3.22.2007

Half Ramones

Back in the olden days, I used to listen to the bulk of my music on an olden turntable. When colossally bored, I’d play my Ramones records at 16rpm. Believe it or not, they used to make big, heavy, fragile records meant to be played at this speed. They sounded like shit, way worse than 78s, and justly faded into obsolescence.


Listening to the Ramones at 16rpm sounded like, I dunno . . . like a person with bad nasal congestion yelling about mental illness while riding a really, really slow train trying to make it up a steep hill. I called this Half Ramones. If I was feeling all freaked out, I’d put on Half Ramones and sit around in a fetal position.

Sometimes a friend would call me up while I was doing this.

“Hey, Rick, what’s up?”

“Just listening to Half Ramones.”

“Oh. Again?”

“Yeah. Wanna come over?”

“No.”

3 comments:

Michael said...

The sports bars in Chicago that surround Wrigley Field often feature bands that cover U2, Dave Matthews Band, and all other Steve Lillywhite-mixed smegma. I used to pray to the Pigeon God for those fashioned in His likeness to squat forever on the edges of those buildings, tails out, bellies full of fresh spring worms and parking lot puddles.

tdexter said...

I thought that half ramones came out of a conversation we had about the half ramones being black sabbath and twice sabbath being the ramones - granted, I don't think that this is the case...

-t

Rick said...

Tom, I think you're right. Yeah, that was the equation, although we both acknowledged that it wasn't quite perfect.

I sort of had forgotten the origins of Half Ramones. That's kind of sad. Jeez . . .