Ramones

Continuing on this philosophical journey through the underground, who's the first Punk band? If you said Sex Pistols, then you're wrong. It's the Ramones out in front by an entire year. Really the first? Probably not, Punk is not really a genre, it's an attitude or ideology formed around consciously rejecting the Mainstream. Amazingly enough, the Beatles were their major influence as well. Adopting the psudonym Ramone came from McCartney's tendency to check into hotels as Paul Ramon. Also like the Beach Boys, all killer no filler was the spark, only now anything studio related like orchestras and hi fidelity effects and the like was totally out of reach for real working class Rock and Rollers. This is DIY 'cause nobody's gonna help you territory. Fast, loud, cool, that's basically it as far as ingredients. 

Contrary to popular belief, the Ramones were not a commercially successful recording band. They made more than enough money to sustain their 20 years of non-stop touring and everyone around them made enough money to gladly keep them going, but not from record sales. Luckily, Punks don't care too much for money. That's not exactly true, they care that they aren't allowed to have any and they care that people with money waste it on stupid stuff, but in the gtand scheme of things doing what you want to do doesn't require much money at all, it's all the hurdles and hoops and artificial roadblocks that get expensive. 

Anywho, the original set list of a Ramones show lasted about 17 minutes and consisted of fast extremely loud nonstop Rock. The common perception was "these guys are definitely not hippies," and they had a record deal before they'd even been a band for a full year. They stood out because basically everyone was copying David Johansson's Mick Jagger impression. Critics loved their first record, recorded for the basically non-existent $6,400 it cost to make it, but #111 on the sales charts means basically nobody was listening to it. Once again, England to the rescue, the Brits were definitely keen on them. 

Actually, i gotta be honest, i'm not feeling it. I'm tired of this week and i'm tired of all our musical heros dying, and i'm tired of the news, and even though the weather doesn't really bother me i'm tired of listening to everybody complain about the weather. Maybe i'll try again tomorrow, but for now, metaphorically speaking, i wanna sniff some glue.... 

E: wait, you're just gonna quit in the middle of a review? 

B: yeah, never tried that before. Might be fun. 

E: but, but... 

B: but what? It's Ramones. Don't get me wrong, i like it very much, but beyond its historical importance as the first Punk album, it's just a self-titled debut. The band is massively important, the album is generic major label product and i didn't go back to fact check the numbers, but i think Megadeth wasted that much on drugs. 

C: Megadeth spent 4k (half their budget) and asked for 4k more, bringing the total expense to 12k. 

B: there you go, Skip. You're gonna sit there and tell me Sire didn't make back their $6,400? It may have only sold 6,000 copies in the US in the first year, but i imagine the profit margin per unit was more than a dollar, even in 1976 dollars. And besides, Sire's actual hustle was import/export of US and England underground records. The phrase "commercial failure" in this context is basically "rats, we didn't win the lottery." For perspective, Sire opened for business a few years earlier on $20,000, voluntarily dropped a third of that to make it, and published their even worse performing second album the very next year. 

E: so what are you saying? 

B: that's why i'm exhausted, Skip. I have to keep explaining the very nature of reality through the torrential downpour of nonsense. Sire made plenty of money off Ramones, it's just that they didn't make instant millions and immediately retire off Ramones. 

E: but Sire has employees and other artists and they have to succeed to pass that money on to the workers who actually make the records, and- 

B: and their goal was to turn $20,000 into more than $20,000. Records cost about $5.75 in the late 70s. If the label sold them for $2 to retailers the ROI is basically double. Median family income in 1976 was $15,000, Skip. Want me to cash in the year's worth of retirement i've managed to sequester to make Bottle of Beef a real Pinocchio? You'll have to do a little more than correct my typos, and i'll have to be more of a jerk than i want to be. I don't want to beat on the brat with a baseball bat. 

E: you're acting weird. 

B: i know you are, but what am i? It's the Blacklist reruns infiltrating my brain space, i get all James Spadery, try to ignore it. We'll check out Rocket To Russia when i feel like it. For now though, i gotta deal with the impending hour leap into the future. Again, don't really care, i just get cranky when everybody else incessantly complains about it.