Endless Vacation

The Ramones: fast songs, deadpan lyrics, no solos and an impenetrable wall of guitar chords. Twenty years later, with pratically all of their members either retired or having moved on to forms other than punk, Joey and Johnny Ramone, the band's heart, continued to parlay the same determinedly basic sound.

The Ramones got together in 1974, after the four members left high school in Forest Hills, New York. The original lineup featured Joey on drums, Dee Dee sharing guitar with Johnny, and Tommy as manager, but they soon settled on their recording setup. The Ramones moved toward the growing scene at CBGB, where their 20-minute sets of rapid-fire, under two-and-a-half-minute songs earned them a recording contract before any of their contemporaries except Patti Smith.

This band that shaped the sound of punk rock made definitive punk statement, with songs like "Blitzkrieg Bop," and "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." With their next two singles, the group began to soften their sound slightly. "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" and "Rockaway Beach" made explicit their debt to Sixties AM hit styles such as bubblegum and surf music, and both made the lower reaches of the Top 100. After the band released Rocket to Russia Tommy Ramone quit the group and Marky Ramone was Tommy’s replacement.

A heroin addict and substance abuser for 14 years, Dee Dee had been the Ramones' truest punk (going solo, he also joined AA); his departure signaled the end of an era, if not a style. AWOL from the Marines at the time he enlisted in the band, C.J. Ramone infused youthful energy - he was 14 years younger than Joey and Johnny - but the band's sound remained the same.

With Joey sober since the start of the decade and Marky in recovery from alcoholism, they continued their relentless touring. With the release of Adios Amigos, the band implied that it was considering calling it quits.

Tragically, Joey Ramone died on April 15, 2001 at the age of 49 of lymphatic cancer.

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