Can you remember the first time you listened to a record or cd that meant a lot to you? Well I don’t know how many hundreds (thousands?) of records, cassettes and cds I’ve listened to in my ninety-seven years, but I can only recall one that held a lot of significance to me – and that was the Ramones first album.
I only bought it because Cream gave it a good review (Cream was an old rock magazine). They had turned me on to bands like Iggy and the Stooges, The Dictators and others, and I respected and trusted them indubitably. They tried to describe what the Ramones record sounded like (at that point I hadn’t heard anything by the Ramones), but maybe they didn’t want to try too hard as to not scare people away. You have to remember that in 1976 music was the time of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers etc. The most stripped down rock of the time came from Iggy and the Stooges and the Modern Lovers.
So anyway, during this time, I had heard crazy stuff like avante-garde jazz, but nothing was quite as shocking to me as this album. First of all, I never heard rock songs that lasted less than three minutes, never heard rock songs without guitar solos and never heard rock songs with lyrics only four lines long (like, “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue”). And why was that, you may ask? Well because, before this album, songs like that never existed.
I remember sitting in my room listening to the record on my stereo and saying to myself, “What the fuck is this?” but also saying, “I kinda like it.” I had listened to tons of albums at this point, but nothing stuck in my mind like this experience. I guess hearing this album for the first time might be comparable to someone hearing Elvis Presley or some other rock’n’roller for the first time.
Anyways, that’s my story. I encourage everyone listening to give us your story. Even if it’s not a first time experience, maybe its some cd that changed your musical way of life (I would say this one did it for me).
(Jim Slimedog)
