Books like Ramones: An American Band

In 1995 Ben Weasel wrote a Maximum Rocknroll column about what was appropriate to wear as a punk, be it to a show or just to head out on errands. I won't give all of his rules, of which there are many, but the gist of them are that the only acceptable way to dress, if one must dress as a punk, is to dress like the Ramones. T-shirt, black leather jacket with no spikes and if pins must be attached then they have to be US pins on the collar, jeans, a sneakers, preferably Converse (this is before Nike owned Converse). Ramones t-shirts were I'm sure fine for Mr. Weasel, because in 1995 no one really wore Ramones shirts that didn't actually like the Ramones. Actually in 1995 the Ramones didn't really have that many US fans outside of the punk world, case in point I saw them that year in a shitty club in Massachutes that I also saw The Queers at. They both sold the place out, but seriously the Queers were never bigtime. People respected the Ramones, but they weren't big time. It would take the band finally calling it quits, and three of the original four members dropping dead before you couldn't spit on an East Village Street without hitting some hipster looking fuck in a Ramones Shirt. And those shirts come in all kinds of colors, purple and pink and red and blue, colored Ramones shirts to match whatever outfit one chooses to wear. You'd think that the Ramones had been as big as the Rolling Stones or something, but no. Where is this going? As an amendment to Ben Weasel's rules, I propose that no Ramones shirts shall ever be worn that come in any color besides black or white. If you wear any other color Ramones shirt you are a tool, an idiot, a douchebag, some kind of fashionista or some other kind of sub-human slime that deserves to be mocked, ridiculed and rejected from all civilized society. It's that fucking serious. Wearing any other color Ramones shirt is like covering a Ramones song but picking UP and DOWN as opposed to only DOWN. You say it doesn't make a difference, and it sounds the same, but really it's just how it's done. No arguments, you are making a mockery of a great band by wearing these shirts and looking like a hipster douchebag. Now what about the book? It's not very good. It's written in a breezy, very fanboy like manner that reads like something that should be in a magazine like Bop, or in one of those corporate 'fanzines' that were produced in the 90's to try to give credibility to sleazy money grubbing record labels trying to make a quick buck. Not to say this isn't sincere, I believe that the author loves the band, but he's just not a very good writer, and while I know he is old enough to know better, he comes across like a gushing teenage girl. There is also no critical awareness to this book. If you never listened to the Ramones and read this book you would believe that they got better with every record, so that as a result Mondo Bizzaro is there best record ever, and that even records like Brain Drain and Subterranean Jungle were better than their first record and Rocket to Russia (the book was written in 1993, so the author knows nothing of Acid Eaters or Adios Amigos). This just isn't true, I've yet to meet a single person who admits to liking more than a few songs off of any of their post-End of the Century albums (EOTC being a questionable record also, feelings generally being mixed about it's inclusion into the pantheon of great Ramones albums, some people including only the first four and call EOTC crap that Phil Spector ruined. Myself I believe that the Ramones only really made two great albums, their self-titled debut and Rocket to Russia (album number 3) with Leave Home and Road to Ruin as good albums, End of the Century as ok and everything else as forgettable, with a good song here and there), and it seems strange reading a book where the author keeps talking about how they got better and better over time. They don't though, the Ramones are great when they do what they do best and that is play short fast songs, once they get too thinky about the songs they go bad. To display the authors total lack of critical awareness though one only has to look at the praise he throws towards Dee Dee Ramone's solo rap project under the name Dee Dee King. You'd think that Dee Dee had made It Takes a Nation of Millions or Straight Outta Compton, a seminal hip-hop record, instead of what the album actually was (it's terrible, funny but terrible). The third to last chapter also was edited worse than my review, but that's not meant to be nit picky, it just looked like the copy editor decided to not bother with that one. All and all the book was kind of breezy and fun, but filled with too many exclamation points and fanboy gushings that made me wince every time they popped up (which was about once a page at least). I would love to read a real biography on the Ramones and not a sugar coated authorized biography that this is.