For the third time we have lost a Ramone. Johnny Ramone, the centre of the Earth's gravity, has passed away in LA. It is difficult to express enough sadness at such a loss, because Johnny Ramone was the music itself. It was he who founded the Ramones, the most seminal proto-punk rock'n'roll band of them all. It was his 3 minute songwriting genius and buzzsaw guitar playing that has most defined our generation. Johnny Ramone is as important in history as Beethoven; as Beethoven destroyed the waltz and gave us instead the Scherzo, a classical revolution whose influence is felt down the ages, so Johnny Ramone reinvented the entire rock'n'roll ethos. Never had a Fender Mustang been such a weapon for good as in the hands of this man. For as long as there is mankind there will be rock'n'roll, and yet in 1974 it was all but a dinosaur. Then along came Johnny Ramone, reinvigorating the genre far beyond it's original shelf life, for all time. The Ramones were not, as some might have thought, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They were saviours of the first order. Joey Ramone gave it teeth and a stance, Dee Dee and Tommy gave it a backbone that could support any weight of expectation. And Johnny gave it the rest; the volume, the sonics, the artistry, the attack, the violence and the grace. He was the guitarist in the ultimate guitar band. From the first "Hey Ho Lets Go" to the very last "Gabba Gabba Hey", there was simply no stopping him. And lets not forget the man's sheer speed. The "It's Alive" album, recorded live at the Rainbow in London on New Year's Eve 1978, contains twenty six tracks, and is a mere 55 minutes in length. Presumably they knew life was going to be all too short.

In 1990 I was standing at the bar in Edward's Number Eight in Birmingham, as I did on numerous occasions. Everyone there knew me as the singer in a happening-ish band from down the road, and I got a lot of freebies, so my presence there was not unusual. I would frequently meet people I admired there, indeed it was there that I met Will Sergeant for the first time. On this occasion there were a couple of new US bands due on stage, neither of whom I'd ever heard of. At the bar I was complimented on my Ramones tee shirt by a scruffy blond guy wearing a bad reproduction of a "Vive Le Rock" shirt. He asked me what my favourite Ramones album was, I told him "Rocket to Russia", he concurred, and we got talking. I bought him several beers on my slate (which I never ever had to pay for), we got slightly sozzled together, talking about Johnny Ramone, and other great US punk bands like X and Dead Kennedys. Then someone told him to get on with it, and he climbed onstage. Having assumed he was a roadie or something, I was completely shocked when I realised he was the singer/guitarist in the band. I stayed for their set, one of about fifteen people in attendance. They were pretty awful. I think the singer was slightly pissed. Anyway, I left soon after their set, having lied to him about much potential I thought they showed. Of course, the joke was on me, because the band was Nirvana and he was Kurt Cobain. To this day whenever I hear "All Apologies" I can't help thinking of that scene in Bill and Ted when Rufus tells us that one day the Wild Stallyns will save mankind; in the background they are making the most dreadful din, and he qualifies his claim by simply saying "they do get better". So thanks to the Ramones I crossed paths with Kurt Cobain. Which was nice.

The other great privilege was to have been in the audience for the Ramones' final ever UK show at the Brixton Academy in 1996. That was also the night I met Billy Ficca from Television. The Ramones have always been good to me.