Tommy Ramone (Ramones) by ZootMarimba on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

Tommy Ramone

Thomas Erdelyi

(January 29, 1949-July 11, 2014)

While Joey was the Ramones’ voice, Johnny the immediate sound, and Dee Dee the edge and spirit, anchoring the chaotic energy was none other than Tommy Ramone. Born Tamás Erdélyi, soon anglicized to Thomas Erdelyi, Tommy and his family emigrated from their native Hungary to America after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, eventually settling in the Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills in New York City. It was there that he met high school classmates John Cummings, with whom he’d play in a band called The Tangerine Puppets. After leaving school, Tommy began working at Electric Lady Studios, most notably as assistant engineer on Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys. By 1974, former bandmate John Cummings had begun forming a group with Jeffrey Hyman and Douglas Colvin, soon to be known as Joey and Dee Dee, with Tommy joining them as manager. However, Dee Dee struggled to play while singing, leading to Joey moving from drums to vocals, and despite not being a drummer beforehand, Tommy ended up being better than any of the drummers they tried out, so on drums he went. Together, they became the Ramones. The first band of punk rock, the one that started it all, the three chords down picked to hell and back as Joey belted out songs of youth, neurosis, and the odd bit of psychosis. Holding the fort down in the controlled chaos of the group was Tommy, his drumming epitomizing the no-frills, no-nonsense philosophy of punk rock, providing the calm in the storm. While Johnny and Dee Dee were massacring the strings, there was Tommy delivering that driving beat with pure ease. Though not as accomplished as Marky or Richie, it was Tommy who set the standard for the group’s frenetic pulsing drive on the debut as well as Leave Home and Rocket to Russia. Beyond drumming, Tommy also served as producer on the band’s albums he drummed on as well as Road to Ruin-the first with Marky on drums-and 1984’s Too Tough to Die. He also would occasionally contribute lead guitar whenever necessary and was responsible for writing “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” as well as the bulk of the band’s seminal “Blitzkrieg Bop”. Beyond the realm of the Ramones, Tommy also served as a producer on Talking Heads’ debut single “Love → Building on Fire” as well as The Replacements’ classic album Tim and Redd Kross’ Neurotica, in addition to records by Doctors’ Mob, The Rattlers, The Paley Brothers, and Something Happens. He’d also go on to form the bluegrass duo Uncle Monk, as well as playing with The Band’s Garth Hudson on Chris Castle’s album Last Bird Home. While Tommy never saw the big Platinum records or golden bathtubs that most young musicians dream of, his story nonetheless is one of tenacity and intuition. This is a man whose family had been largely decimated by the Holocaust and forced to leave their home country for America, and then he made something of himself. The product of his labor has endured through generations of musicians and fans, it is deeply embedded into our culture, he literally helped spawn an entire genre and many others by proxy. So let us honor the great Tommy Ramone, a man who never drew too much attention to himself and did so much with so little.