May 4 - 10, 2005
With The Lights Out
by Michaelangelo Matos
Speaking of covers, I caught my first-ever tribute band in Seattle, 1234 (each number pronounced individually), who efficiently dispatched the catalog of the most efficient rock band of all time, the Ramones, at the Fenix Underground. "How you doin', Fenix?" Rich Evans (aka "Joey Ramone") said at the top, and the band slammed through its 16-song list with expert precision. The group lurched into its opening troika, "Psycho Therapy," "Blitzkrieg Bop," and "Teenage Lobotomy," without a pause, and the set only gained momentum as it went; by the time they hit the final stretch ("California Sun," "Pinhead," and "Glad to See You Go"), the music had achieved escape velocity.
April 27 - May 3, 2005
Seattle Weekly 2005 Music Awards Showcase
A guide to the performers at this year's celebration on Sunday, May 1, in Pioneer Square.
1234
It's not every band that could be called "conceptually perfect," but New York's Ramones were that band, the guiding light of every punk who ever wore a black leather jacket and a slouch, and whose first four albums were the shot heard round the rock world. Their after-echoes continue to this day, most obviously in Seattle's 1234, who do the originals proud with note-, jacket-, and slouch- perfect re-creations of the bruddas' classics.
October 14, 2004
Headlining for the night was a Ramones cover band appropriately dubbed 1-2-3-4. Also on the bill were the explosive six piece Pris, Dateless and alt-rockers Lila. And although none of the openers paid homage to the kings of punk themselves or their late guitarist, the headliner did more than enough to make up for it.
Johnny Ramone's death, similar to that of the career of his influential band, went mostly under the radar. Losing his five-year battle with prostate cancer, Ramone passed away in his home on Sept. 16, surrounded by family and friends including his wife, Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder and rocker Rob Zombie.
Ramone, who was 55 at the time of his death, saw his band inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and remained one of only two remaining founding members. The band itself was a part of the original New York punk scene that subsequently inspired both the London scene and Los Angeles scene in the early '70s. It was a Ramones show in London that inspired members of both The Clash and The Sex Pistols to form their own punk outfits.
And, although the Ramones never actually had a top-40 hit and were plagued by financial troubles, they are remembered as one of the most influential bands in rock history. A recent tribute show in Los Angeles was also held for the band that featured the Red Hot Chili Peppers, punk rockers X and Henry Rollins.
The headliner 1-2-3-4 dressed in full Ramones regalia and performed nearly twenty Ramones songs without pause or flaw. The set featured such Ramones classics as "Beat on the Brat," "I Wanna Be Sedated" and "Sheena is a Punk Rocker." And although it was painfully obvious 1-2-3-4 were just four guys in bad wigs playing some of the simplest tunes in the rock catalogue, the crowd of punks and fans of punk didn't seem to care. The band's energy was as intense as the music that they were paying homage to.
Pris, which features members of Vendetta Red and Muzzle, were the only other standout band of the night. The six-piece performed their up-tempo thrashy style of rock to a half-full crowd. The band closed their set with a percussion-inspired display that featured the lead guitarist as well as the vocalist joining the drummer, all three wailing away on the drum set.
May 6, 2004
Live Wire
by Jennifer Maerz
In weeks like this past one it's a good thing to carry around a little black notebook. Otherwise I might've forgotten, say, that Saturday night started with running into a local Ramones tribute band called One, Two, Three, Four--pageboy-wigged and all--outside the Fun House. They were checking out a Ramones cover band and clearing up the not immediately obvious distinction between "cover" and "tribute" with the explanation, "It's simple. We live the life. That's the difference." Got it.