The Ramones 02/19/1978 Houston

Climbing out from under it with a plastic disc in my cold dead hand, I was going to try to spend a couple of hours doing something a little more vital than write a concert video review. Shit out of inspiration, I'm afraid. I have some friends that work at a Vegas show...I went and saw some Vegas show with dozens of people all dancing synchronized with music and lights. The audience sat stupifed and applauded at all the right parts, got up and wandered off in a million different directions and said it was great to whomever asked them what they did that day.

In 1978, who knew what the Ramones were? A secret society, more or less. Like everything that was ever really any good. Your friends let you hear it or it was at that one record store where all the fucked up people hung out. Maybe the radio wasn't Death on Earth at that point, but it was certainly nearly so.

The best quality of rock is the energy and Ramones had it in spades, and the energy is tempered with humor. All the aggressiveness or pretentiousness that kills most rock, for a broader audience, shouldn't stop you from the Ramones. The first four albums had their best CD era presentation on All the stuff vol. 1 and vol. 2 , these days it's all just a click away. Once those recordings have overwhelmed you, the next thing to do is to watch the end of the century which really manages a nice portrayal of these truly unique characters, all totally unsuited for anything else, somehow managing to create a world for themselves out of next to nothing.

As far as what i am describing here...here we have a single camera audience shot 1978 show. Shocking well done given the era. The audio from the camera has a very narrow frequency range and the highs are cut completely, no cymbals whatsoever. Surprisingly, it's very listenable, especially if you are capable of fussing with your player's EQ: there's no distortion, all the instruments balance real well. The cameraman is on Johnny's side of the stage and does a real good job of keeping track of the action. When he moves the camera, It takes a second or to for the autofocus to kick in...but it adds to the rawness and the feeling of the video. A great show. You watch it and wish that you were there.

show is 56:17 at 1.70 GB, MPEG2, AC3, NTSC, 29.9 fps 720X480... i did this tracklist on fast forward, so it might be a little off:

rockaway beach
lobotomy
blitzkrieg
i wanna be well
glad to see you go
shock treatment
he's gonna kill that girl
i don't care about this world
sheena
havana
here today
surfin bird
warm california sun
i don't wanna walk
pinhead
wanna dance
texas maxxacre
i wanna be good boy
down to the basement
sniff glue
happy family

I started this blog with no intention of sharing this stuff, but I realize that my clever commentary alone is not going to keep your attention. I clipped out a song of this show with vlc, converted it to a mov file with Super and put it up on youtube, I think I might do this with each post, leaving it up for a limited time and pulling it down with the next blog entry. I doubt the financial fate of those who own the legacy of the Ramones is going to suffer any negative impact. I doubt that this will incur the wrath of internet authority and fuck up all the pages I've posted to blogger...There's a million torrents and whole album blogs out there laying waste to the music industry- this is comparatively pretty harmless.



Watching End of The Century, made me wonder how much footage there is of the Ramones. Probably quite a bit, given the legacy of 2200+ concerts, 22 years and a museum in Berlin. Hopefully there's somebody out there who is meticulously cataloging it all. For me, the early stuff is always nice to see because it really evokes the time and place with its unique atmosphere. This Houston footage is probably one of the first full concerts. I found some guy at ramonesblog.com who's listed what he has collected:

1975-02-03 NYC-Rehearsal
1977-00-00 Swallow Your Pride, Pinhead (promo)
1977-00-00 Live in CBGB's, New York
1977-00-00 Swallow my pride, Pinhead, studio
1977-07-16 Houston, TX
1977-08-09 Don Kirschner Rock Concert
1977-12-31 Sheena is a punk rocker, Rainbow Theatre, London
1978-02-19 Houston, Texas
1978-09-13 Live in Bremen, Germany (FULL show)
1978-09-19 Old Grey Whistle Test (Don't come close, She's the one, Gone mental)
1978-12-28 San Francisco(with the Tubes)
1979-06-08 San Francisco, California Civic Center (California Sun; Pinhead)

Is there any band out there right now rocking as hard as the Ramones did circa 1978? I keep checking with the In the Red/ Hozac/ Goner set, to see if anybody happens to be carrying the fever, but I feel like the contenders are few. If you've happened upon this blog and are familiar with some under the radar hellraising, feel free to speak up in the comments...