Hey! Ho! You Better Go!

Hey! Ho! You Better Go!
Marky Ramone Brings His Act to Chico State
By Nicole Seredszun

On a nation-wide tour that will hit such cities as Detroit, Seattle and Washington D.C. before moving on to Europe next fall, is "Around The World With The Ramones: A Multimedia Lecture / Video Experience Featuring Marky Ramone." This spoken word / lecture tour will be coming to Chico State on April 6, with Marky Ramone, member of legendary punk group, The Ramones, giving a lecture on his time with the band. This lecture was prepared as a way for Marky to relay his experiences as drummer for a band that helped create punk rock and which changed popular music as we now know it.

By the time Marc Bell, a.k.a., Marky Ramone became a member of The Ramones in 1978, he had already recorded two albums with the heavy metal band, Dust; toured England opening for The Clash with Richard Heil & The Voidoids; and drummed for Wayne County and the Backstreet Boys. Marky replaced original drummer, Tommy Ramone, who left the band to pursue a producing career.

After touring with The Ramones, performing on several records, including Road To Ruin, and co-starring in the movie, Rock 'n' Roll High School in 1983, due to a severe drinking problem, Marky was asked to leave the band, and was replaced by Richie Ramone. In 1987, when Richie quit the band, Marky returned, clean and sober to rejoin the band. His drinking problems will be one of the areas discussed in the lecture.

"I'm not a preacher. Quitting drinking to me was very important, [but my lecture] is not an A.A. meeting," Marky said, laughing. "There will be a part about me not being in the band and then coming back, and all the instances that went along with the drinking: the craziness, the accidents, the institutions and the rehabs and seeing things that weren't there, you know, the DTs. It's important to talk about, because—luckily—a lot of people do come back."

The lecture was created to focus on Marky's own experiences with the punk rock movement that will also include a slide show and video section.

"I'm going to talk about the punk scene in the ‘70s, my relationship with it, and how it started," Marky explained. "I have a nice slide show and I have a nice video put together of stuff that I was on: David Letterman, The Simpsons, Howard Stern... all that stuff. I'll be talking [about] incidents that happened regarding the punk scene: meeting SidVicious, hanging out with him and Johnny Thunders and the other Ramones. The slide show is basically group things and certain photos that I have of other famous people that we hung around with. Interesting stuff."

Since the break-up of The Ramones in 1996, Marky has been working with his own band, Marky Ramone & The Intruders. It was with original Intruders member, Skinny Bones (who was later asked to leave the band because of a heroin problem), that Marky finally gained the courage to write his first songs, "Have A Nice Day," "Anxiety," and "The Job That Ate My Brain," which were included on the final two Ramones albums, Mondo Bizarro and Adios Amigos.

"I started writing music in The Ramones. I never thought I could, but I eventually wrote my first album for Marky Ramone & The Intruders, and I just finished a second one two weeks ago that Lars [Frederiksen] from Rancid produced. I never thought I could write, but they're coming out a mile a minute here. [Before] I was mainly into just making sure that my drums stuff was good and up to par to the song."

Also in 1996, with ex-Ramones member, Dee Dee, Marky created the band, The Remains. But Marky claims the band was put together, "just for fun. Dee Dee wrote 80 percent of The Ramones’ material, and we play once and awhile. [The Remains] are getting a lot of offers, and it's getting very hard to turn down. I love Dee Dee, we're the best of friends and if we start taking it more seriously we will start touring as The Remains, just two Ramones [with Barbara Ramone, Dee Dee's wife, on bass] playing stuff that we want to play."

The idea for the multimedia lecture came from an appearance Marky made on The Howard Stern Show. After the interview on the radio show he was approached by, "the guy who handles Henry Rollins. He thought I came off well on The Howard Stern Show, because of the way I talked, or whatever. He asked if I wanted to do a spoken word [tour]. I asked what it involved, where I would go and what I would have to do. He sent me all the information and it looked interesting and like a challenge. I never did it before. There's a lot of stuff that I went through and I'll talk about it."

When asked whether he would consider this tour to be "spoken word" or "lecture," Marky responded, "I don't know what to call it. I'm not a comedian, but I know I can be funny at times. I have a lot of things to say [but] I'm not a lecturer. I guess I'm just a Ramone, talking about Ramone stuff and the punk scene, who I knew and all the crazy stuff."

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