Tag Archives: The Ramones

Music Video of the Day: Do You Remember Rock’n’Roll Radio? by The Ramones (1980, directed by Mark Robinson)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

On August 1st, 1981, MTV premiered. Over the course of 24 hours, 166 unique music videos were played on MTV.  Yes, there was a time when the M actually did stand for music.

After airing Let’s Go by The Cars, MTV re-aired several videos that had previously been broadcast that day, April Wine’s Just Between You And Me, Lee Ritenour’s Mr. Briefcase, David Bowie’s Fashion, and Pat Benatar’s I’m Gonna Follow You. After those four videos, the Ramones finally made their MTV debut with the video for Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio? This song, which was produced by Phil Spector, featured what was considered to be a new sound for the Ramones but it’s message that the radio should play newer artists instead of just focusing on nostalgia was definitely a familiar Ramones theme.

This video, which predicts MTV in some ways, was directed by Mark Robinson. Robinson directed several music videos in the 80s, for artists like Bob Dylan, Eddie Money, and Pat Benatar. He also did the video for The Pretenders’s Brass In The Pocket, which also aired during MTV’s first day.

Enjoy!

The First Videos Shown on MTV:

  1. Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles
  2. You Better Run by Pat Benatar
  3. She Won’t Dance With Me by Rod Stewart
  4. You Better You Bet By The Who
  5. Little Suzi’s On The Up by PH.D
  6. We Don’t Talk Anymore by Cliff Richard
  7. Brass in Pocket by Pretenders
  8. Time Heals by Todd Rundgren
  9. Take It On The Run by REO Speedwagon
  10. Rockin’ in Paradise by Styx
  11. When Things Go Wrong by Robin Lane & The Chartbusters
  12. History Never Repeats by Split Enz
  13. Hold On Loosely by .38 Special
  14. Just Between You And Me by April Wine
  15. Sailing by Rod Stewart
  16. Iron Maiden by Iron Maiden
  17. Keep On Loving You by REO Speedwagon
  18. Better Than Blue by Michael Johnson
  19. Message of Love by The Pretenders
  20. Mr. Briefcase by Lee Ritenour
  21. Double Life by The Cars
  22. In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins
  23. Looking for Clues by Robert Palmer
  24. Too Late by Shoes
  25. Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
  26. Do Ya Think I’m Sexy by Rod Stewart
  27. Surface Tension by Rupert Hine
  28. One Step Ahead by Split Enz
  29. Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty
  30. I’m Gonna Follow You by Pat Benatar
  31. Savannah Nights by Tom Johnston
  32. Lucille by Rockestra
  33. The Best of Times by Styx
  34. Vengeance by Carly Simon
  35. Wrathchild by Iron Maiden
  36. I Wanna Be a Lifeguard by Blotto
  37. Passion by Rod Stewart
  38. Oliver’s Army by Elvis Costello
  39. Don’t Let Me Go by REO Speedwagon
  40. Remote Control and Illegal by The Silencers
  41. Angel of the Morning by Juice Newton
  42. Little Sister by Rockpile with Robert Plant
  43. Hold On To The Night by Bootcamp
  44. Dreamin’ by Cliff Richard
  45. Is It You? by Lee Ritenour 
  46. Tusk by Fleetwood Mac
  47. He Can’t Love You by Michael Stanley Band
  48. Tough Guys by REO Speedwagon
  49. Rapture by Blondie
  50. Don’t Let Go The Coat by The Who
  51. Ain’t Love A Bitch by Rod Stewart
  52. Talk of the Town by The Pretenders
  53. Can’t Happen Here by Rainbow
  54. Thank You For Being A Friend by Andrew Gold
  55. Bring It All Home by Gerry Rafferty
  56. Sign of the Gypsy Queen by April Wine
  57. The Man With The Child In His Eyes by Kate Bush
  58. All Night Long by Raindow
  59. Boys Keep Swinging by David Bowie
  60. Rat Race by The Specials
  61. Once in a Lifetime by Talking Heads
  62. Victim by Bootcamp
  63. Tonight’s the Night (Gonna be Alright) by Rod Stewart
  64. Cruel to be Kind by Nick Lowe
  65. A Little In Love by Cliff Richard
  66. Wild-Eyed Southern Boys by 38 Special
  67. Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush
  68. Celebrate The Bullet by The Selecter
  69. More Than I Can Say by Leo Sayer
  70. A Message To You, Rudy by The Specials
  71. Heart of Glass by Blondie
  72. Oh God, I Wish I Was Home Tonight by Rod Stewart
  73. Kid by The Pretenders
  74. Come What May by Lani Hall & Herb Alpert
  75. I Got You by Split Enz
  76. Sister Disco by The Who
  77. Fashion by David Bowie
  78. Love Stinks by J. Geils Band
  79. Johnny and Mary by Robert Palmer
  80. Tomorrow by Shoes
  81. Prime Time by The Tubes
  82. Cruel You by Shoes
  83. Calling All Girls by Hilly Michaels
  84. I Was Only Joking by Rod Stewart
  85. Let’s Go by The Cars

Music Video of the Day: Spider-Man by the Ramones (1995, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

In 1995, producer Ralph Sall and MCA released an album called Saturday Morning: Cartoons’ Greatest Hits.  The album was made up of covers of the theme songs of various Saturday morning carton shows.  For instance, Matthew Sweet covered Scooby Doo, Where Are You?  Sponge covered Go Speed Racer Go.  Liz Phair did a version of the Banana Splits theme song.  In order to promote the album, MCA released a music video compilation on VHS tape.  It was hosted by a young Drew Barrymore.  You can still order a copy of it off of Amazon.  It’ll only cost you around twenty dollars.

The Ramones were brought in to cover the theme song for the first Spiderman-Man cartoon show.  The video, which was directed by Johnathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, features animated Ramones performing while an animated Spider-Man swings around the city.  (If Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris sound familiar, that’s because they went on to direct feature films.  They’re best-known film is probably still Little Miss Sunshine.)  The Spider-Man theme song proves to be the perfect song to be covered by the Ramones, as they give an energetic performance that feels like it could have been written for any of the current MCU productions.

Interestingly enough, both Spider-Man and the Ramones were from the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens.  There’s no evidence that any of them met Uncle Ben before this unfortunate demise.  If they had met, Ben probably would have told them that with great audio equipment comes great responsibility.  Ben then would have kicked everyone off of his lawn and gone inside to take a boomer nap.

The theme song for Spider-Man was written, in 1967, by Paul Francis Webster and Bob Harris.  Before he wrote the Spider-Man theme, Webster won three Oscars for Best Original Song.  Over the course of his career, he would be nominated a total of 16 times.  Of his Oscar-nominated sons, I guess Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing is the best known but its popularity pales in comparison to the song he wrote for Spider-Man.  Who doesn’t know that Spider-Man can do everything that a spider can?

 

Back to School #22: Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (dir by Allan Arkush)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally, when I started this series of Back to School reviews, I was planning on reviewing Grease.  After all, everyone has seen that film.  It’s on TV all the time.  (Looking in your direction, AMC.)  It’s a musical, which is a genre that I love but one which I also rarely seem to review.  The movie features a good performance from Stockard Channing.  It also has a lot of dancing and you know how much I love that.  And speaking of love, a lot of people seem to absolutely love Grease.

But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that while others may love Grease, I don’t.  Oddly enough, I always seem to fool myself into thinking that it’s a fun movie but then I make the mistake of watching it whenever it pops up on AMC and every time, I am surprised to discover just how boring Grease really is.  The majority of the cast play their roles as if they’re still on a Broadway stage and projecting to the back of the house.  Olivia Newton-John is miscast.  John Travolta appears to be acting on auto pilot.  Both the songs and even Stockard Channing are never as good as I remembered.  Worst of all, the dance numbers are so ineptly staged and filmed that, half-the-time, you can’t even see what anyone’s doing with their feet.

While I certainly don’t have any problem writing a negative review (and check out my thoughts on Avatar if you doubt me), I wanted to end the 70s on a positive note.  So, instead of telling you that Grease isn’t good as many people seem to think, I want to recommend another film that, like Grease, features a lot of singing and dancing but which also happens to be a lot of more fun.

That film, of course, is the 1979 cult classic Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.

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Things are amiss at Vince Lombardi High School.  The students are so obsessed with rock and roll (and the music of the Ramones, in particular) that they have caused several principals to quit.  The hallways are a disorganized mess.  Student Riff Randall (P.J. Soles) spends all of her time having fantasies about the way that Joey Ramone eats pizza.  A strange students named Eaglebauer (Clint Howard) runs a shadowy company known as Eaglebauer Enterprises out of a smoke-filled boy’s restroom.  (He’s even got an administrative assistant to schedule meetings for him.)  Handsome jock Tom Roberts (Vincent Van Patten) can’t get a date, largely because he’s obsessed with Riff who is obsessed with the Ramones.  Little does Tom realize that Riff’s best friend, the sweet and intelligent Kate Rambeau (Dey Young), has a crush on him.

The school board hires a new principal to bring some peace to the high school.  Ms. Togar (Mary Woronov) is a strict and mentally unbalanced disciplinarian who, with the help of two apparently subhuman hall monitors, is determined to suppress any sort of fun, rebellion, or free thought.  Togar hates loud music, mostly because it causes white mice to spontaneously explode.  (When, late in the film, a human-sized white mouse — or he could have just been a very strange man wearing a white mouse costume, the film is ambiguous on this point — attempts to enter a Ramones concert, he’s turned away for his own good.  Until, of course, he reveals that he’s brought along headphones for his own protection…)

rat

 

In the end, it all comes down to this: Togar and her allies want to burn records.  Riff and the Ramones want to stop her.  And maybe blow up the school.  (David from Massacre at Central High would have been a fan of the Ramones.)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School is an intentionally over-the-top film that both celebrates youthful rebellion while satirizing traditional high school films.  The jokes (which are a good combination of the silly and the genuinely clever) come non-stop, the actors all bring a lot of energy to their roles, and the entire film is just a lot of fun. As played by P.J. Soles, Riff Randall really is the ideal best friend and I imagine that a lot of boys in 1979 probably walked out of the theater with a huge crush on both P.J. Soles and Dey Young.  And finally, Mary Woronov gives a wonderfully demented performance as Ms. Togar.

rock-n-roll-high-school-1979

 

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School seems like the perfect film to end the 70s with.  Tomorrow, Back to School continues with the 80s!  So, if you’ve never seen Rock ‘n’ Roll High School before, watch it below!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKUHFI1dnKo