow, and just getting chucked out, actually, I booked the Ramones at the student union. Joey wasn’t well – he had the flu, and a bad throat – so I got him some lemon and honey, and he was really appreciative. They were really, really nice, and the crew was nice too. It was a big feather in my cap. Edwyn – the look of the Ramones and the way they played impacted on you, didn’t it? With Johnny particularly, guiding the way that you performed and the way he looked.
EC: Yes it really did. And I remember Dee Dee, on the bass with his bowl cut. And a lot of pogoing!
