All Good Cretins Go To Heaven: The Enduring Spirit of the Ramones by Jenn L. Beckwith
Publisher: Earth Island Books & DiWulf Publishing
Out Now
Another book about punk pioneers and CBGB mainstays, the Ramones – will it bring anything new to our understanding of this important band? Nathan Brown finds out.
“1-2-3-4 Cretins wanna hop some more, 4-5-6-7 All Good Cretins Go To Heaven”
Cretin Hop has to be one of the songs which best represents the Ramones, so using a line from that song as the title of this book is a great move. This book answers the question Why do people still love the Ramones so much?
I remember the Ramones being an outlier band in the ‘80s. Following the brief flash of furious infamy as trailblazers of fast chainsaw guitar punk, many in the punk scene moved on and looked down on them. Not I. Their incendiary live album It’s Alive still got a regular blasting. Kids my age at secondary school didn’t have a clue.
It was only in the band’s latter years that they got the recognition they deserved (I’m thinking Motörhead writing a tribute song being the ultimate accolade), and more so after they quit in 1996. How does that line go? “You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”.
Now it’s a different matter. Last year I casually mentioned seeing the Ramones in the context of “loudest band you’ve seen” to a complete stranger and was treated like a minor celebrity. The Ramones t-shirts proliferate (and if you go up to a youngster in a Ramones shirt and say “name three songs”, I hope the brat beats on you with a baseball bat).
I have at least nine books solely about the Ramones or individual members, alongside many others about punk which feature The Bruddas, so I am well versed in the general narrative and myths surrounding the goofy, leather jacket-toting New Yawkers. All Good Cretins Go To Heaven, written by Jenn L Beckwith and researched by Gary Lynn Clevenger, manages to reveal another side to the Ramones. It digs deep into how and why people love them by speaking to the fans and friends of the band.
The first three chapters set the scene: who the people were who became the Ramones; how they got together; and their early years and the music cultural landscape they were birthed from. The fourth chapter does some really clever stuff, comparing the Ramones’ output to works by Shakespeare and Aristotle: “D-U-M-B, everyone’s accusing me”. They were putting across ideas similar to those of the world’s greatest writers and thinkers, only for the kids on the street.
The fifth chapter describes key locations in the Ramones’ New York landscape. I reckon you could build your own Ramones tour from this chapter. Get your photo taken where they posed for the album covers, etc. There are a few snippets of detail that feel new, unless I’ve forgotten them, so these five chapters do a good job of setting the scene, even for folks who are imbued in Ramones culture.
Alan Arkush takes over the sixth chapter to reminisce about his time spent with the Ramones during the filming of Rock’n’roll High School.
Then we are into the guts of the book. It’s a curated and edited collection of memories from people who interacted with the Ramones. The crowdsourcing of content from people who were impacted by a band is a burgeoning genre in its own right, as with Louder Than War’s own Iain Key’s recent publications All The Young Punks (The Clash) and It’s Time The Tale Were Told (The Smiths).
Alongside the fans, there are reminiscences from those who were close to the band. This includes Monte Melnick, their road manager and driver for at least 2200 of their 2263 gigs; Mickey Leigh, Joey’s brother and roadie in the early years; and Dee Dee’s first wife, Vera Ramone King. What really comes across from the fans is the absolute generosity of the band to strangers who were sharing their journey. Some would go on to become firm friends. The absolute commitment of the whole band to making sure they delivered the best goddamned gig they could – not just famously workmanlike Johnny – shines through as well.
Most of one chapter is dedicated to Jari-Pekka Laitio-Ramone, Finnish curator and guardian of the website Ramonesheaven.com – an online presence for a band who signed off just as the web was about to become truly worldwide.
The chapter profiling a handful of the many Ramones cover bands worldwide isn’t of much interest to me personally. However, it is another testament to their influence. You could probably fill a whole book if you tried to cover all of them.
Throughout the book there are some brilliant images; live photos, candid backstage or off-stage moments, images from cartoons, comic strips and magazines, not forgetting the tickets and posters. It extends to paintings of the band and some of the many Ramones tattoos people have.
While this is not a sociological or psychological study, as you progress through the book you begin to get an understanding of the impact of the Ramones on fans. The shared identity for people who didn’t fit in (“Gabba Gabba. We accept you. We accept you, one of us”). The hope that they gave people in their own struggles. The exhilaration when Blitzkrieg Bop grabs you. The sheer fun. The authenticity that so many first wave punk bands tried to display. The Ramones didn’t have to try; what you saw was who they were, on stage and off. As the author reminds us, “because of the band’s authenticity, the Ramones gave their fans inspiration with their own personal struggles with especially mental illness, a subject taboo in cultures and families.”
I came away from this book wishing I’d made the effort to see the Ramones more than the three times I did (although, in my defence, I lived in the sticks), and being really grateful to my partner who bought us tickets for their last UK gig in 1996 when we were skint and this was a major outlay. They did matter, and there is a reason I still love listening to them now. In that I am clearly not alone.
Ultimately this book is one for diehard Ramones fans, but there are plenty of us out there. If, like the people who contributed to this book, the Ramones are or were a big part of your life, this book will pluck on your emotions. Listen to your heart.
On the evidence of this book, the Ramones had it right: years after their demise, there’s no stoppin’ the cretins from hoppin’.
~
Available from Earth Island
Paperback. 280 pages, 234 x 156 mm, b/w
ISBN 9781916864948
Words by Nathan Brown. You can read more from Nathan on his Louder Than War archive over here.
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