U2, Metallica, Tom Waits Pay Tribute To The Ramones

We're a Happy Family — A Tribute to The Ramones is a 16-track various-artists compilation, put together by former Ramones guitarist/songwriter Johnny Ramone, that should make you, Mom and Daddy cheery this holiday season when it hits the streets Dec. 24. It features such high-profile artists as Metallica, U2, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Waits and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder.

Johnny Ramone encouraged most of the artists to essentially reinvent the Ramones song they chose to cover. "Some bands are going to be more Ramones-like," Johnny Ramone said in an interview that appears on The Ramones' official site (www.officialramones.com), "but with other people I said, 'Just try to pretend you wrote the song and never heard the Ramones version.'"

Some of the approaches taken to songs are anything but business-as-usual. Johnny Ramone calls both Marilyn Manson's rendition of "The KKK Took My Baby Away" and Rob Zombie's version of "Blitzkrieg Bop" "pretty bizarre."

As for the collaboration between Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and Zeke on "I Believe in Miracles," he said, "[It] sounds like the version I wish we would have done. It's just a punk version. We were holding back. We were trying to make it commercial and this and that, and Eddie just did a punk version of it and sings it great.

"It's what we would have done if somebody wasn't saying, 'It's got to be this speed — we got to get the click track and measure the right speed," he continued. "They were looking at it as a single and doing it like that."

He also likes The Pretenders' version of "Something to Believe in," which he called "great," adding, "I never liked the song, but whatever they did to it is great."

Other highlights on the collection, which will be released on DV8/Columbia Records, include Garbage covering "I Just Want to Have Something to Do," Green Day doing "Outsider," Rancid's rendition of "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker," The Offspring's interpretation of "I Wanna Be Sedated" and Kiss' version of "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?"

The remaining tracks: Red Hot Chili Peppers, "Havana Affair"; Metallica, "53rd & 3rd"; U2, "Beat on the Brat"; Pete Yorn, "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend"; Rooney, "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow"; and Tom Waits, "Return of Jackie & Judy." There's also a limited-edition bonus track from Vedder and Zeke, a cover of "Daytime Dilemma (Dangers of Love)."

The Ramones — four young men from Queens who took on the surname Ramone and dressed alike in black leather motorcycle jackets, ripped T-shirts, jeans and Converse shoes — released their debut album, The Ramones (Sire) in 1976. Along with Patti Smith, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and Blondie, they were a key band in the mid-'70s New York punk scene; they performed in London to crowds that included future members of both the Sex Pistols and The Clash.

Their influence on contemporary music was immediate, spearheading a world-wide back-to-basics sonic revolution. Directly or indirectly, they inspired such bands as the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Vibrators, Black Flag, X-Ray Spex, Hüsker Dü, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney, Nirvana, X, U2, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Green Day, The Queers, Fugazi, The Donnas, Rancid, The Offspring, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney and hundreds, if not thousands, of others.

Following the recent deaths of two founding members — singer/writer Joey Ramone, born Jeffrey Hyman, died in April 2001 after a six-year struggle with lymphoma, and bassist Dee Dee Ramone, born Douglas Colvin, died in June 2002 from a drug overdose — a tribute album seems especially fitting. Partial proceeds from We're a Happy Family will go to the Lymphoma Research Foundation in New York City. — Jenny Tatone [Thursday, Nov. 7, 2002]