There is so much to say about this band. To say it changed my life is an understatement.
I had only been marginally aware of the band before, but in the spring and summer of 1987 I had a sort of awakening. My best friend at the time was turning me on to all sorts of music. I was mostly stuck in a rut listening to general rock bands, but did casually like a few “modern” bands such as Devo, Cheap Trick and Eurythmics.
Getting turned on to Echo & The Bunnymen was one thing, but when he handed me that cassette of Too Tough To Die, I was hooked. This was the stuff that resonated with me down to the core. While I had been mildly interested in music history up to that point in my life, I dove headlong into it. How could I have gotten so far into my life without being a fan of this band?
I picked up a couple of albums and between my friend and I we had almost each of the nine albums the band had released up to that point. When Halfway To Sanity came out I made sure to pick it up as soon as I could.
At the time many Ramones albums were difficult to come by. Because of a lack of hit singles on the radio the albums weren’t produced in large quantities. Even at the used record stores they weren’t readily found.
It was with some elation I finally found a copy of Pleasant Dreams on cassette. It was the last of the band’s albums to round out our mutual/joint collection. We were friends with a movie theater projectionist at the time. The record store was down the bock from the movie theater, so we went there to say “hello” before heading back to listen to the album. She offered to pipe the cassette through theater’s sound system. I will never forget dancing around, listening to the Ramones at near full volume in a movie theater.
Before the Ramones entered my life I liked music, but was a fan of one band only. After, I became a fan of music.
Because my first “major” concert was a bust I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to more live shows. Thankfully my second concert would be far better. While that is a story for another time, I do want to mention that from then on I was sure to try and catch as many bands as I could while they were on tour, something which I still do today.