I wish I could say I that I witnessed the Ramones play in a downtown club in their heyday, but my first Ramones concert was at the Wollman Rink at Central Park during the Dr. Pepper Concert series. At the time I was more inclined toward Neil Young, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin so when one of my classmates at Queens College, who was dressed in the punk rock style at the time in leather jacket, tried to convince me that the Ramones were the greatest band of all time I thought he was nuts. As it turns out, he was not far off as the Ramones turned out to be an iconic group of trailblazers who were trying to figure out how to expand its following heading into the 1980’s. I did meet Joey Ramine at Bonds NYC at a Plasmatics concert once. If I remember right, the Ramones had performed a show on Long Island that night and as I was hanging out in the bar area at Bonds, here comes Joey Ramine walking right towards me. I quickly determined that I would chat him up as if we already knew each other. My strategy worked until the young lady he was with realized that Joey had no idea who I was and she grabbed him by the wrist leading him away into the crowd. A quick encounter reminiscent of an even more brief encounter with John Belushi at a Madison Square Garden after party celebrating “For Those About to Rock” album sales. Belushi zoomed in on me, shook my hand and said “you don’t even want to know who I am” then he just as quickly disappeared back into the party.

Too Tough to Die

Rick on!

GQ