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Issue 4March11-25, 2002Free Dannnnyy FFiieelldss phhotto BOOG CITY Hall of Fame Issue Hall ofFame Rock and Roll Rock andRoll Rock, Rock, The Ramones Play theThe Ramones White House Greg FuchsonLester p.14 Bangs’ Fangs, S Ramone Alone:Joey’s SoloDebut,p.11 Ramone eymour Stein:eymour P unk Breaks p.4 intoHallofFame, Hell’s B oog City Hot andCold Inside this issue: I nterview, p.6 nterview, , p. 13 over five feet tall, in a black motorcycle jacket with sleeves way too long for her arms, just grabbed me and slung me out of the way as she entered the fray. • As this issue developed, it became clear that practically anything that didn’t relate EDIT to music had to be held back, so, Sharon Mesmer and Michael Basinski fans, next issue, I swear. Two big thank yous go out on this issue. One to Risa Morley, one of two people I’ve I left U.S. soil for the first time in 1992, went to Montreal to go through the personal called my best friends since I was 19, both of whom I met at the alternative college papers of the 1960s counterculture figure and co-founder of the San Francisco Diggers newspaper, The new voice, at Hofstra University. Emmett Grogan at his widow Louise’s home. There I hung out with Emmett’s son, Max. Risa has worked in the music industry since she was 17, the last 12 years at Sire We walked the city and talked a little bit about the father he never really knew. But Records with Seymour Stein, the man who signed the Ramones and the Talking Heads, we spoke more about his city, my city, and the arts, with the topic turning to music among so many other musical acts, including Madonna, to their first major-label deals. quickly. I was in a big Stan Getz phase then, one from which, quite thankfully, I’ve She granted us incredible access into this world, and, for this, we are grateful. never recovered. But all that access would have gone for naught if we didn’t have the person with the Max said he was going to see the Ramones that night, would I like to come. And, so, knowledge and vision to pull it all together. A big here I was, a native New Yorker leaving his country for the first time to see a band that welcome, and thank you, to our music editor, James played minutes away from me all the time. Wilk. The vision of this editorial package is as much Letters to the Editor: The Ramones were deep into their second decade of playing together, and were his as mine. James is the lead guitarist for one of tighter than tight. Each song led right into the next, with only a one-two-three bridging my favorite bands, The Imaginary Numbers, and email to them. It was the first show I’d ever seen that had a pit and that wasn’t in a 100-capacity it’s particularly great to have rock criticism written [email protected] club. Max and I stood on the outside looking in, as a young red-haired woman, a bit by one who does, rather than sees. reads work for Boog City or other consideration BOOG CITY (send SASE with no more than 5 poems or pages of any type of art or writing. Email subs Issue four, March 11-25 2002 lexicons editor thanks also accepted. In subject line put Sub: Boog City, free Kristin Prevallet My family, Danny Fields [Poetry/Prose/Journalism].). editor/publisher cover package editors np Letters to the editor: [email protected] David A. Kirschenbaum Ian and Kimberly Wilder The Hissyfits, Letters From Frank Send SASE or email for Boog catalog. art director technical support First printing, 3,000 copies. Additional copies of this issue may be obtained by sending a Brian Ach Gerald Mcdonald, Daniel Saltzman Boog Literature $3 ppd. check or money order payable to Boog copy chief distributor 351 West 24th Street, Suite 19E Literature, to the address below, Attn: Boog Edmund Berrigan Donald Lev, Sunspot Distribution New York, NY 10011-1510 City. Paper is copyright Boog Literature, all counsel www.boogcity.com • [email protected] music and cover package editor rights revert to contributors upon publication. T: (212) 206-8899 F: (212) 206-9982 James Wilk Ian S.Wilder Boog City is published biweekly. Boog always Corrections: David Baratier edited the Columbus section in issue two of Boog City. We regret the omission. Columnist Greg Fuchs apologizes for, in issue two, “being his own private dunderheaded journalist. Habermas is alive and well. Check out his writing in the January/February 2002 issue of New Left Review. Sorry Jürgen for putting you in the, albeit esteemed but long gone, company of de Bord and Orwell.” Where to FindBOOG CITY The East Village alt.coffee Bluestockings Continental See Hear Angelica Theater women’s bookstore Lakeside Lounge Shakespeare & Co. Anthology Film Bowery Poetry Club Life Cafe St. Mark’s Books Archives Cafe Pick Me Up Living Room St. Mark’s Church Barnes & Noble CBGB’s Mission Cafe Sunshine Theater (Astor Place) CB’s 313 Gallery Nuyorican Poets Cafe Tonic Cedar Tavern The Pink Pony Tower Books Also Available in submit to the baseball HerManhattane CloWilliamsburgvis Press Philadelphia issue Kelly’s Writers House Hotel Chelsea of Boog City, to be edited by Douglas Earwax The Khyber Knitting Factory L Cafe Rothschild. Don’t strike out! Please send LaTazza words and/or art of a baseball state-of- Poets House Sideshow Gallery mind this way. Any and all considered. Revolution Books Spoonbill & Sugartown The issue will feature work from Basil WBAI King and Elinor Nauen and more. the Westbeth Theater Deadline: March 24 Via email to: [email protected] 2 BOOG CITY MARCH 11-25, 2002 Roberta Bayley photo/the Ramones: Ramones/Rykodisc reissue 3 BOOG CITY 11–25, 2002 11–25, Mick Rock photo/the Talking Heads: Talking Heads ‘77/Sire Records MARCH from CBGB’s to the Hall of Fame CBGB’s from Rock and Roll omorrow The World: The World: omorrow Tomorrow The World: The World: Tomorrow T … … The Ramones and the Talking Heads, and theThe Ramones Talking Today Your Love… Your Today R OCK, ROCK, ROCK A ND BY JAMES WILK The induction of the Ramones and the Talking Heads (see Zeppelin, Led). The music into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame later this month sounds of the day was, at best, the death knell for punk rock. Face it, punk rock, once the lifeless. Paper Lace’s “The most stridently outsider of pop music genres, is now as Night Chicago Died,” Terry establishment as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Isaac Jack’s version of Rod Hayes, and guitar picker Chet Atkins; all of whom will be McKuen’s “Season’s in the inducted alongside them this year. Sun,” and Tom Jones’ “Kung Ever since grunge reared it’s ugly head in the 1991 film Fu Fighting” were the chart- The Year Punk Broke, the influence of the 1970s punk toppers. There were very few bands has become impossible to ignore. TV commercials, clubs that would book new MTV, print advertising, fashion, bands made entirely of bands, and there were even kids born in the Reagan era, all scream what has become fewer that would let you play increasingly obvious—punk rock music is here to stay. It’s original music, but by August, official. It’s really exciting for anyone who grew up on the Ramones had moved into a “Blitzkrieg Bop” or who experienced “Life During residency at the relatively new Wartime” to see these two bands being celebrated, even CBGB’s in the East Village. though punk has often sneered at such accolades in the One of the most supportive past. clubs in New York, Max’s The Ramones and Kansas City, had been closed the Talking Heads were for a year while changing If the chosen in their first management. Bands year of eligibility by a gravitated to CBGB’s, which thousand of what the was opened in December of Ramones Rock and Roll Hall of ‘73. True to its’ name, which Fame refers to as “rock stands for Country Bluegrass were pop historians”. The bands Blues’s, the first band that have met hall’s criteria, played there was The Con which considers the Fullom Band, a bluegrass music at “influence and band from Maine. A few significance of artists months later, Tom Verlaine, contributing to the Richard Hell, and Richard its most development and Lloyd, all of the nascent perpetuation of rock Television, noticed the club simple and and roll.” and asked owner Hilly Kristal “This award is a about the possibilities of really great compliment getting a gig. Their manager, brutal … to the people we Terry Ork, convinced Hilly the worked with,” said Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth next day to book Television on in an interview with the Australian online zine Undercover. a Sunday, the one day “It really is an industry reward to all those people who CBGB’s did not feature bands. helped break our little band and got us to where we Hilly, feeling he had nothing to ended up. We are very proud of them all.” Or as the lose, agreed. Ork was able to Ramones might have put it, Gabba Gabba Hey! convince an initially unimpressed Hilly to book THE BIRTH OF THE RAMONES Television again, this time with a band from Queens that was The Ramones began their career in the high schools sure to bring a big following.