Appearing one year after Rhino's Ramones box set Weird Tales of the Ramones, and appearing four years after Rhino's first single-disc Ramones collection Loud, Fast Ramones: Their Toughest Hits – which itself appeared after Rhino's excellent double-disc Hey! Ho! Let's Go!: The Anthology – Rhino's 2006 collection Greatest Hits serves up 20 of the group's basics. Unlike 2002's Loud, Fast Ramones, Greatest Hits makes no attempt to cover anything other than the group's peak period: the first 16 songs cover 1976's Ramones through 1980s End of the Century, with a selection apiece from Pleasant Dreams ("The KKK Took My Baby Away"), Subterranean Jungle ("Outsider"), Brain Drain ("Pet Sematary") and Too Tough to Die ("Wart Hog").
Not many bands can honestly say they changed the shape of rock & roll as we know it and upended part of the larger global culture at the same time. The Ramones did just that; by stripping down and speeding up rock & roll like a hot rod that could outrun all competition, and injecting it with a massive dose of snotty, absurdist humor, they gave the music a new lease on life, and left behind a handful of brilliant recordings that are still a solid kick to hear nearly four decades after their debut hit the streets. Punk rock first emerged from a very specific time and place, but the best of it is timeless in its joyous roar, and the first four Ramones albums absolutely live up to that description.
This collection by Los Angeles punk band The Dickies features 18 remastered tracks, and includes breakneck takes on Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence," "Silent Night," and many others of their smashing hits . An absolute stunning compilation! ALL these tracks are ESSENTIAL listening! [Toxxy]
Crank the volume up and step back into the sweat-drenched clubs and raucous airwaves that made the Ramones legends. Live Icons captures the unfiltered, no-nonsense energy of America's original punk pioneers as they rip through the songs that changed rock 'n' roll forever, through a collection of live radio broadcasts.
Paul Diamond Blow is a musician, spoken word artist, a writer and cable televison producer, kung fu master, punk rock star, and part time space commander in Seattle, Washington. He is rocks like no other with his sexy Marshall-driven brand of rocket-fueled hard rockin' glam/punk party rock. Born and raised on a steady diet of Kiss and Ramones, cut his musical teeth rocking in many a punk-rockin' bands (RPA, Suffocated, Berserkers) and his searing style of guitar play soon became legend. His current band the Space Cretins plays regularly in the Seattle area and he also performs occasionally as a solo acoustic "unplugged" artist, deeply in the vein of "Johnny Thunders on acid with a touch of Axl Rose".