Tommy Ramone

Tommy Ramone during an autograph session in 2008

Tommy Ramone , actually Tamás Erdélyi , (born January 29, 1949 in Budapest , Hungary , † July 11, 2014 in Queens , New York City ) was a Hungarian - American musician . He was a founding member, drummer and producer of the punk rock band Ramones . He was the last living member from the early days of the group. Erdélyi was known under his real name (as Thomas Erdélyi, also shortened to T. Erdélyi ) for his work as a producer for other performers. In addition to drums, he played guitar , banjo , fiddle and mandolin . In the years before his death, he had turned to the music genre bluegrass .

Life

Pre-Ramones

In 1956, immediately after the Soviet troops marched in in response to the Hungarian popular uprising , the Jewish Erdélyi family (original surname Grunewald , later replaced by the Hungarian name for Transylvania ) emigrated from Budapest to the USA via Austria . The reason for this was increasing anti-Semitic discrimination in their home country. The family settled in New York City . Tamás Erdélyi attended Forest Hills High School in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, New York . There he made friends with the later founding members of the Ramones; all three were his classmates and lived in his neighborhood. In the mid-1960s he was a guitarist with John Cummings (later known as Johnny Ramone ) in the school band Tangerine Puppets . After leaving school, he first worked as a sound engineer and founded the recording studio Performance Studio in Midtown Manhattan with his friend and later tour manager of the Ramones, Monte Melnick . Between 1967 and 1973 he was also a member of the New York hard rock bands Triad and Butch , in which he played electric guitar , with Melnick .

Founder, drummer and producer of the Ramones

In the early 1970s, influenced by the simply structured rock music of the New York Dolls , Erdélyi developed the plan to found a rock band that should put more emphasis on the joy of playing than on virtuosity: “When I saw the Dolls, I thought wow that is Interesting. Here's a band that can't play very well, but they're the most exciting and entertaining thing around. […] I had these friends in Forest Hills and I thought it would be great to start a band with these guys. ” In February 1974 he met his former school friends John Cummings (electric guitar) and Douglas Colvin (later Dee Dee Ramone , Electric bass ) to buy musical instruments (again) and to found a band. The new group's first drummer was Jeffrey Hyman (later known as Joey Ramone ). The artistic concept of the band also came from Erdélyi. The Ramones' first live performance (as a trio) took place on March 30, 1974 in Erdélyi's Performance Studio . After Hyman switched from drums to vocals at Erdélyi's suggestion, the band needed a new drummer. Erdélyi turned out to be suitable for the task, as his simple playing style as a beginner on the instrument complemented the style of the rest of the band ideally. When he joined the group, like the rest of the band members, he took the stage name Ramone and adopted the pseudonym Tommy Ramone . At the beginning of the band's career he was the group's advisor, who was also responsible for the band's self-promotion. Tommy Ramone wrote the Ramones composition I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend and most of the song Blitzkrieg Bop (started under the working title Animal Hop ), both of which were released on the band's debut album. Blitzkrieg Bop became one of the band's most famous pieces and one of their trademarks with his battle cry “Hey-ho, let's go!” .

In addition to his role as a drummer, Tommy Ramone was involved in the production of the first album Ramones (1976) due to his studio experience . He was the main producer on the band's next albums, Leave Home (1977), Rocket to Russia (1977), Road to Ruin (1978) and It's Alive (1979) - in cooperation with Tony Bongiovi and Ed Stasium . In 1978 he left the band after an extensive tour of the USA due to exhaustion and concentrated on his work as a producer. He was replaced by Marc Bell, previously drummer with Richard Hell and The Voidoids , who became known as Marky Ramone from then on . Tommy Ramones last release as the Ramones drummer is the 1977 live album It's Alive . In 1984 he worked for the group for the last time as a producer and co-produced with Ed Stasium their studio album Too Tough to Die .

Post-Ramones and solo work

In 2002, the song The Bowery Electric by the New York musician Jed Davis was recorded in honor of Joey Ramone, who had died of cancer the previous year , with Tommy Ramone responsible for percussion and production. The Bowery Electric is the only recording that Tommy Ramone and Ramones bassist CJ Ramone were involved in together. The following year he produced the EP WCYF for Jed Davis' band Collider under his real name T. Erdélyi . On October 8, 2004, he performed together with Elvis Ramone ( Clem Burke ), CJ Ramone and Daniel Rey at the Ramones benefit concert for US cancer research, "Ramones Beat on Cancer" (German: "The Ramones beat cancer").

In the past few years, Erdélyi made a musical style change from punk rock to country music - bluegrass . Under his old stage name Tommy Ramone, he founded the mostly acoustic instrument-playing duo Uncle Monk . The self-titled album Uncle Monk was released in early 2006 with the line-up of Tommy Ramone (vocals, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo) and Claudia Tienan (vocals, guitar, bass) . The duo have since toured the US regularly.

Sickness and death

Tommy Ramone died on July 11, 2014 at his home in Queens , New York City . He died of bile duct cancer, a very rare type of cancer.

Honors, awards

• In 2002, Tommy Ramone was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with other members of the Ramones .
• In 2011 he received a special Grammy , the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, for his life's work - also together with other members of the Ramones .
• In 2016, Rolling Stone listed him as 70th of the 100 best drummers of all time .

literature

• Steven Lee Beeber: The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's. A Secret History of Jewish Punk. Chicago Review Press, Chicago IL 2006, ISBN 978-1-55652-761-6 , pp. 103 ff .: Chapter A Jewish American Band - the Hebraic Foundations of the Ramones. (English).
• Monte A. Melnick, Frank Meyer: On tour with the Ramones. Hannibal, Höfen 2011, ISBN 978-3-85445-327-7 (English).
• Everett True: Hey Ho Let's Go. The Story of The Ramones. Omnibus, London / New York NY 2002, ISBN 0-7119-9108-1 (English).

Web links

Commons : Tommy Ramone  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website of the Uncle Monk project by Tommy Ramone
• Interview with Tommy Ramone in NZZ Folio (December 2008)
• Speech by Tommy Ramones at the presentation of a Lifetime Achievement Award Grammy on February 12, 2011 (YouTube video, accessed on February 16, 2011. Adobe Flash plug-in required.)
• Tommy Ramone in theInternet Movie Database(English)
• Ben Sisario: Tommy Ramone Dies at 65; He Gave Punk Rock Its Pulse. Obituary in The New York Times, July 12, 2014
• All Good Cretins: Legs McNeil Remembers Tommy Ramone . Obituary by Legs McNeil, co-founder / author of Punk Magazine and contemporary witness, on the Spin Magazine website(accessed July 14, 2014)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Everett True: Hey Ho Let's Go. The Story of The Ramones, p. 18
2. ↑ Harry Sumrall: Pioneers of rock and roll: 100 artists who changed the face of rock, p. 217
3. ^ Monte A. Melnick, Frank Meyer: On Tour with the Ramones, p. 21
4. ↑ Beeber: The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s , p. 107 f.
5. ^ Melnick: On the Road with the Ramones , pp. 20 f.
6. ^ Melnick: On the Road with the Ramones , pp. 22 ff.
7. ↑ “When I saw the Dolls I thought 'Wow, this is interesting. Here's a band that doesn't play very well but they're the most exiting thing going on and the most entertaining. ' [...] I had these friends in Forest Hills and thought that it would be great to put a band together with these guys. " - Tommy Ramone, translated and quoted from Melnick: On the Road with the Ramones , p. 30
8. ↑ “Tommy designed the band. [...] Tommy was the architect. " - Ramones manager Danny Fields , quoted in Beeber: The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB’s , p. 104
9. ^ Melnick: On the Road with the Ramones , p. 282: Tour Dates .
10. ^ Melnick: On the Road with the Ramones , p. 32 ff.
11. ↑ Nicholas Rombes: Ramones . Continuum International Publishing Group, New York NY / London 2005, ISBN 0-8264-1671-3 , p. 83.
12. ↑ Mickey Leigh, Legs McNeil: I Slept With Joey Ramone. A family memoir. Simon & Schuster, New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-7432-5216-4 , p. 121.
13. ↑ Ramones punk band founder Tommy dies, aged 65 on BBC News, July 12, 2014, accessed July 12, 2014
14. ↑ 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. Rolling Stone , March 31, 2016, accessed August 6, 2017 .