Hiding In Plain Sight: The Low Sales Of The Ramones

A few months ago, Tommy Ramone passed away. The last surviving member of the original line-up of the Ramones. I could write here about the history of the band, talk about the hey-day of New York Punk, debate whether it started in America or England and go over hundreds of other points that I have far less knowledge than some other people might. Suffice to say that Tommy Ramone was a vital member of the band and without him, rock music would not be what it is today, but I'll leave the biographies and tributes to people who know more about Tommy than me. For example, Jon Wurster of Superchunk and Bob Mould's band wrote a really nice piece about Tommy and the band.

What struck me about the death of Tommy Ramone (Thomas Erdelyi outside of the band) was that he was the last living Ramone who played on the band's first record, 1976's “Ramones”. More shockingly, he was the only member who was alive to see it sell enough copies to be certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The record passed that milestone just a few weeks before his death. It's the only Ramones album, aside from 'best of' compilations, to have sold enough copies to qualify.

Johnny And Dee Dee - The Eastern Dark

Australian music often gets a bad rap. In most people's minds, mine included, music in Australia started with Men At Work, ended with Silverchair and was filled out by a few soap stars turning to mainstream pop. Over the last couple of years though, I've seen more and more evidence of a great indie rock scene that was prevalent in australia during the late 80's and early 90's that seems to correspond with the scene in the states. Indie rock in America (and the UK) is covered in such detail that a lot of smaller, more distant scenes get lost somewhat in the process. For example, Evan Dando and the Lemonheads are lauded by the press and the fans and quite rightly too. But much less attention is paid to Smudge, the Aussie band who were a big influence on Dando during the 90's and whose front man, Tom Morgan, was Evan's Writing partner for a while. Have a listen to their song Divan and see how similar it is to the Lemonheads' 90's albums.