Poor old Dee-Dee. Hearing about his
sudden death this year shocked and saddened me... And made me even more worried about the failing state of rock'n'roll in 2003. As I write this, the lisping middle class'winner' of ITV's risible Pop Idol is comfortably perched at the number one slot with his easy listening take on Light My Fire (nothing is sacred I guess...), Johnny Rotten has become a self-proclaimed irreverence, nothing more than a punch line for presenters of Channel 5 entertainment programs, while Ozzy Osbourne was last spotted grovelling before the Queen and the rest of her buck toothed, over-privileged family like a good little subject. These are desperate times, my friends, and now - so soon after his band-mate, Joey's untimely death - Dee-Dee has
departed for that big shooting gallery in the sky.
The Ramones burst out of the no-wave scene in New York, sharing a stage with Blondie, Johnny Thunders & the Heari breakers. Television and Richard Hell & the Voidoids, in rock and roll clubs which have become synonymous with the word punk: CBGB's and Max's Kansas City, to name just two, Joey, Johnny, Tommy and Dee-Dee played back-to-basics primal rock V roll, pure classics like Beat on the Brat, Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue, Blitzkrieg Bop and Shccna is a Punk Rocker, which despite making the British charts hi *77, would rarely get airplay hi the States. They were partly a reaction against the soulless,studio bound 'progressive' rock which ruled the airwaves (like Yes, ELO and Genesis for example) and the mediocrity of ageing 'super groups' like the Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart and Eric Clapton, who had all well passed their prime but carried on, churning out album after album, playing lifeless stadium shows where the guitar solos could last for hours. The Ramones gave the devil's music a much needed shot in the arm (no pun intended!) by combining the 2 minute pop thrills of '50s beat outfits like the Shangri- La's with an aggression and sense of danger which was completely new and caused waves almost immediately.
The Ramones released their debut album in 1976 and became a huge influence on bands like The Damned and The Sex Pistols (and their partners in the I\cw York scene of the time) and without them there would have been no British punk scene. Just think, no God Save The Queen, White Riot, Anarchy in the UK... it really doesn't bear thinking about. Dee Dee was the principle songwriterof the Ramones, and his image became one of the key looks of punk: leather jacket, scuffed Levi's, beaten up Converse sneakers and a permanent sneer. Dec Dee was a visionary in a way, people have been imitating his look for generations m (the Pistols1 Sid Vicious copied his look almost totally), and he is still being copied today (check out the look of new US punk band The Strokes, for one example). He also co-wrote the stone cold classic junk anthem, Chinese Rocks, with Richard Hell, later recorded with another junkie icon Johnny Thundcrs. Drugs, and specificallyheroin, played a huge part in the Ramones' story and in the life of their guitarist and main songwriter, Dee-Dee. In his autobiography, he recalled first getting high on smack during his
early teens in Forest Hills, New York. When the Ramones got their break, everyone was seriously fucked up one way or another. Rather than the Keith Richards story where "famous roek star becomes millionaire and becomes junkie," the Ramones openly talked about the fact that they where full-time heroin addicts before they became a band, and Dee Dec actually credited the band with givinghim some direction in life. In one infamous incident, Dee- Dee's smack habit actually caused one of his teeth to fall out half-way through an interview with the NME in 1976.
'lets just hope that a new
generation of junkies,
thieves and malcontents are
out there and ready to kick
back against the blandness
of Hear Say and Liberty X_"
More than a few people who came across Dee-Dee during his hey-day went away with the impression that he was either retarded, insane or both. He didn't do much to dispel this image when he quit the Ramones in the late SCI's to reinvent himself as a rapper called "Dee-Dee King" (this period didn't last too long...).
Dee Dee's was a life lived completely on the edge. He was a true New York gutter junkie and proud of if; the song 53rd and 3rd was an autobiographical piece recalling his time spent working as a rent boy to feed his smack habit on a notorious cruising spot in the lower east side.
The girl he once called the love of his life was a hooker called Connie, who once tried to cut Arthur Kane of the New York Dolls' right thumb off. At one point, he ended up in London, miserable, living in a flat in Westbourne Park and getting by day to day on a methadone script.
The Dee-Dee we became familiar within the later years had bleached blonde; cropped hair, plenty of tattoos and was a regular at the AA meetings around New York's St. Marks Place, Yup, he got sucked in by 12 Steppers and consequently tried to disassociate himself from his "old life" as a heroin addict and street rat. This made for a particularly nauseating autobiography, Poison Heart: Surviving the Ramones, which was ruined by the AA cllche's he trotted out towards the final chapters with the wide-eyed zeal of the newly converted.
This IS understandable in a country where AA is promoted as the ONLY alternative to using. Truth is, you'd be hard pressed to find a non-! 2 Step rehab anywhere in the US of A. It was a shame that the God Squad got their claws into Dee-Dee towards the end,and it does make you wonder if he'd stillbe alive today if he'd have stayed awayfrom those guys and carried on with his methadone script...?
Anyway, 12 Steps aside, Dee DeeRamone (or Douglas Colvin, as him mum called him) was found dead with a used syringe nearby. The coroner has since reached an open verdict, insinuating an accidental overdose. Rock 'n' roll has lost one of its greatest icons and most brilliant songwriters, and it really does feel like an era has ended. The ripped Levi's, scuffed Converse, leatherjacket and shades have become as potent a rock 'n' roll image as Elvis' quiff or Chuck Berry's 'duck walk' and they will endure, without a doubt. Let's just hope that a new generation of junkies, thieves and malcontents are out there and ready to kick back against the blandness of Hear' Say and Liberty X as the Ramones and the Pistols did against '70s crap like the Osmonds and the Bay City Rollers. I'd like to think that Dee- Dee has - in the words or the great William Burroughs - finally "scored for
the immaculate fix,"
Tony O'Neill
Black Poppy Magazine Issue 7
