The Ramones Rocket to Russia Philips

Rip It Up, Issue 11, 1 May 1978, Page 14

The Ramones Rocket to Russia Philips

“Hello children. Today’s Tuesday ... T-U-E-S-D-A-Y. Now what day is it? That’s right. And frumpy the 'Clown and I have got a ; little suprise for you today. We’re going to have a little test, just a fun test, nothing to do with school all right? Havev : you got your pencil and paper ready? Well I’ll wait here while you go get your pencil and a piece of paper. A crayon will do. And just a small piece of paper; this isn’t : going to be hard. Now off you go ... hum de dum, da dum, um ... ready? Ah huh ... um, I can’t wait much longer... good. All ' right, now take your paper and write down ;' the first thing that comes into your head when I say these words. Just write down what you first think of,* remember. Ready? CAT* ... ‘HOUSE’ .... DADDY’ ... heh, heh ... LOBOTOMY’ ... “Lobotomy? Gee, this is getting hard 1 V “Turna TV off, Tommy! I’m tryna do an interview here ... Hey, is that ya taperecorder, is it? Hey, this t’ing work-: ing? Where d’ya speak into? Hey!” “Just press that button there.” “Ah ... you do it.” “Sure. There you are ... you can go ahead now.” “Er ... ah hem. I’m Dee Dee. I’m the brains in dis band THE RAMONES, see, and this is our manager, Danny ...” “Please to meet you ...” - “He’s gonna explain the >.words we dunno. Ah ... this is ; Joey. Ah ... Joey! He don’t talk too much. An’this is Johnny . ..v/O - . ..it y.. '[ .-V': .Y ■ “Hiya.” M, y a * . > t - «- “ ... An’ that’s Tommy over there. Turn. it off, Tommy! He don’t listen too good. . . “What I wanna say is dat this here is our

third album, we called It ah ... lessee, where’s de cover? Uh ... yeah. We called it Rocket to Russia. That was Danny’s idea. I was gonna call it The Return of the Pinheads cos I wasn’ allowed to call the last one dat... uh ... hey, Danny, you say somethin’ ...” ‘‘Tell ’em about the songs.” “Uh ... okay. Dere’s “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” which ya shoulda heard .. . “Teenage Lobotomy” ... “I Can’t Give You Anthing” ... “I Don’t Care”. The words are someplace ...” “Hey, this working? Yeah? Ah ... this Is Johnny. The words don’t mean nuthln’. We put ’em In because they rhyme. It’s total nonsense .. “This is me back again. We wrote all the songs ’cept for ah ... lemme see... “Surfin’’ Bird’, which the Trashmen done ... it’s real good an’ uh ... “Do Ya Wanna Dance” which was uh .. .Bobby Freeman. Ah... er... oh, yeah... people say we’re punk rock an' they say we ’ave a real ’6os sound an’ that. Cream thinks we’re the new Beach Boys h’yukl Hey, ah ... Johhny wants to say somethin’.” “We’re influenced by old hit singles: Freddy Cannon, B uddy Holly, Presley, Roy Orbison, Peter Lemonjello. Joey likes Peter Noone. There’s more recent things ... heavier rock, MCS, the Stooges ... Danny used ta manage Iggy. An’ the Doors an’ the Dolls ... an’ Lou Reed ... the Dolls were already breaking up when we started,.. “Uh ... this is me again. That was Johnny an’ ah ... what else can I say, Danny? Danny?” “Huh? Oh ... ah, tell them this is the best album you’ve done." “Yeah, this Is de best album we done. Honest ... ah ... hey, how you stop dis ting?” * Jeremy Templer