Customer Reviews

Ramonetures

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a qreat disc! Put simply it's the ramones music played in a ventures w/ fuzz-tone guitar. The lead guitarist is none other than the king of the fuzz guitar : Davie Allan!! Other members include Johnny Bartlett of the phantom surfers and DJ Bonebrake from X ! This is instermental surf-punk @ it's best! A must have 4 any fan of the Ramones or Ventures. As if that wasen't cool enough the cover has a black haired girl,toppless(huge knockers w/lots-o-cleavage) except a leather jacket and jeans,holding a white johnny ramone style Mosrite guitar with a back round of a brick wall. Just like the legendary 1st ramones lp! Great project idea, awesome disc!!! 5 stars all the way!

This listing has no information regarding this import release, but it has the same title of a turn-of-the-millennium release on Blood Red Vinyl and Discs out of Portland, Oregon. This disc answers the musical question you probably never thought of asking: "What if the Ventures were to timewarp back to the mid-60's and do a whole disc of Ramones covers"?

The perpetrators of this rather elaborate in-joke/send-up are mainly guitarists Mel Bergman and Davie Allan (histories in the guitar instrumental field with the Phantom Surfers, The Arrows, countless biker flick and surf soundtracks, etc.) The 16 Ramones songs covered focus primarily on their first few Ramones albums and only include one song later than the 1981 "Pleasant Dreams" disc (The title song to the movie "Pet Semetary") There are even a couple of somewhat obscure songs from around the time of their "Leave Home" disc: "Carbona Not Glue" (which was cut from the disc after the initial pressing) and "Babysitter" (a B-side, although both of these songs are now on the 2002 Rhino reissue of "Leave Home").

The sound? Well, it does indeed sound like the Ventures, circa 1966(Their "Wild Things" album, for example)performing most of these songs. Davie Allan's fuzztone approximate sthe Mosrite-fuzz sound the Ventures were getting around that timeframe, and this sound provides the melody-lines on the many of the songs. There are some kitchy Ventures touches like occasional female backing vocals and even a reverb-soaked slow surf version of "I Wanna Be Well", which is one of the discs highlights. On "Rock and Roll Radio", the song opens with some radio-dial searching (as the Ramones song does), but the "signal" cleverly lingers for a few seconds on the Ramones doing "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" and the Ventures doing "Walk Don't Run `64" just before the Ramonetures launch into their cover.

This is a grin-inducing novelty instrumental disc that is probably not going to win fans of either band, but if you're already a huge fan of both of the bands providing the inspirations, you probably need this disc to satisfy your curiosity. Casual fans and innocent bystanders will find this unnecessary and maybe even boring. The whopping above-listed import price is a strong deterrent, ...

Somebody came up with the idea of doing Ramones songs Ventures style. And that's exactly what this CD is. It sounds like the late '60s era Ventures playing songs by the Ramones. Actually, the idea isn't as far out as it sounds. Johnny Ramone started out playing a Ventures guitar, so there is some connection between the groups. If you are a fan of both groups, like myself, you should really get a kick out of this CD. It's just plain fun. One neat thing I want to mention is that in the beginning of "Do You Remember Rock 'N' Roll Radio?" there is the sound of a radio being tuned, and you can hear a few seconds of "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" by the Ramones and "Walk, Don't Run '64" by the Ventures. Recommended to Ramones and Ventures fans. Oh, by the way, here is the track listing:

1. Glad to See You Go
2. Rockaway Beach
3. Blitzkrieg Bop
4. She's the One
5. Babysitter
6. Rock 'N' Roll High School
7. She's a Sensation
8. Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World
9. Do You Remember Rock 'N' Roll Radio?
10. I Wanna Be Well
11. Carbona Not Glue
12. The KKK Took My Baby Away
13. Cretin Hop
14. Oh Oh I Love Her So
15. I Wanna Be Sedated
16. Pet Semetary

An interesting project - along the lines of Big Daddy's albums that re-imagined 70s and 80s hits in 50s and 60s arrangements.

But those worked better.

And the reason that they did is that the originals and their versions were at similar levels of musicianship - the "Star Wars" theme re-imagined as "Duane Eddy Meets the Ventures", or "Ebony and Ivory" as Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis might have done it.

The problem here is that the Ventures were too good, too sophisticated compared to the Ramones to make it work.

Understand - i love both groups; i was sixteen in 1964 and i remember the Ventures original radio hits. And i was around thirty when the Ramones exploded onto the scene, and i was ready for their aggressive brand of minimalist high-speed pop, after the horrors of prog-rock and disco. At the time, it looked almost as if the Ramones - all by themselves - might save popular music.

And they might have if Clear Channel (ptui!) hadn't come along. But that's another story for another day.

But the Ventures' style was almost a definition of smooth and even sometimes slick, and the Ramones were intentionally raw and hard-edged.

And, for me, the two styles just don't combine well.

But not really badly, either - almost all of the tracks are quite listenable; particular standouts being "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "Rockaway Beach" and "Blitzkrieg Bop" (though i could have done without the gimmicky vocal inclusions - the count-off at the beginning of "Rockaway Beach" doesn't sound right, and actually seems to me to be the wrong tempo, and the "Hey Ho - let's go!" chant on "Blitzkrieg Bop" just sounds silly.

"Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio" is, as another review notes, well-thought-out ... except for those same stupid voices mangling the "Rock 'n' roll radio - let's go!" chant. (Also the drums sound a little wrong, but i can't quite say why.)

While i enjoyed it, and i'm not sorry that i got it, i can't really recommend this to anyone who's not a fan (to some extent, at least) both bands, and it's not the first thing i'd recommend buying even then - personally, if you want to hear genre-bent instrumentals of Ramones tunes, i'd say you ought to try Rockabilly Tribute to the Ramones by Full-Blown Cherry..

Although the Ramones meets the Ventures may sound a bit odd to the average fan of punk,this cd is exactly that.Fun for the whole happy family.
It is great road music as well as the kind of music any Ramones fan sittin' in the dental chair or riding to the highest plains above in an elevator would give his(her)hard earned cash for.
Now if only Amazon could aquire the Blood Red release of the X compilation by the Ramoneatures,all would be right with the world.