Johnny Ramone, Patti Smith and Jay-Z: Three of a kind

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

I FIRST MOVED to New York City in 1997. I was living there when Joey Ramone passed away in 2001, Dee Dee Ramone in 2002, and Johnny Ramone in 2004. Each death seemed to send convulsions through the city’s music scene, but as much as I tried I never felt like I entirely “got” the Ramones. I’d occasionally venture this admission to some elder statesman of the Lower East Side only to be met with that withering dismissal: “You weren’t there.”

There’s something so New York about this — as New York as the Ramones, really. New York City offers up inimitable cultural experiences along with an inimitable self-regard for those experiences, like gazing out a window at an expanse of beauty while keeping one eye fixed on your own reflection in the glass. “You weren’t there” is hipness accumulating at the expense of generosity.

Salon.com > Lower East Side

Johnny Ramone, Patti Smith and Jay-Z: Three of a kind