Saturday, July 12, 2014

Last Surviving Founding Member of The Ramones Dies At 65

This piece has had numerous edits. I corrected the age in our headline, made a note that the drummer in the video is Marky not Tommy, changed the attendance figure for the US festival and added some timeline.
Other than that...regret the error etc.
From Rolling Stone:

Tommy Ramone, Founding Member of Influential Punk Band, Dies at 62
Drummer and producer Tommy Ramone, the last surviving original member of the influential New York punk quartet the Ramones, died Friday at his home in the Ridgewood area of Queens, New York. He was 62 and had been in hospice care following treatment for bile duct cancer.

Born Erdelyi Tamas in Budapest, Hungary, and known professionally as Tom or T. Erdelyi, Ramone played on the first three epoch-making Ramones albums, “Ramones” (1976), “Leave Home” (1977) and “Rocket to Russia” (1977). He also co-produced the latter two albums with Tony Bongiovi and Ed Stasium, respectively. He appeared on and co-produced the 1979 live Ramones opus “It’s Alive.”

After leaving the Ramones to concentrate on studio work, he co-produced the band’s 1984 album “Too Tough to Die” with Stasium. He was replaced in the lineup by Marc Bell (Marky Ramone), a former member of Dust and Richard Hell’s Voidoids.

One of the first high-profile releases to emerge from New York’s punk underground of the mid-‘70s, “Ramones” – reportedly recorded in six days on a budget of $6,400 – brought a pared-down, hyperactive style to the stuffy rock scene of the day. Tommy’s driving, high-energy drum work was the turbine that powered the leather-clad foursome’s loud, antic sound....MORE
Here they are at Steve Wozniak's US Festival (1982), playing the song that became our theme for the market meltdown in September 2008. Although by this time Tommy had been replaced by Marky on drums he stayed close to the band, co-producing 1984's "Too Tough to Die".

Plus I couldn't find any video of him playing this song, it came out on Road to Ruin (co-producer credit) just about the time he left to do more producing.

I think there are 500K 425K in attendance: