Tag Archive: Ramones


MORRISSEY IN HIS ELEMENT

Filed under: Italy, Music — Leave a comment
October 10, 2015

MORRISSEY – Live at Carisport, Cesena 8th October 2015

In my last post I was scathing about Morrissey’s debut novel, List Of The Lost, but I’m happy to report that his ‘day job’ as singer and musical icon is still in rude shape.

For this show in Cesena, the second of just two dates in Italy, he was in fine voice and treated an adoring public to a supremely polished show dominated by material from his excellent new album World Peace Is None Of Your Business.

It would have been all too easy for him to go through the motions and run through Smiths classics. Probably a fair proportion of the audience would have actually preferred this but I’d much rather see an artist performing songs that reflect where he is now than who he was then.

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WHEN SHOULD ROCK BANDS QUIT?

Filed under: Music, Television — Leave a comment
July 11, 2012

Remember them this way – Roxy Music on the gatefold sleeve to For Your Pleasure.

Rock bands are like TV sit-coms, they usually go on for too long and become tired or formularic.

Roxy Music are a prime example.

In a review of the 10 cd box set of the band’s complete studio recordings in this month’s Wire magazine, Mark Fisher sagely notes that  “if they had stopped after the first two albums, their career would have been immaculate”.

Their self titled debut and For Your Pleasure were and are amazing records which they never bettered in their post-Eno years.

I got to thinking which other long running bands would have benefited from quitting while they were ahead.

For instance, REM should have called it a day after Automatic For The People and wouldn’t it have been better if the Stones had parted company after Exile On Main Street or if The Who had ended on a genuine high with Quadrophenia.

Did punk bands like The Ramones, The Damned and Gang Of Four really need to make any more records after their trailblazing debuts?

I’m sure you can think of your own examples.

There is of course another category of bands such as The Cranberries and Coldplay that ought to have been strangled at birth, but that’s another story!

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BACKTRACKING #6 : RAMONES

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March 16, 2011

Bite-sized posts about 7″ singles I own – shameless nostalgia from the days of vinyl.

Ramones – I Remember You  b/w California Sun / I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You (Sire, 1976)

A little bit of CBGB’s in the heart of Birmingham; that’s what it felt like to see the Ramones supported by label-mates Talking Heads at Barbarella’s in May 1977.

With hindsight, this was a unique and historic double bill although at the time both bands had just released their debut albums so no-one really knew what to expect.

The Ramones I knew mainly through the fact that Blitzkrieg Bop was adopted as one of the signature tunes for Punk gigs at this venue alongside a fair smattering of dub reggae. That song was the highlight of their set. Continue reading →

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ON THE BEACH WITH THE VIVIAN GIRLS

Filed under: Gender, Italy, Music — Leave a comment
July 21, 2010

The Vivian Girls look a little bemused as well they might.

Their show on the beach at Cesenatico is preceded by a 20 minute fashion show as local babes swan down a makeshift catwalk trying desperately to strike the pose at the right moment. They are modelling skimpy summer gear and mostly look self-conscious and ill at ease.

Their tanned and toned bodies are a marked contrast to the pale, waif-like form of Cassie Ramone who sits watching from a table where she and the band had enjoyed complimentary  plates of spaghetti.

Cassie sings and plays lead guitar in the sassy surf-punk trio whose thrift shop chic and prominent tattoos serve to emphasise the stylistic and cultural gulf between New Jersey and Emilia Romagna.

Beside her on stage is the sturdier form of  Katy ‘Kickball’ Goodman, a friendly redhead who tries but fails to say “We love you” in Italian.A relatively sedate Fiona Campbell on drums completes the threesome.

The free concert has been put on by the Retro Pop Club. The organiser’s name is apt since the nostalgia value of the fast 3-chord tunes is high. The Girls race through the set list like a cross between The Ronettes and The Ramones.

Songs like Can’t Get Over You and I Believe In Nothing set them on an existential plain where faith in God and boyfriends is in short supply.

Admittedly, these songs follow a predictable formula and tend to blend into one very rapidly but they play with such a raw energy you can forgive them this.

The not-so-super Italian models could learn a lot from their style.

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