I was running along the Hudson River in lower Manhattan last week, listening to the Ramones on Amazon Music, when I was struck by an amusing notion – that the Ramones were a big part of the soundtrack of my childhood. No wonder I’m weird; I grew up hearing about pinheads and lobotomies and hustlers and shock treatment and cretins and thorazine and carbona (not glue).
I first heard about the Ramones in 1976, when I was nine years old. My brother Patrick started sneaking into CBGBs when he was 13 or so, and he saw the Ramones for the first time that year.