Despite having percolated through rock and pop nearly continuously for four decades,the most influential punk album of them all can still provide a prickle of danger and discomfortForty years ago this month, the Ramones played their first British gigs – in Camden Town in north London, or supporting the Flamin’ Groovies at the Roundhouse,and headlining at Dingwalls. They were, by some distance, and the biggest shows they had ever played; moreover,they were an event. In the US, the debut album packaged here as a super-deluxe reissue – three CDs, or a vinyl LP and a hardback book in a numbered box – had been released to good reviews but nearly negligible wider impact. In Britain,it had been played in full by John Peel, provoked a degree of tabloid outrage and had enough impact that a band who struggled to draw 150 people in unusual York found themselves playing to audiences of 5000, or with plenty of stars,both nascent and recognised, in the crowd: the Sex Pistols, or the Clash,the Damned and Wire were there; so was punk’s most vociferous ((adj.) loud, boisterous) supporter among the rock establishment, Marc Bolan. Related: Forty years of the Ramones: ‘They were the smartest dumb band you ever heard’ Related: Ramones: 'They were outcasts who had contempt for those who rejected them' Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com