Stiv Bators (born Steven John Bator, (October 22, 1949 – June 3, 1990), was an American punk rock vocalist and guitarist from Youngstown, Ohio. He is best remembered for his bands, The Dead Boys and The Lords of the New Church.

Music and film career[link]

In the course of his career Bators was involved with a variety of bands beyond those for which he was best known. These short-term bands included Hormones, with Dennis Comeau and Andre Siva, Frankenstein, The Wanderers and The Whores of Babylon (with Dee Dee Ramone and Johnny Thunders). He also recorded as a solo artist with Bomp! Records.

It was as the lead singer and driving force of the Cleveland, Ohio based Dead Boys, however, that Bators helped pioneer the punk rock sound, look and attitude. The band quickly became a popular staple at CBGB's, the music club in New York City's East Village. The Dead Boys were featured in the independent punk rock film Punking Out (1978), Live at CBGB's (1977) and Crash 'n' Burn (1977).

Following the demise of the Dead Boys in 1979, Bators began a tumultuous relationship with Bomp! Records and its president, Greg Shaw. According to Shaw: "[W]hat he craved most was to escape the fetters of his Dead Boy image and win respect as a singer of contemporary pop rock. . . . in other words, he wanted to be 'the thinking punk's Eric Carmen.'"^[1] To this end, and usually with first-wave punk rock veterans in tow, he recorded several singles, many of which were unreleased, and an LP, Disconnected, which was released in 1980. A retrospective album released in 1994, L.A. L.A. documented Bators' efforts as a pop-punk singer.

After England's Sham 69 disbanded, Bators, now located in London, formed the Wanderers with Dave Tregunna, the Sham 69 ex-bass-player. The band came up with a concept album, called Only Lovers Left Alive (released in May 1981), along with two singles.

Bators formed The Lords of the New Church later in 1981 with Brian James of The Damned and Dave Tregunna of Sham 69. (Bators and Tregunna had also been in the Wanderers together). The Lords became notorious for their live shows. A devotee of Iggy Pop, Bators had developed a fearless reputation in his Dead Boys days and continued such antics with The Lords, the most famous being the time he reportedly hanged himself during a show. Bator's stunt went awry and he was pronounced clinically dead for several minutes. Nonetheless, Bator survived and The Lords recorded two more successful albums.

Later, the punk vocalist gained additional exposure through more mainstream film. In 1981, Bators co-starred in the satirical John Waters film, Polyester. Seven years later, Bators made a memorable cameo appearance as "Dick Slammer", lead singer of "The Blender Children", in the offbeat comedy, Tapeheads, starring John Cusack and Tim Robbins.

In December 1985 Bators flew to New York with his best friend Michael Monroe to work Artists United Against Apartheid music video.[1]

The Lords of the New Church broke up in 1989, when Bators injured his back and guitarist Brian James secretly began advertising for a replacement singer.

Death[link]

In mid-1990, Bators was struck by a taxi in Paris.^[2] He was taken to hospital but reportedly left before seeing a doctor, after waiting several hours and assuming he was not injured. Reports indicate that he died in his sleep as the result of a concussion.^[3] Dave Tregunna said that Bators, a fan of rock legend Jim Morrison, had earlier requested that his ashes be spread over Morrison's Paris grave and that his girlfriend complied.^[3]

In the director's commentary of the film "Polyester," (starring Bators) with John Waters; regarding Bators' death, Waters stated that Bators' Parisian girlfriend Caroline confessed to him years later that she snorted a portion of Stiv's ashes to be closer to him.^[4][5]

Discography[link]

With The Dead Boys[link]

• LP's
  • Young, Loud and Snotty - Sire Records 1977
  • We Have Come for Your Children - Sire Records 1978

• Later Releases
  • Night of the Living Dead Boys - Bomp! Records 1981
  • The Return of the Living Dead Boys - Revenge 1987 (Import/France)
  • Liver Than You'll Ever Be - Various Labels 1988 (Import/Various)
  • Younger, Louder and Snottier - Bomp! 1997
  • Twistin' on the Devil's Fork - Hell Yeah / Bacchus 1998
  • All This and More - Bomp! 1998
  • 3rd Generation Nation - Bad Boy Production 1999

• 7" Singles
  • Sonic Reducer - Sire Records 1977
  • Tell Me - Sire Records 1977
  • Search and Destroy - Revenge 1977 (Import/France)
  • Buried Gems - Cold Front 2000
  • Paul Sherry goes Back - The Paul Sherry Sessions 2007

With Lords of the New Church[link]

• Studio albums
  • The Lords of the New Church (1982)
  • Is Nothing Sacred? (1983)
  • The Method to Our Madness (1984)

• Live albums
  • Scene of the Crime (1988)
  • Live at the Spit (1988)
  • Second Coming (1989)
  • The Lord's Prayer II (2003)

• Compilation albums
  • Killer Lords (1985)
  • The Lord's Prayer I (2002)

• Singles
  • Live for Today 12" (1983)
  • Psycho Sex 12" (?)
  • Like a Virgin 12" (1985)
  • Dance with Me 12" (1987)

With the Wanderers[link]

• Studio Albums
  • Only Lovers Left Alive (Polydor Records; #POLS 1028); rel. May 1981
  • Only Lovers Left Alive (Captain Oi Records reissue on CD; #AHOY CD 141) rel. 2000

• Singles
  • "Ready to Snap" b/w "Beyond the Law" (Polydor Records; #POSP 239); rel. March 1981
  • "The Times They Are A-Changin'" b/w "It's a Little Bit Frightening" (Polydor Records; #POSP 284); re. July 1981

Solo[link]

• Albums
  • 1980 - Disconnected
  • 1983 - The Lord and the New Creatures
  • 1988 - Live at the Limelight
  • 1992 - I Wanna Be a Dead Boy...
  • 1994 - L.A. L.A.
  • 1994 - Sonic Reducer - Les Genies Du Rock
  • 1996 - The Last Race
  • 2004 - L.A. Confidential

• Singles
  • "It’s Cold Outside" b/w "The Last Year" (Bomp Records 7" BOMP 124); rel. May 1979
  • "Circumstantial Evidence" b/w "Not That Way Anymore" (Bomp Records 7"; #45-128); rel. Jan. 1980
  • "Not That Way Anymore" b/w "Circumstantial Evidence" (Phantom Records, Australia 7"; #PH-5); rel. 22 July 1980...edition of 500 only with reversed A and B sides and unique pic sleeve.
  • "Too Much To Dream" (12"); rel. 1980
  • "Story In Your Eyes" b/w "Have Love Will Travel" (Bomp Records 12"; #45-12136); rel. fall 1986
  • "Here’s A Heart" (12"), by Lyres with Stiv; rel. 1988
  • "King of the Brats" (7"); rel. 1994

References[link]

Further reading[link]

Wolff, Carlo (2006). Cleveland Rock and Roll Memories. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company, Publishers. ISBN 978-1-886228-99-3

External links[link]

• Stiv Bators
• Stiv Bators Discography

Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop performing at Parkenfestivalen 2011, Bodø, Norway
Background information
Birth name	James Newell Osterberg, Jr.
Born	(1947-04-21) April 21, 1947 (age 65) Muskegon, Michigan, U.S.
Genres	Punk rock, protopunk, garage rock, glam punk, shock rock, glam rock, hard rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, producer, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, keyboards, drums
Years active	1960–present
Labels	Virgin, RCA, Elektra
Associated acts	The Stooges, The Trolls, The Nymphs, The Iguanas, Slash, David Bowie, Deborah Harry, Blondie, Sum 41
Website	www.iggyandthestoogesmusic.com

Iggy Pop (born James Newell "Jim" Osterberg, Jr.; April 21, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor.^[1] Though considered an innovator of punk rock,^[1] Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues.^[2] Pop became known as 'Iggy' in high school, during which time he served as drummer for local blues band The Iguanas. He is vocalist of influential protopunk band The Stooges (Pop and the other surviving members of the group reunited in 2003),^[3] having become known, since the late 1960s, for his outrageous and unpredictable stage antics.^[4][5]

Though the singer's popularity has waned and waxed throughout his career, Pop has recorded a number of well-known songs, including "Lust for Life", "Real Wild Child", "I Wanna Be Your Dog," "Candy" (a duet with Kate Pierson of The B-52's),^[6] "China Girl", "Nightclubbing", "Search and Destroy", and "The Passenger". The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010

Early life[link]

Iggy Pop (AKA Iggy Stooge)^[7] was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the son of Louella (née Christensen) and James Newell Osterberg, Sr., a former high school English teacher and baseball coach at Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan.^[8] Osterberg was raised in a trailer park in Ypsilanti, Michigan.^[9] He is of Irish and English descent on his father's side, and of Norwegian and Danish ancestry on his mother's.^[10] His father was adopted by a Swedish American family and took on their surname (Österberg).^[10]

Music career[link]

Early days: 1960 to 1967[link]

The Prime Movers featuring Pop on drums

Osterberg began his music career as a drummer in different high school bands in Ann Arbor, Michigan. One band was the Iguanas, from the name of which he adopted his future moniker Iggy. After exploring local blues-style bands such as the Prime Movers (with brothers Dan and Michael Erlewine), he eventually dropped out of the University of Michigan^{[citation needed]} and moved to Chicago to learn more about blues. While in Chicago, he played drums in blues clubs, helped by Sam Lay (formerly of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band) who shared his connections with Iggy.^[11] Inspired by Chicago blues as well as bands like The Sonics and The MC5, he formed the Psychedelic Stooges and began calling himself Iggy. The band was composed of Iggy on vocals, Ron Asheton on guitar, Asheton's brother Scott on drums, and Dave Alexander on bass.

The Stooges era: 1968 to 1975[link]

The seeds of Iggy Pop's stage persona were sown when he saw The Doors perform in 1967 at the University of Michigan and was amazed by the stage antics and antagonism displayed by singer Jim Morrison.^[9] Morrison's extreme behavior, while performing in a popular band, inspired the young Pop to push the boundaries of stage performance. Pop was the first performer to do a stage-dive, which he started at a concert in Detroit.^[9] Other exploits of Pop include rolling around in broken glass, exposing himself to the crowd and vomiting on stage.^{[citation needed]}

In 1968, one year after their live debut and now dubbed The Stooges, the band signed with Elektra Records, again following in the footsteps of The Doors, who were Elektra's biggest act at the time (reportedly, Pop called Moe Howard to see if it was all right to call his band "The Stooges," to which Howard responded by merely saying "I don't care what they call themselves, as long as they're not the Three Stooges!" and hung up the phone). The Stooges' first two albums The Stooges, (on which Iggy was credited, much to his displeasure,^{[citation needed]} as "Iggy Stooge"), produced by John Cale; and Fun House, sold poorly. Shortly after the new members joined, the group disbanded because of Pop's growing heroin addiction.

In 1971, Iggy Pop and David Bowie met at Max's Kansas City, a nightclub and restaurant in New York City.^[12] Pop's career received a boost from his relationship with Bowie when Bowie decided in 1972 to produce an album with Pop in England. With James Williamson signed on as guitarist, the search began for a rhythm section. However, since neither Pop nor Bowie was satisfied with any players in England, they decided to re-unite The Stooges. It would not be a true reunion insofar as Dave Alexander, due to alcoholism, was unable to play on the record (he later died in 1975). Also, Ron Asheton grudgingly moved from guitar to bass to make way for Williamson to play guitar. The recording sessions produced the rock landmark Raw Power. After its release Scott Thurston was added to the band on keyboards/electric piano and Bowie continued his support, but Iggy's drug problem persisted. The Stooges' last show ended in a fight between the band and a group of bikers, documented on the album Metallic K.O. Drug abuse stalled his career again for several years.

Bowie and Berlin: 1976 to 1978[link]

Iggy Pop, October 25, 1977 at the State Theatre in Minneapolis

After the second breakup of The Stooges, Iggy Pop made some recordings with James Williamson, but these were not released until 1977 (as Kill City, credited jointly to Iggy Pop and Williamson). Pop was unable to control his drug use and checked himself into a mental institution, UCLA’s neuropsychiatric institute, to try to clean up. David Bowie was one of his few visitors there, and he continued to support his friend and collaborator. It was also rumored that Bowie would smuggle in cocaine to give to Pop.^[13] In 1976, Bowie took him along as his companion on the Station to Station tour. This was Iggy Pop's first exposure to large-scale professional touring and he was impressed, particularly with Bowie's work rate.

Bowie and Pop relocated to West Berlin to wean themselves off their addictions. In 1977, Pop signed with RCA and Bowie helped write and produce The Idiot and Lust for Life, Pop's two most acclaimed albums as a solo artist, the latter with another team of brothers, Hunt and Tony Sales, sons of comedian Soupy Sales. Among the songs Bowie and Pop wrote together were "China Girl", "Tonight", and "Sister Midnight", all of which Bowie performed on his own albums later on (the last being recorded with different lyrics as "Red Money" on the album Lodger). Bowie also played keyboards in Pop's live performances, some of which are featured on the album TV Eye in 1978. In return, Pop contributed backing vocals on Bowie's Low.

The Arista albums: 1979 to 1981[link]

Iggy Pop had grown dissatisfied with RCA, later admitting that he had made TV Eye as a quick way of fulfilling his three-album RCA contract. He moved to Arista Records, under whose banner he released New Values in 1979. This album was something of a Stooges reunion, with James Williamson producing and latter-day Stooge Scott Thurston playing guitar and keyboards. Not surprisingly, the album's style harked back to the guitar sound of the Stooges. Although highly regarded by many Iggy fans (some preferring it to the Bowie collaborations), New Values was not a popular success, despite some strong material including "Five Foot One" and "I'm Bored."

Iggy Pop, Cardiff, 1979

The album was moderately successful in Australia and New Zealand, however, and this led to Iggy Pop's first visit there to promote it. While in Melbourne, he made a memorable appearance on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's nationwide pop show Countdown. During his anarchic performance of I'm Bored, Pop made no attempt to conceal the fact that he was lip-synching, and he even tried to grab the teenage girls in the audience. He was also interviewed by host Ian "Molly" Meldrum, an exchange which was frequently punctuated by the singer jumping up and down on his chair and making loud exclamations of "G'day mate" in a mock Australian accent. His Countdown appearance is generally considered one of the highlights of the show's history and it cemented his popularity with Australian punk fans; since then he has often toured there. While visiting New Zealand, Iggy Pop recorded a music video for "I'm Bored", and attended a record company function where he appeared to slap a woman and throw wine over a photographer.^[14] While in Australia, Iggy Pop was also the guest on a live late-night commercial TV interview show on the Ten Network. It is not known whether a recording of this interview exists, but the famous Countdown appearance has often been re-screened in Australia.

During the recording of Soldier (1980), Iggy Pop and Williamson quarrelled over production (the latter apparently wanted a big, Phil Spector-type sound) and Williamson was fired. Bowie appeared on the song Play it Safe, performing backing vocals with the group Simple Minds. The album and its follow-up Party (1981) were both commercial failures, and Iggy Pop was dropped from Arista. His drug habit varied in intensity, but persisted.

The 1980s[link]

In 1980, Iggy Pop published his autobiography I NEED MORE, co-written with Anne Weher, an Ann Arbor arts patron. The book, which includes a selection of black and white photographs, features a foreword by Andy Warhol. Warhol says that he met Iggy when he was Jim Osterberg, at the Ann Arbor Film Festival in 1966. "I don't know why he hasn't made it really big," wrote the one Pop artist about the other. "He is so good."

Pop at Pinkpop, 1987.

The 1982 album Zombie Birdhouse on Chris Stein's Animal label, with Stein himself producing, was no more commercially successful than his Arista works, but again, in 1983, Iggy Pop's fortunes changed when David Bowie recorded a cover of the song "China Girl". The song had originally appeared on The Idiot, and was a major hit on Bowie's blockbuster Let's Dance album. As co-writer of the song, Pop received substantial royalties. On Tonight in 1984, Bowie recorded two more of their co-written songs, this time from the Lust for Life album, "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat", assuring Iggy Pop financial security, at least for the short term. The support from Bowie enabled Pop to resolve problems and permitted him to take a three-year break during which he overcame his heroin addiction and took acting classes.

Additionally, Iggy Pop contributed the title song to the 1984 film Repo Man (with Steve Jones, previously of the Sex Pistols, on guitar) as well as an instrumental called "Repo Man Theme" that was played during the opening credits.

In 1985, Pop recorded some demos with Jones. He played these demos to Bowie, who was sufficiently impressed to offer to produce an album for Pop: 1986's New Wave-influenced Blah Blah Blah, featuring the single "Real Wild Child", a cover of "The Wild One" originally written and recorded by Australian rock 'n' roll pioneer Johnny O'Keefe in 1958. The single was a Top 10 hit in the UK and was successful around the world, especially in Australia, where for the last twenty years it has been used as the theme music for the ABC's late-night music video show Rage. It remains Pop's solitary brush with major commercial success. Blah Blah Blah was Pop's highest-charting album in the U.S. since The Idiot in 1977, peaking at No. 75 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.

Also in 1985, the movie Rock & Rule was released featuring performances by Iggy Pop and Lou Reed for the character Mok. Pop's song in the film was "Pain & Suffering" from the final sequence of the film.^[15]

In 1987, Pop appeared (along with Bootsy Collins) on a mostly instrumental album, Neo Geo, by Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. The music video for "Risky", written and directed by Meiert Avis, won the first ever MTV Breakthrough Video Award. The groundbreaking video explores transhumanist philosopher FM-2030's ideas of Nostalgia for the Future in the form of an imagined love affair between a robot and one of Man Ray's models in Paris in the late 1930s. Additional inspiration was drawn from Jean Baudrillard, Edvard Munch's 1894 painting Puberty, and Roland Barthes Death of the Author. The surrealist black-and-white video uses stop motion, light painting, and other retro in-camera effects techniques. Meiert Avis recorded Sakamoto while at work on the score for The Last Emperor in London. Sakamoto also appears in the video painting words and messages to an open shutter camera. Iggy Pop, who performs the vocals on "Risky", chose not to appear in the video, allowing his performance space to be occupied by the surrealist era robot.

Pop's follow-up to Blah Blah Blah, Instinct (1988), was a turnaround in musical direction. Its stripped-back, guitar-based sound leaned further towards the sound of the Stooges than any of his solo albums to date. His record label, which had most likely been expecting another Blah Blah Blah, dropped him. Nevertheless, the King Biscuit radio show recording of the Instinct tour (featuring guitarist Andy McCoy and Alvin Gibbs on bass) reaching Boston on July 19, 1988, remains one of punk-rock's most enduring live albums.^{[citation needed]} Working with rock attorney Stann Findelle, Pop scored more movie soundtrack inclusions in 1989, "Living on the Edge of the Night" in the Ridley Scott Michael Douglas thriller, Black Rain and "Love Transfusion" in Wes Craven's Shocker.

The 1990s[link]

In 1990, Pop recorded Brick by Brick, produced by Don Was, with members of Guns N' Roses and The B-52's as guests, as well as backup vocals by many local Hollywood groups, two of whom (Whitey Kirst and Craig Pike) would create his band to tour and perform on his Kiss My Blood video (1991), directed by world-famous director Tim Pope and filmed at the Olympia in Paris. The video attracted much controversy, as it featured much footage of Pop performing with his penis exposed to the audience. The album was his first Gold-certified album in the U.S. (denoting sales of over 500,000 copies) and featured his first Top 40 U.S. hit, "Candy", a duet with B-52's singer Kate Pierson.

Also in 1990, Pop starred in the controversial opera The Manson Family by composer John Moran, released on Point Music/Phillip Classics, where he sang the role of prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi. That year he was also contributed to the Red Hot Organization's AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Blue project, singing a version of "Well Did You Evah!" in a duet with Deborah Harry.

In 1991, Pop and Kirst contributed the song "Why Was I Born (Freddy's Dead)" to the soundtrack of the film Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare. The song also plays over the end credits of the film, with a compilation of clips from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series running alongside the end credits.

In 1992, he collaborated with Goran Bregović on the soundtrack for the movie Arizona Dream by Emir Kusturica. Pop sang four of the songs: In the Deathcar, TV Screen, Get the Money, and This is a Film. Also in 1992, he collaborated with the New York City band White Zombie. He recorded spoken word vocals on the intro and outro of the song "Black Sunshine" as well as playing the character of a writer in the video shot for the song. He is singled out for special thanks in the liner notes of the band's album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1.

In 1993, Pop released American Caesar, including two successful singles, "Wild America" and "Beside You." The following year Pop contributed to Buckethead's album Giant Robot, including the songs "Buckethead's Toy Store" and "Post Office Buddy". He appears also on the Les Rita Mitsouko album Système D where he sings the duet "My Love is Bad" with Catherine Ringer.

In 1996, Pop again found mainstream fame when his 1977 song "Lust for Life" was featured in the film Trainspotting. A new video was recorded for the song, with clips from the film and studio footage of Iggy dancing with one of its stars, Ewen Bremner. An Iggy Pop concert also served as a plot point in the film. The song has also been used in TV commercials for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines (with many music critics denouncing the usage of the song to promote peppy cruises) and as the theme music to The Jim Rome Show, a nationally-syndicated American sports talk show.

In 1996, Pop released Naughty Little Doggie, with Whitey Kirst returning on guitar, and the single "I Wanna Live". In 1997, he remixed Raw Power to give it a rougher, more hard-edged sound; fans had complained for years that Bowie's official "rescue effort" mix was muddy and lacking in bass. Pop testified in the reissue's liner notes that on the new mix, "everything's still in the red". He co-produced his 1999 album Avenue B with Don Was, releasing the single "Corruption." Pop produced 2001's Beat 'Em Up, which gave birth to The Trolls, releasing the single "Football" featuring Trolls alumni Whitey Kirst and brother Alex.

In 1997, Pop was credited with the soundtrack to the film The Brave.

In the early to middle 1990s, Pop would make several guest appearances on the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete and Pete. He played James Mecklenberg, Nona Mecklenberg's father.

The Stooges reunion: 2003 to present[link]

Pop's 2003 album Skull Ring featured collaborators Sum 41, Green Day, Peaches, and The Trolls, as well as Ron and Scott Asheton, reuniting the three surviving founding members of The Stooges for the first time since 1974. Pop made a guest appearance on Peaches's song Kick It as well as the video. Also in 2003, his first full-length biography was published. Gimme Danger – The Story of Iggy Pop was written by Joe Ambrose; Pop did not collaborate on the biography or publicly endorse it. Having enjoyed working with the Ashetons on Skull Ring, Pop reformed The Stooges with bassist Mike Watt (formerly of the Minutemen) filling in for Dave Alexander, and Fun House saxophonist Steve Mackay rejoining the lineup. They have toured regularly since 2004. That year, Pop opened Madonna's Reinvention World Tour in Dublin.

Iggy and The Stooges played the Glastonbury Festival in June 2007. Their set included material from the 2007 album The Weirdness and classics such as "No Fun and "I Wanna Be Your Dog." Pop also caused controversy in June 2007 when he was interviewed on the BBC's coverage of the Glastonbury Festival. He used the phrase "paki shop", apparently unaware of its racist connotations, prompting three complaints and an apology from the BBC.^[16]

On March 10, 2008 Pop appeared at Madonna's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. Together with The Stooges he sang raucous versions of two Madonna hits "Burning Up" and "Ray of Light." Before leaving the stage he looked directly at Madonna, quoting "You make me feel shiny and new, like a virgin, touched for the very first time.", from Madonna's hit song "Like A Virgin". According to guitarist Ron Asheton, Madonna asked The Stooges to perform in her place, as a protest to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for not inducting The Stooges despite six appearances on the nomination ballot.^[17] Pop also sang on the "No Fun" cover by Asian Dub Foundation on their 2008 album Punkara.

On June 1, 2008, The Stooges were voted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends online Hall of Fame.^[18]

On January 6, 2009, original Stooges guitarist, and Iggy's self-described best friend Ron Asheton, was found dead from an apparent heart attack. He was 60 years old.

In 2009 James Williamson rejoined the band after 29 years.^[19]

On December 15, 2009 it was announced that The Stooges would be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 2010. Pop had "about two hours of a strong emotional reaction" to the news.^[20]

In March 2010 the Stooges and Iggy Pop were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.^[21]

In 2011, "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by The Stooges was voted a Legendary Michigan Song.^[22]

Recent career[link]

Pop supplied vocals for the 1999 Death in Vegas UK Top-10 single Aisha. The same year he appeared on Hashisheen, The End Of Law, a collaborative effort by Bill Laswell, reading on the tracks The Western Lands and A Quick Trip to Alamut. He also sang on the tracks Rolodex Propaganda and Enfilade by At the Drive-In in 2000.

For New Year's Eve 1997, Iggy was the headliner for the annual Australian three-day concert the Falls Festival. He gave one of the most memorable performances in the history of the festival. A member of the audience got to do the countdown for the new year with Pop as part of a competition to guess Pop's new year's resolution. (It was "To do nothing and make a lot of money!")

Pop at Beale Street Music Festival, Memphis in May 2007.

In 2005 Pop appeared, along with Madonna, Little Richard, Bootsy Collins, and The Roots' Questlove, in an American TV commercial for the Motorola ROKR phone. In early 2006, Iggy and the Stooges played in Australia and New Zealand for the Big Day Out. They also began work on a new album, The Weirdness, which was recorded by Steve Albini and released in March 2007. In August 2006 Iggy and the Stooges performed at the Lowlands pop festival in the Netherlands, Hodokvas in Slovakia and in the Sziget Festival in Budapest.

Author Paul Trynka completed a biography of Iggy Pop (with his blessing) called Open Up and Bleed, published in early 2007. More recently^[when?], Iggy and the Stooges played at Bam Margera's wedding and Pop appeared on the single "Punkrocker" with the Teddybears in a Cadillac television commercial. Pop was also the voice of Lil' Rummy on the Comedy Central cartoon Lil' Bush and confirmed that he has done voices for American Dad and Grand Theft Auto IV,^[23] which also included The Stooges song "I Wanna Be Your Dog" (though the game's manual credited Iggy Pop as the artist).

Pop guested on Profanation (Preparation for a Coming Darkness), the new album by the Bill Laswell-helmed group Praxis, which was released on January 1, 2008.^[24]

He fronts (from January 2009) a £25 million TV ad campaign for Swiftcover, using the strapline "Get a Life".^[25]

Pop collaborated with Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse on the album "Dark Night of the Soul", singing the track "Pain."

Pop's new solo album, Préliminaires, was released on June 2, 2009. Inspired by a novel by French author Michel Houellebecq (born Michel Thomas) called La Possibilité d'une île (2005; Trans. as The Possibility of an Island by Gavin Bowd, 2006), Iggy was approached to provide the soundtrack for a documentary film on Michel and his attempts to make a film from his novel. Iggy's favourite character from Michel's novel is a little white dog named Fox. Iggy describes this new release as a "quieter album with some jazz overtones", the first single off the album, "King of the Dogs", bearing a sound strongly influenced by New Orleans jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton. Iggy also admits that it's his response to being "sick of listening to idiot thugs with guitars banging out crappy music". The album is available on legal download sites, CD, and a Deluxe Boxset is available at only 6000 units worldwide. This boxset contains the Préliminaires album, a collector "Les Feuilles Mortes" b/w "King Of The Dogs" 7 inch, the cover of which is Iggy's portrait by Marjane Satrapi, and a 38 page booklet of drawings also by Marjane Satrapi.

Iggy sings on "We're All Gonna Die" on Slash's first solo album Slash which was released in April 2010.^[26]

Iggy appeared as a character in the video game Lego Rock Band to sing his song The Passenger and also lent his voice for the in game tutorial.^[27]

With reference to the song The Passenger, Iggy Pop has appeared on NZ television advertising phone networks to show how he can get a band to play together by conference call.

After a March 2010 stage diving accident, Pop claimed he would no longer stage dive. However, he did so on three occasions at a concert in Madrid, Spain on April 30, 2010.^[28] And it was much the same in London at the Hammersmith Apollo on May 2, 2010.^[29] On July 9, 2010 he again stage dived in Zottegem, Belgium, causing Iggy to bleed from the face.^[30]

In June 2010, Iggy Pop appeared at Yonge and Dundas Square in Toronto with the reformed Stooges on the NXNE main stage. The sheer size of the audience closed a central artery of Yonge Street.

In 2011 he teamed up with The Lilies, a collaboration between Sergio Dias of Os Mutantes and French group Tahiti Boy & The Palmtree Family to record the single 'Why?'.

Pop at the UK Hop Farm Festival, July 2011

On April 7, 2011, at age 63, Pop performed "Real Wild Child" on the tenth season of American Idol; the Los Angeles Times music blog "Pop & Hiss" described Pop as being "still magnetic, still disturbing."^[31]

Film career[link]

Iggy Pop, Harvard Square March 1977

Pop has had a limited career as an actor. He has appeared in sixteen movies, including Sid and Nancy (a non-speaking cameo role), The Color of Money, Hardware (voice only), The Crow: City of Angels, The Rugrats Movie, Snow Day, Coffee and Cigarettes (opposite Tom Waits, in the third segment of the film, "Somewhere in California"), Cry-Baby, Dead Man, Tank Girl and Atolladero, a Spanish science fiction Western. Pop also sings the main theme for Atolladero, he is the voice of The Beast From Another Dimension in the cult animated film Rock & Rule and also sings its song, "Pain and Suffering".

He has been featured in five television series, including Tales from the Crypt, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, where he played Nona's dad in the second and third season, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, in which he played Yelgrun in "The Magnificent Ferengi" episode. With The Stooges, he was also featured in an episode of MTV's Bam's Unholy Union as the main band performing at Bam's wedding. Additionally, a portion of the music video for Iggy's Butt Town was featured on an episode of Beavis and Butthead.

Pop has been profiled in four rockumentaries and has had songs on eighteen soundtracks, including Crocodile Dundee 2, Trainspotting, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Haggard, Arizona Dream, Repo Man, Black Rain, Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, Shocker, and Kurt Cobain: About a Son.

In the movie Velvet Goldmine, Ewan McGregor portrays Curt Wilde, a character loosely based on Iggy Pop. McGregor performs Pop's songs "TV Eye" and "Gimme Danger" in the film.

Pop voiced Lil' Rummy on the Comedy Central show Lil' Bush.

Iggy Pop played himself as the DJ of the fictional rock station Liberty Rock Radio 97.8 in the video game Grand Theft Auto IV.

Pop provided the voice for a character in the English language version of the 2007 animated film Persepolis.

Iggy Pop also voiced a cameo in the American Dad! episode American Dream Factory as Jerry, the drummer, in Steve's band.

Iggy makes an appearance in the 2008 feature documentary by Nik Sheehan about Brion Gysin and the Dreamachine entitled 'FLicKeR'.

In 2008, Iggy's music was featured in a movie adaption of Irvine Welsh's best-selling novel Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance.

In January 2009, Iggy was signed up as the face of Swiftcover, the UK-based online insurance company.^[32] The advert was then banned by the Advertising Standards Authority on April 28, 2009 for being misleading – it implied that Iggy Pop himself had an insurance policy with Swiftcover when at the time the company did not insure musicians.^[33]

Iggy Pop featured alongside indie starlet Greta Gerwig (Noah Baumbach's Greenberg, Baghead, Nights and Weekends) in the film "Art House" which will world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival in April 2010.

Iggy Pop also featured as a voice talent in the 2004 ATARI video game DRIV3R, which was produced by Reflections Interactive.

In 2010, the Stooges song "Search and Destroy" was featured in the Lost: Final Chapter episode 04, The Substitute.^[34]

Iggy's cover of the Richard Berry song Louie Louie is used during the opening credits of Michael Moore's 2009 film Capitalism: A Love Story

In February 2009, Iggy Pop played the character Victor in the movie Suck.

Iggy was also referenced in The Venture Brothers Episode Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part I) and Showdown at Cremation Creek (Part II) alongside Klaus Nomi as the bodyguards to The Sovereign who is in fact David Bowie, Iggy along with Klaus who defect to Phantom Limb who then tries to kill David Bowie with a large glowing ball that he can summon at will to kill people on the command "POP!" He was quoted as saying to him before he kills him, "Too long have I been made to play the idiot, now you're going to be MY DOG!"

Iggy worked with Johnny Depp on several films: they appeared together in Cry-Baby and Dead Man, and Iggy provided the soundtrack for The Brave, which was directed by and starred Depp.

In the Super Mario Bros. video game series, the character Iggy Koopa was named after him.^[35]

Future biopic[link]

The Passenger was the putative name for a biographical film about Pop's early career with the Stooges. The film was to be directed by Nick Gomez, and Elijah Wood was to play Iggy Pop.^[36][37][38] As of 2010^[update], the project appears to be shelved.^[39]

Pop liked the script but refused to take part in the film. He said:

The script ain't chopped liver... It was a work of art. But subjectively, I don't want to be involved in any way. A producer and the writer sent me a very decent letter, and asked me to write back if I didn't want them to do it... I don't feel negative about it at all.

He also called Wood "a very poised and talented actor".^[40]

Classical scholarship[link]

In 1995, an established journal of classical scholarship, Classics Ireland, published Pop's reflections on the applicability of Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the modern world in a short article, Caesar Lives, (Vol. 2, 1995).^[41] Pop also relates how reading Gibbon while on tour in the Southern United States inspired him to a spontaneous soliloquy he called "Caesar".

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

With The Stooges[link]

• 1969 – The Stooges
• 1970 – Fun House
• 1973 – Raw Power
• 2007 – The Weirdness

With James Williamson[link]

• 1977 – Kill City

Solo[link]

• 1977 – The Idiot
• 1977 – Lust for Life
• 1979 – New Values
• 1980 – Soldier
• 1981 – Party
• 1982 – Zombie Birdhouse
• 1986 – Blah Blah Blah
• 1988 – Instinct
• 1990 – Brick by Brick
• 1993 – American Caesar
• 1996 – Naughty Little Doggie
• 1999 – Avenue B
• 2001 – Beat 'Em Up
• 2003 – Skull Ring
• 2009 – Préliminaires
• 2012 - Après

Personal life[link]

Pop lives in the Miami area.^[42] He has been married three times: to Wendy Weissberg (for several weeks in 1968, the marriage was annulled shortly thereafter)^[43] to Suchi Asano (1984–1999),^[44] and most recently, he wed longtime sweetheart Nina Alu. He has a son, Eric Benson, born in 1970.^[45]

In the 1990s, Iggy Pop developed a friendship with Johnny Depp, Jim Jarmusch and tattoo artist Jonathan Shaw. According to Shaw, the four wore matching rings depicting a skull, and all but Iggy also had a similar skull-and-crossbones tattoo.^[46]

References[link]

Further reading/info[link]

• Trynka, Paul (2007). Iggy Pop: Open Up and Bleed. London: Little, Brown Book Group. ISBN 1-84744-019-3. 
• Logan, Nick; Woffinden, Bob (1977). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Rock (First Edition). New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-52852-5. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Iggy Pop

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Iggy Pop

• Iggy & The Stooges Official Website
• Iggy Pop at the Internet Movie Database
• Iggy Pop at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/music/clips/2806/ (Iggy Pop's infamous 1977 interview with Peter Gzowski, from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's archive)
• Video of Iggy Pop collaboration with Sergio Dias (Os Mutantes) + Tahiti Boy & the Palmtree Family

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Jeffrey Karl Reese Vallance (born 25 January 1955 in Redondo Beach, California) is a contemporary artist who lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

Vallance received a BA in Art from California State University, Northridge, in 1979, and an MFA from the Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles, in 1981.

Best known for projects that blur the lines between object-making, installation, performance, curation and anthropological study, Vallance’s work has long challenged critics to define the artist’s unique multidisciplinary cross-pollination. Raised in Southern California’s San Fernando Valley during that region’s transformation from a mix of agricultural and suburban communities into one enormous expanse of strip malls and cookie-cutter houses, much of Vallance’s early work is informed by regional iconography and pop culture, including his parents’ fascination with Polynesian/Tiki imagery, and, later, his stepfather’s affection for President Richard M. Nixon.

Vallance is the leading force in a distinct version of Intervention Art called Infiltration Art. He creates art by interacting with real-world institutions, communities, politicians, religions, museums and pop-culture figures, tampering within bureaucratic structures to create change without creating conflict. His first public infiltration took place in 1977, when, dressed as a janitor, he sneaked into the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and exchanged the gallery wall-socket plates with his own hand-painted versions.

Vallance’s childhood involvement with his local Lutheran church inspired much of his later interest in and depictions of religious subjects. Young Vallance was also influenced by the morbid humor of The Addams Family and The Munsters television shows, and the feature films The Loved One, Harold and Maude and Mondo Cane (which he now describes as “a sick collection of imagery that warped my young mind”).

His first formal training came from his maternal grandfather, Norwegian folk artist Karl Reese, for whom he is (middle-)named.

Vallance’s over 80 performances have often involved interactions with foreign dignitaries, including audiences with King Taufa'ahau Tupou IV of Tonga at the Royal Palace in Nuku’alofa, Pope John Paul II at the Vatican, and Icelandic presidents Vigdís Finnbogadóttir and Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson at Forseti Höll in Reykjavík.

In the early 1970s, during the Cold War, Vallance corresponded with government officials in the Soviet Union and Red China,^{[disambiguation needed ]} trading political badges with Communist Party leaders. For his efforts, Vallance was investigated by US federal officials and earned a 12-page FBI file.

In 1983, Vallance traveled to Polynesia in search of the myth of Tiki. The resulting artwork, exhibited first in Los Angeles and then internationally, inspired a new genre which came to be known as Tiki Art.

In 1992, while doing volunteer work for the city-council campaign of disgraced former Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry (who had just been released from six months in federal prison for smoking crack), Vallance curated “Splashing with Barry (Marion Barry Pool Party),” an art exhibit at Barry’s residence in the Washington View Apartments.

Other projects include creating a Richard Nixon Museum; traveling to the Vatican, Turin and Milan, Italy to study Christian relics; installing an exhibit aboard a tugboat in the Västerbotten Maritime Museum in Umeå, Sweden; curating shows in the so-called fabulous museums of Las Vegas—the Liberace Museum, Debbie Reynolds' Hollywood Hotel and Casino, Ocean Spray Cranberry World Museum and Ron Lee's World of Clowns Museum; and initiating a campaign called “Preserving America’s Cultural Heritage”—a federal bill that would establish a benefit fund for all living visual artists in the United States. In 2004, Vallance curated the first art-world exhibition of artist Thomas Kinkade, entitled “Thomas Kinkade: Heaven on Earth,” at CalState Fullerton’s Grand Central Art Center in Orange County, California.

Vallance’s many forms of work have been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout the world, including Dakar, Senegal; Reykjavik, Iceland; Zürich, Switzerland; Milan, Italy; Paris, France; Mexico City, Mexico; Amsterdam and Middelburg, Holland; Vienna, Austria; Sydney and Tasmania, Australia; Stockholm, Sweden; London, England; and Athens, Greece. He is represented by Bernier/Eliades in Athens, Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris, Margo Leavin Gallery in Los Angeles and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in New York.

In Popular Culture[link]

In 1983, Vallance was the host of MTV’s The Cutting Edge, which premiered experimental music videos from such musicians as R.E.M., The Bangles and The Police, and featured Vallance’s artwork. Also in 1983, Vallance appeared on NBC’s Late Night with David Letterman to discuss what was then his best-known project, Blinky the Friendly Hen, in which he purchased a frozen chicken from a grocery store and buried it at a Los Angeles pet cemetery, and Cultural Ties, a “mail art” project involving the exchange of neckwear with such international dignitaries as Anwar Sadat, King Hussein of Jordan, Austrian president Rudolf Kirchschläger and dozens of others.

In 1984, Vallance appeared on an episode of The Regis Philbin Show to teach Philbin how to make art. He has also appeared in numerous European and Asian arts and culture documentaries.

Having created album-cover artwork for several early-’80s punk bands including Monitor, Vallance was hired by Grammy-winning art director Kevin Reagan to create art for the cover of singer-songwriter Peter Case’s album Six-Pack of Love (Geffen) in 1992.

Vallance also created an onstage backdrop for the band Oingo Boingo which was used on tour and seen on The Joan Rivers Show.

Awards[link]

In 2004, Vallance received the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation award for installation art. In 2001, he received a Stiftelsen Framtidens Kultur (Foundation Culture of the Future) grant to curate a performance festival at the Ice Hotel in northern Sweden. In 2000, he was conferred with the royal title of Honorary Noble by the Tongan National Center, Nuku’alofa, Tonga, and also received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles.

Paranormalcy[link]

Since 2003, when psychic medium Dorothy Maksym identified Vallance as being the earthly spokesperson for the disembodied spirit of former US president Richard M. Nixon (The Haunting of the Presidents, by Joel Martin and William J. Birnes, Signet), Vallance has taken an interest in the paranormal, contributing stories to the UK’s Fortean Times and leading ghost tours of the Nixon Library and Birthplace in Yorba Linda, California.

Vallance’s interest in the paranormal was piqued by his paternal grandmother, a Long Beach, California, psychic who once appeared on Art Linkletter's House Party, and his maternal great-uncle Emil Knudsen, a world-renowned Norwegian psychic who was often enlisted by police and private citizens to find missing persons, dead bodies and lost objects throughout the world.

Vallance’s paranormal research projects include Bigfoot, the Shroud of Turin, the Holy Lance, ghosts of dead US presidents, the Ravens of the Tower of London and the Loch Ness Monster.

For a project at the Frieze Art Fair in London, Vallance assembled psychic mediums to channel the spirits of five famous dead artists: Leonardo da Vinci, Marcel Duchamp, Frida Kahlo, Vincent van Gogh and Jackson Pollock. The project took the familiar form of a panel discussion, wherein the artist spirits responded to a series of questions prepared by Vallance. At the end of the program, the spirits responded to questions from the audience as well.

Writings[link]

Vallance has written for such publications and journals as Artforum, Art issues, L.A. Weekly, Juxtapoz, Frieze and Fortean Times, and has published nine books: Blinky the Friendly Hen; The World of Jeffrey Vallance: Collected Writings 1978-1994; Christian Dinosaur; Art on the Rocks; Preserving America’s Cultural Heritage; Thomas Kinkade: Heaven on Earth; My Life with Dick; Relics and Reliquaries; and The Vallance Bible (2011).

Academia[link]

Since the mid-1980, Vallance has taught various forms of art at UCLA; Otis/Parsons; the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Umeå University (Sweden); the University of Texas at San Antonio; the University of Tasmania (Australia), California State University Channel Islands; and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

He currently teaches a course called “The Art of Infiltration” at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), in Valencia, California.

References[link]

Jeffrey Vallance: "Relics and Reliquaries" at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Art in America, March 2010.

Jeffrey Vallance at Margo Leavin Gallery, by Jan Tumlir, Artforum, April 2008. (Via BNet.)

Van Gogh, Kahlo Speak from Beyond the Grave at Frieze Art Fair, October 19, 2010.

Blinky the Friendly Hen at Best Hoaxes and Pranks, January 2009.

Painted into a Corner?, a review of Thomas Kinkade: Heaven on Earth at CalState Fullerton's Grand Central Art Center, by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2004.

External links[link]

• Myths of the Raven: The myths and meanings of the Tower of London ravens, Fortean Times, November 2007.
• Artist Talk: a lecture at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California, USA. Video/Slide show. The artist gives an hourlong discussion of his career, Spring 2009.
• Distinguished Alumni Page at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, California, USA.
• Lapp of the Gods, by Jeffrey Vallance, Fortean Times, January 2005.
• Page at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York, New York, USA
• Description of some of Vallance's works

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2010)

Dee Dee Ramone
Background information
Birth name	Douglas Glenn Colvin
Also known as	Dee Dee King
Born	(1951-09-18)September 18, 1951 Fort Lee, Virginia, USA
Died	June 5, 2002(2002-06-05) (aged 50) Los Angeles, California, USA
Genres	Punk rock, hip hop
Occupations	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Bass guitar, vocals, guitar
Years active	1966–2002
Labels	Sire, Wanker, World Service, Other People's Music, Corazong
Associated acts	Ramones, GG Allin, Nina Hagen, Furious George, Paul Kostabi, Christian Martucci, Stefan Adika
Website	www.deedeeking.net
Notable instruments
Fender Precision Bass

Dee Dee Ramone (born Douglas Glenn Colvin) (September 18, 1951^[1] – June 5, 2002) was an American songwriter and musician, best known as founding member, songwriter, and bassist for punk rock band the Ramones.

Though nearly all of the Ramones' songs were credited equally to all the band members, Dee Dee was the band's most prolific lyricist and songwriter, writing many of the band's most well-known songs, such as "53rd & 3rd", "Commando", "Rockaway Beach", and "Poison Heart". He was initially the band's lead vocalist, though his (then) inability to sing and play bass at the same time resulted in original drummer Joey Ramone taking over the lead vocalist duties. Dee Dee would serve as the band's bassist and songwriter from 1974 through 1989, when he left to pursue a short-lived career in hip hop music under the name Dee Dee King. He soon returned to his punk roots and released three solo albums featuring brand new songs, many of which were later recorded by the Ramones. He toured the world playing his new songs, Ramones songs and some old favorites in small clubs, and continued to write songs for the Ramones until 1996, when the band officially retired.

Dee Dee struggled with drug addiction for much of his life, particularly heroin. He began using drugs as a teenager, and continued to use for the majority of his adult life. He appeared to clean up his act in the early 1990s but began using heroin again some time later. He died from a heroin overdose in 2002.^[2]

Biography[link]

Childhood[link]

Born Douglas Colvin in Fort Lee, Virginia, he was the son of an American soldier and a German woman. As an infant, his family relocated to Berlin, Germany, due to his father's military service. His father's military career also required the family to relocate frequently. These frequent moves caused Dee Dee to have a lonely childhood with few real friends. His parents separated during his early teens, and he remained in Berlin until the age of 15, when he, along with his mother and sister Beverley, moved to the Forest Hills section of New York City's borough of Queens, in order to escape Dee Dee's alcoholic father.^[3] There he met John Cummings and Thomas Erdelyi (later dubbed Johnny and Tommy "Ramone"), then playing in a band called The Tangerine Puppets, named after a Donovan song.

Marriage[link]

In 1978, he married Vera Boldis.^[4] According to Vera, Dee Dee's struggles with mental illness and drug abuse put a strain on the couple's relationship.^[5] They separated in 1990 before finalizing their divorce in 1995.^[6][7]

Ramones[link]

Dee Dee Ramone, July 1, 1977 Kelly's Pub, St. Paul, Minnesota

Colvin, later Dee Dee, and Cummings, later Johnny, quickly became friends, as they were both social outcasts in their heavily middle class neighborhood. After an unsuccessful guitar audition for Television, Johnny convinced Dee Dee to form their own band with then-drummer Jeffry Hyman, later Joey Ramone, in 1974. Joey took over vocal duties after Dee Dee decided that he could not sing lead vocals for longer than a few songs as his voice shredded. Dee Dee would continue, however, to count off each song's tempo with his signature rapid-fire shout of "1-2-3-4!"

It was Dee Dee who first suggested naming the band the Ramones, after reading that Paul McCartney often signed into hotels under the alias "Paul Ramon". He added an 'e' to the end of that surname and the band members all agreed to adopt the surname "Ramone" as a means of conveying their unity.

Dee Dee wrote or co-wrote much of the Ramones' repertoire, such as "53rd and 3rd" (a song about male prostitution at 53rd Street and 3rd Avenue in Manhattan, allegedly based on personal experience), "Glad to See You Go" (written about his then-girlfriend, a stripper and fellow drug user with a volatile personality), "It's a Long Way Back to Germany", "Chinese Rock" (originally recorded by Johnny Thunders and The Heartbreakers, as guitarist Johnny Ramone was not enthusiastic about the Ramones doing songs about drugs) and "Wart Hog" (a song Dee Dee wrote in rehab). After he quit the Ramones, Dee Dee continued to write songs for them, contributing at least three songs to each of their albums.

According to Mondo Bizarro's liner notes, for example, the Ramones once bailed Dee Dee out of jail in exchange for the rights to his songs "Main Man", "Strength to Endure" and "Poison Heart", which would become a minor hit for the band. The band's final studio album, 1995's Adios Amigos, consists of several of Dee Dee's solo songs, such as "I'm Makin' Monsters for My Friends" and "It's Not for Me to Know" from his album I Hate Freaks Like You.

Later projects[link]

In 1989, before leaving the Ramones, Dee Dee embarked on a brief hip hop career as rapper "Dee Dee King" with the album Standing in the Spotlight. Dee Dee had recorded "Funky Man" as Dee Dee King in 1987, while still a member of the Ramones. Music critic Matt Carlson wrote that the album "will go down in the annals of pop culture as one of the worst recordings of all time.^[8] After the album failed, he returned to punk rock with various short-lived projects such as Sprokkett (which also featured Richard 'The Atomic Elf' Bacchus) of D Generation and later, The Spikey Tops.

In 1991, Dee Dee was briefly involved with transgressive punk rock singer-songwriter GG Allin, playing guitar with Allin's backup band The Murder Junkies. His involvement lasted approximately one week, enough for him to be briefly interviewed during the filming of Todd Phillips' Allin documentary Hated: GG Allin And The Murder Junkies. In the film, Dee Dee reveals that he was unaware of the band's name, even after joining. Rehearsal recordings of him with Allin and The Murder Junkies appears on the Hated soundtrack, as well as on the posthumous live Allin compilation Res-Erected. Video footage of the rehearsals is available on DVD through Allin's estate's website.^[9] Dee Dee never actually played a live gig with the band.^[10]

In 1992, Dee Dee formed another short lived project named The Chinese Dragons, which was followed by the most successful of his post-Ramones projects, a group named Dee Dee Ramone I.C.L.C. (Inter-Celestial Light Commune), which lasted from 1994 to 1996. The group featured New York City bassist John Carco (formerly of Queens' hardcore group Misguided) who befriended Dee Dee when the two attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings together during the summer of 1992. After writing more than a dozen songs and recording several demos for an upcoming Ramones album with producer Daniel Rey, Dee Dee decided to keep the material for his new band. After working with several drummers and playing several live shows in the New York City area, Dee Dee and Carco moved to Amsterdam to record a four song EP and fourteen track album for Rough Trade Records. I Hate Freaks Like You was released on April 17, 1994, featuring Nina Hagen on two of the album's fourteen tracks. The three-piece line up now consisted of Dee Dee (vocals, guitar), Carco (bass, vocals), and Dutch drummer Danny Arnold Lommen.

I.C.L.C. would go on to promote the I Hate Freaks Like You album by touring 22 countries over a 10-month period. During this tour, in November 1994, Dee Dee met 16-year-old Barbara Zampini while searching for his lost guitar outside his hotel in Argentina.^[11] Zampini was a big fan of the Ramones and had been playing bass for two years, heavily influenced by Dee Dee's early work. They later married, and remained together until his death.

In January, 1995, the group had completed their 10-month tour and returned to their headquarters in Amsterdam to begin recording a second album. The group was soon dropped, however, by their record label, Rough Trade World Service. With this development, bassist John Carco left the group and moved to Los Angeles where he began playing with Frankie O. and Pete Stahl. Carco would later pursue an acting career. Songs written by Dee Dee and Carco for the never released second I.C.L.C. album would eventually be recorded by the Ramones on their final album Adios Amigos. One of these songs, Born to Die in Berlin, would ultimately be the final song on the final Ramones' album, and featured Dee Dee singing in German on the bridge of the song.

Dee Dee was also a special guest at the final Ramones' show at The Palace in Los Angeles on August 6, 1996, performing the lead vocals on the song "Love Kills".

Dee Dee formed a Ramones' tribute band called The Ramainz with his wife Barbara ("Barbara Ramone", bass) and former Ramones' member Marky (drums). They recorded an album, Live in NYC, released in Argentina, and played a couple of times with C.J. Ramone.

Dee Dee also recorded several solo albums under his old name Dee Dee Ramone. "Zonked!", the first album release under the Dee Dee Ramone moniker was re-titled "Ain't It Fun?" for the European release, but other than the addition of the bonus track "Please Kill Me", the music is identical. The line up for this album was Dee Dee Ramone on guitars and lead vocals, Marky Ramone on drums, longtime partner Daniel Ray producing and on guitars, and Barbara "Ramone" / Zampini on bass and lead vocals. Guests included Joey Ramone singing lead on "I am seeing UFOs", and The Cramps' vocalist Lux Interior doing the same on "Bad Horoscope".

The second solo-album was called Hop Around; the line-up consisted of Dee Dee Ramone, Barbara Ramone / Zampini, Chris Spedding on guitars and Billy Rogers on drums. Dee Dee also released Greatest and Latest, with Barbara, Spedding and Chase Manhattan on drums. This album consisted of re-recording of Ramones songs, a re-recorded solo song ("Fix Yourself Up", originally from Zonked! / Ain't It Fun?), cover-songs and an unreleased new solo-song ("Sidewalk Surfin'").

In the 21st century, Dee Dee teamed up with Paul Kostabi, leader of the hardcore punk band Youth Gone Mad and former guitarist for White Zombie. An established artist, Kostabi was instrumental in getting Dee Dee's new career as a painter off the ground. Together with Barbara, the trio collaborated on several hundred works that sold quickly for a few hundred dollars each.

On Halloween, 1998, while staying at the Hotel Chelsea, Dee Dee and Zampini met the Hollywood band SEXYCHRIST, which featured adult film star Kurt Lockwood. Lockwood encouraged them to move to Hollywood, and together the two bands shared a successful tour of the U.S. in early 1999. Afterwards, Dee Dee formed The Dee Dee Ramone Band, with members including Christian Martucci (vocals and guitar), Anthony Smedile (drums), Chase Manhattan (drums), and Stefan Adika (bass). With the exception of one show at the Spa Club in NYC and a Club Makeup performance, this would be his last touring band. Dee Dee would release a book, entitled Legend of a Rock Star, A Memoir: The Last Testament of Dee Dee Ramone, written while on tour in Europe in 2001.^[12]

Dee Dee later moved to California where he continued to make music and pursued an acting career. Though largely unsuccessful as an actor, he landed a major role in the 2002 low budget film Bikini Bandits.^[13] He also contributed the song, "In a Movie", to the film's soundtrack, which features his wife Barbara on lead vocals.

His next album—a live album produced by Gilby Clarke (ex-Guns N' Roses), to have been recorded on June 12, 2002 at Hollywood's Key Club—never materialized. Several bootlegs of The Dee Dee Ramone Band exist, including, Live in Milan, Italy. Dee Dee's final studio recordings were released by tREND iS dEAD! records as the 2002 album, Youth Gone Mad featuring Dee Dee Ramone. He also worked with the band Terrorgruppe.

Death[link]

Gravestone at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Dee Dee Ramone was found dead on the evening of June 5, 2002, by his wife Barbara at his Hollywood, California apartment. An autopsy established heroin overdose as the official cause of death. He had been booked to play a show at the Majestic Ventura Theater, which ended up being a memorial show in his honor.

Dee Dee Ramone is buried at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California, not far from the cenotaph of his former Ramones' bandmate, Johnny Ramone. His headstone features the Ramones seal with the line "I feel so safe flying on a ray on the highest trails above" taken from his song, "Highest Trails Above", from the Ramones' Subterranean Jungle album. At the stone's base is the line "O.K...I gotta go now."

Equipment[link]

Dee Dee Ramone used Ampeg amplification during his entire career with the Ramones.^[14] His preferred bass guitars included:

• Danelectro Bass: Natural, White pickguard, Rosewood fretboard (1974–1975)
• Fender musicmaster bass: red, white pickguard, rosewood fretboard ( 1974–1975 )
• Fender '62 Precision Bass: White, Tortoise pickguard, Rosewood fretboard (1975–1977)
• Fender '75 Precision Bass: Black, Black pickguard, Maple neck (1975–1977)
• Fender '76 Precision Bass: White, Black pickguard (changed to Red), Maple neck (1977–1983) (He used at least 3 such basses).
• Fender '78 Precision Bass: Sunburst, Black pickguard, Maple neck (1982–1983) (He used at least 2 such basses).
• Fender '79 Precision Bass: Black, White pickguard, Maple neck (1983–1988)
• Fender '83 Precision Bass: White, White pickguard, Maple neck (1983–1988)
• ESP Custom Precision Bass: Cream, White pickguard, Rosewood fretboard (1986–1988)
• ESP Custom P-style Bass: Orange w. Spider Graphic, Rosewood fretboard (1986–1989)
• ESP Custom Thunderbird Bass: Yellow w. Chinese Dragon Graphic and "Ramones" lettering, Rosewood fretboard (1988–1989)

Author[link]

Dee Dee Ramone wrote two books: Poison Heart: Surviving the Ramones (aka Lobotomy) and Legend of a Rock Star, a daily journal of commentary on his last, hectic European tour in the spring of 2001.

He also penned a novel, Chelsea Horror Hotel, in which he and his wife move into New York City's famous Hotel Chelsea and believe they are staying in the same room where Sid Vicious allegedly killed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. In the book, Ramone is visited by Vicious himself, as well as other dead punk rock friends such as Johnny Thunders, Stiv Bators, and Jerry Nolan.

Memorial book "Rock In Peace: Dee Dee And Joey Ramone" (2004) is composed by Jari-Pekka Laitio-Ramone - (2004) ^[15]

Discography[link]

Ramones

• Ramones (1976)
• Leave Home (1977)
• Rocket to Russia (1977)
• Road to Ruin (1978)
• End of the Century (1980)
• Pleasant Dreams (1981)
• Subterranean Jungle (1983)
• Too Tough to Die (1984)
• Animal Boy (1986)
• Halfway to Sanity (1987)
• Brain Drain (1989)

Solo

• Standing in the Spotlight (1989) (used the name Dee Dee King)
• Chinese Bitch four-song CD EP (1994)
• I Hate Freaks Like You (1994)
• Zonked! (1997)
• Hop Around (2000)
• Greatest & Latest (2000)
• Youth Gone Mad featuring Dee Dee Ramone (2002)
• Too Tough To Die Live in NYC (2003)

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Dee Dee Ramone

• Dee Dee Ramone at Find a Grave

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Johnny Thunders (July 15, 1952 – April 23, 1991), born John Anthony Genzale, Jr., was an American rock and roll/punk rock guitarist, singer and songwriter.

He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of the New York Dolls. He later played with The Heartbreakers and as a solo artist.

Biography[link]

Early life and career[link]

John Genzale was born in Queens, NY, where he first lived in East Elmhurst and then Jackson Heights.^[1]

His first musical performance was in the winter of 1967 with The Reign. Shortly thereafter, he played with "Johnny and the Jaywalkers," under the name Johnny Volume, at Quintano's School for Young Professionals^[2], around the corner from Carnegie Hall, on 58th Street near 7th Avenue.

In 1968 he began going to the Fillmore East on weekends. In late 1969 he got a job as a sales clerk at D'Naz leather shop, on Bleecker Street in the West Village. In the summer of 1970 he went to England for the Isle of Wight Festival. In London he hung out at the Speakeasy Club and bought clothes on King's Road. Toward the end of 1970 he started hanging out at Nobodys, a club also on Bleecker Street in the West Village. It was near there that he met future Dolls Arthur Kane and Rick Rivets. He joined their band "Actress" which, after firing Rivets and adding David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain and Billy Murcia, became the New York Dolls. At this time John Genzale renamed himself Johnny Thunders, after the DC comic book figure.

Dolls bass guitarist, Arthur Kane, later wrote about Johnny Thunder's guitar sound, as he described arriving outside the rehearsal studio where they were meeting to jam together for the first time: "I heard someone playing a guitar riff that I myself didn't know how to play. It was raunchy, nasty, rough, raw, and untamed. I thought it was truly inspired..." Adding, "His sound was rich and fat and beautiful, like a voice."^[3]

The New York Dolls were signed to Mercury Records, with the help of A & R man, Paul Nelson. Thunders recorded two albums with the band, New York Dolls and Too Much Too Soon. They were managed by Marty Thau, and booked by Leber & Krebs. Subsequently they worked with Malcolm McLaren for several months, later becoming a prototype for the Sex Pistols.

In 1975 Thunders and Nolan left the band, though Johansen and Sylvain continued playing, along with Peter Jordon, Tony Machine (an ex-assistant agent at Leber & Krebs) and Chris Robison, as the New York Dolls, until late 1977. Their early recordings are still in print and continue to influence young musicians.

Post-New York Dolls[link]

Johnny Thunders, performing at the VFW Post in Ann Arbor, Michigan in July 1979. At that time he was collaborating with Wayne Kramer of the MC5, as 'Gang War'.

Thunders formed Johnny Thunders & Heartbreakers with former New York Dolls drummer Jerry Nolan, and former Television bassist Richard Hell. Walter Lure, former guitarist for The Demons was soon added. After conflict arose between Thunders and Hell, Hell left to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids and was replaced by Billy Rath.

With Thunders leading the band, the Heartbreakers toured America before going to Britain to join the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned on the now-legendary Anarchy Tour, replacing the Ramones, who had quit the tour due to a lack of organization. The group stayed in the UK throughout 1977, where their popularity was significantly greater than in the U.S., particularly among punk bands. While in Britain they were signed to Track Records and released their only official studio album, LAMF, an abbreviation for "Like A Mother Fucker". LAMF was poorly received by critics and fans alike, due to technical problems in mastering the record. Displeased with the production, the band members were soon competing with one other, mixing and remixing the record, culminating in drummer Jerry Nolan quitting in November 1977. Shortly thereafter, the Heartbreakers officially disbanded.

Thunders stayed in London and recorded the first of a number of solo albums, beginning with So Alone in 1978. The notoriously drug-fuelled recording sessions featured a core band of Thunders, bassist Phil Lynott, drummer Paul Cook, and guitarist Steve Jones, with guest appearances from Chrissie Hynde, Steve Marriott, Walter Lure, Billy Rath, and Peter Perrett. The CD version of the album contains four bonus tracks, including the single "Dead or Alive". Soon afterwards, Thunders moved back to the US, joining former Heartbreakers Walter Lure, Billy Rath and sometimes Jerry Nolan for gigs at Max's Kansas City.

In late 1979 Thunders moved to Detroit with his wife Julie and began performing in a band called Gang War. Other members included John Morgan, Ron Cooke, Philippe Marcade and former MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer. They recorded several demos and performed live several times before disbanding. Zodiac Records released an EP of their demos in 1987. In 1990 they also released an LP titled Gang War, which was credited to Thunders and Kramer. Bootlegs of their demos and live performances remain in circulation.

During the early 1980s, Thunders re-formed The Heartbreakers for various tours; the group recorded their final album, Live at the Lyceum in 1984.

In 1985, Thunders released Que Sera Sera, a collection of new songs. Three years later he teamed up with former Snatch vocalist, Patti Palladin, and former Only Ones guitarist John Perry to record "Copy Cats", a covers album.

From August 1988 until his death in April 1991, Thunders performed with a band known as The Oddballs, with Jamie Heath (saxophone), Alison Gordy (vocals), Chris Musto (drums), Stevie Klasson (guitar) and Jill Wisoff (bass).

His final recording was a version of "Born Too Lose", with German punk rock band Die Toten Hosen, recorded 36 hours before his death in New Orleans.

Death[link]

Many rumors surround Thunders' death at the St. Peter House in New Orleans, Louisiana in April 1991. He apparently died of drug-related causes, but it has been speculated that it was the result of foul play. According to the autobiography Lobotomy: Surviving The Ramones, Dee Dee Ramone took a call in New York the next day from Stevie Klasson, Johnny's rhythm guitar player. "They told me that Johnny had gotten mixed up with some bastards... who ripped him off for his methadone supply. They had given him LSD and then murdered him. He had gotten a pretty large supply of methadone in England, so he could travel and stay away from those creeps - the drug dealers, Thunders imitators, and losers like that."^[4]

What is known for certain is that Johnny's room (no. 37) was ransacked and most of his possessions were missing (passport, makeup, clothes). Rigor mortis had set in with his body positioned in an unnatural state, described by eyewitnesses as "like a pretzel", underneath a coffee table. Friends and acquaintances acknowledge he had not been using heroin for some time, relying on his methadone prescriptions. The police did not open a criminal investigation.

Singer Willy DeVille, who lived next door to the hotel in which Thunders died, described his death this way:

I don't know how the word got out that I lived next door, but all of a sudden the phone started ringing and ringing. Rolling Stone was calling, the Village Voice called, his family called, and then his guitar player called. I felt bad for all of them. It was a tragic end, and I mean, he went out in a blaze of glory, ha ha ha, so I thought I might as well make it look real good, you know, out of respect, so I just told everybody that when Johnny died he was laying down on the floor with his guitar in his hands. I made that up. When he came out of the St. Peter's Guest House, rigor mortis had set in to such an extent that his body was in a U shape. When you're laying on the floor in a fetal position, doubled over - well, when the body bag came out, it was in a U. It was pretty awful."^[5]

An autopsy was conducted by the New Orleans coroner, but served only to compound the mysteries. According to Thunders' biographer Nina Antonia as posted on the Jungle Records web site, the level of drugs found in his system was not fatal.^[6] And according to the book "Rock Bottom: Dark Moments in Music Babylon" by Pamela Des Barres who interviewed Thunders' sister Marion, the autopsy confirmed evidence of advanced leukemia, which would explain the decline in Thunders' appearance in the final year of his life.^[7] This also sheds light on the interview in Lech Kowalski's documentary "Born To Lose: The Last Rock and Roll Movie", where Thunders' sister Mary-Ann's husband says, "Only Johnny knew how sick he really was."

In a 1994 Melody Maker interview Thunders' manager Mick Webster described the efforts of his family, "We keep asking the New Orleans police to re-investigate, but they haven’t been particularly friendly. They seemed to think that this was just another junkie who had wandered into town and died. They simply weren’t interested."^[8] Marion claims that the original police report is largely missing and Webster further explains that the Coroner who conducted the autopsy was fired for falsifying a report in another case.

Thunders was survived by his ex-wife Julie and four children: sons John, Vito, and Dino; and daughter Jamie Genzale.^[9]

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• So Alone – (1978)
• In Cold Blood – (1983)
• Diary of a Lover – (1983)
• Hurt Me – (1983)
• Que Sera Sera – (1985)
• Copy Cats – (1988)

Official live albums and compilations[link]

• The New Too Much Junkie Business – (1983)
• Stations of the Cross – (1987)
• Bootlegging the Bootleggers – (1990)
• Live in Japan – (1991)
• Have Faith – (1992)
• Saddest Vacation Act. 1 – (1993)
• Saddest Vacation Act. 2 – (1993)
• Chinese Rocks: The Ultimate Thunders Live Collection – (1993)
• Add Water & Stir – (1994)
• Stations of the Cross (Revisited) – (1994)
• The Studio Bootlegs – (1996)
• Belfast Rocks – (1997)
• Born Too Lose: The Best of Johnny Thunders – (1999)
• Live at Leeds – (1999)
• Play with Fire – (2000)
• Endless Party – (2000)
• Panic on the Sunset Strip – (2000)
• Live & Wasted: Unplugged 1990 – (2001)
• Eve of Destruction – (2005)

Official singles and EPs[link]

• "Dead or Alive" 7" – (1978)
• "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" 7" & 12" – (1978)
• " Twist And Shout/Boys" 7" live at Max's with Jimi LaLumia & The Psychotic Frogs-(1981)
• "In Cold Blood" 7" – (1983)
• "Hurt Me" 7" – (1984)
• "Crawfish 7" & 12" – (1985)
• "Que Sera Sera (Whatever Will Be Will Be)" 7" & 12" – (1988)

Unofficial/bootleg albums[link]

• Hey Man Where Is My Guitar – (1983)
• Pipeline – (1983)
• So All Alone – (1983)
• Wanted: Dead or Alive Reward $10 – (1983)
• Cosa Nostra Never Sleeps – (1984) – recorded on June, 1983 at Folkets Park, Södertälje, Sweden.
• Play with Fire – (1984)
• There's a Little Bit of Whore in Every Girl – (1984)
• Schneckentaenze – (1985)
• Lucky Strikes Back – (1987) – recorded at Nihon Seinenkan, Tokyo, Japan on July 8, 1986.
• Diary of a Gypsy Lover – (1996) – contains material from 4 different sources: alternate takes from the In Cold Blood studio session (tracks 1-6); tracks that were originally released as a Japanese 7" single called Critics Choice (7-9); material from "Live at The Rat", Boston, 1983 (10-15); and material from a radio show done in 1991 (16-23).
• Johnny on the Rocks – (1996)
• Live Crisis – (1996)
• Fuck Off Marquee – (1997)
• Countdown Love (Demos & Unreleased Live) – (1999)
• The Party Ain't Over Yet – (2005)

Unofficial/bootleg singles and EPs[link]

• Proud to Be Pirate EP – (1983)
• Ain't Superstitious 7" – (1987)
• Critic's Choice 7" – (1992)
• Daddy Rollin' Stone 7" – (1996)
• Life Goes On 7" – (1996)
• Countdown Love 7" – (1997)
• The Fireball EP – (1999)
• The Thunderbolt EP – (1999)
• It's Great When You're Straight, Yeah EP – (2000)
• The Reign 7" Zippered up heart (rec. 1967) – (Norton Records 2000)

Musical tributes[link]

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Thunders has had numerous bands paying tribute or mentioning him in their songs, while he was alive and after his death.

• The Clash mentioned Thunders in the lyric from their song "City Of The Dead", singing "'Don't you know where to cop?'/That's what New York Johnny said/'You should get to know your town/Just like I know mine'" and on the song "Safe European Home", where they sing "'How many local dollars for a local anaesthetic?/The Johnny on the corner was a very sympathetic'."
• Michael Monroe of Hanoi Rocks covered "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" on his first solo LP called Nights Are So Long.
• Alison Gordy of Blonde and Blue (and former backup singer for Johnny) recorded "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" on their CD Mad As Hell.
• Giant Sand covered "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" on their 1986 album Ballad Of A Thin Line Man.
• Recently, Gibson.com ranked Thunders #2 on its "Punk Rock's 10 Mightiest Guitar Gods" list.^[10]
• Then-Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan wrote the song "So Fine", which was dedicated to Thunders. The song appears on the album Use Your Illusion II. Also, in 1993, Guns N' Roses covered Thunders' song "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" on their cover album, "The Spaghetti Incident?", with McKagan performing vocals and playing all instruments.
• Willy DeVille wrote a song called "Chemical Warfare" which appeared on his 1992 album Backstreets of Desire. "Chemical Warfare" was dedicated to Johnny Thunders with whom DeVille shared a long-time friendship. DeVille was first to arrive at the hotel the day of Johnny's death.
• At their reunion shows, the New York Dolls have been performing "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory", with member Sylvain Sylvain singing the lead vocal and sometimes changing the title lyric to "I can't put my arms around you, Johnny."
• On the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds double album, Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus, Johnny Thunders is mentioned in the song "There She Goes my Beautiful World", singing "...And Johnny Thunders was half alive when he wrote 'Chinese Rocks'"(although Johnny performed and recorded 'Chinese Rocks' it was written by his friend and fellow punk rocker Dee Dee Ramone).
• English rock band the Dogs D'Amour released a song about Thunders titled "Johnny Silvers" on their ...More Unchartered Heights of Disgrace album.
• The Replacements included a song about Johnny Thunders, "Johnny's Gonna Die", on their first album. The Mats also had a song called "Dose of Thunder" on their "Tim" album.
• Alex Chilton in his song "Bangkok" sings the lines "I'm not living on Chinese rocks, I'm in Bangkok." A small tribute and allusion to Johnny Thunders.
• Die Toten Hosen paid tribute to Johnny Thunders by including the line "So lange Johnny Thunders lebt, so lang bleib ich ein Punk" ("As long as Johnny Thunders lives I'll stay a punk") in their song "Wort zum Sonntag". After his death Die Toten Hosen changed the lyrics to "Hey, Johnny kannst du uns grad' seh'n, wir vergessen dich nicht - wir werden überall von dir erzählen damit dein Name ewig weiterlebt." ("Hey, Johnny can you see us right now, we won't forget you - we'll tell everywhere about you for your name 'll live on eternally.")
• The Murder City Devils named a song "Johnny Thunders" on their album Empty Bottles, Broken Hearts.
• Iggy Pop wrote a tribute song for Johnny entitled "Look Away" on the album Naughty Little Doggie. It also involves his love affair with Sable Starr.
• "Everything I Wanted" by Australian band Wallspace features the line "Don't you wish you had a name like Johnny Thunder".
• Spanish label Munster Records released Again ... This One's For Johnny in 2001, a tribute record which includes bands as Ramones, Ronnie Spector, Nikki Sudden or Atom Rhumba
• Vic Godard & the Subway Sect had a single titled "Johnny Thunders" which was released in September 1992 by Rough Trade records.
• Napalm Beach played on at least two bills in the 1980s with the Heartbreakers in Portland in Seattle. Three days before Thunders died, the band had breakfast with Thunders in a Berlin hotel, where Thunders autographed bandleader Chris Newman's passport "all my love and admiration." In 1993 Napalm Beach released a cover of "Chatterbox" for a Johnny Thunders Tribute compilation put together by Tim Kerr Records. The single featured a photo of the autograph next to a photo of a guitar Napalm Beach bassist Otis P. Otis had gotten from Thunders in an earlier trade. The last meeting with Thunders was alluded to in the Napalm Beach song "Longtime Johnny" on their 1993 album, Curiosities.
• Slaughter & the Dogs had a track titled "Johnny T" allegedly about Thunders which was the b-side to their single "Dame to Blame".
• In the "Call of the Yeti" episode of "The Mighty Boosh" Naboo tells Vince "Vince, you're a punk, stay punk! Think of Johnny Thunders, Mick and Keith!" when they are threatened to be raped by Hippy yetis.
• Paul Westerberg released an album in August 2008 entitled "49:00" which contains a track about Johnny entitled "Devil Raised A Good Boy".
• Anarcho punk band Kronstadt Uprising became more influenced by Johnny Thunders (and glam rock generally) later in their existence.
• Chinese punk rock band Joyside's "Neptune Child" is in tribute of Stiv Bators and Johnny Thunders.
• When doing their cover of The Rolling Stones song Dead Flowers. JB Beverley and The Wayward Drifters substitute the line, "and another girl to take my pain away", with, "with my Johnny Thunders records taking all this pain away".
• American label Skykrebs Records Limited [2] released Born To Lose: A Tribute To Johnny Thunders in 2009, a 3CD Boxed Set of various artists featuring 51 songs and a 36 page full color booklet. Guest stars include Richie Cannata (saxophone player from Billy Joel), Steve Holley (drummer from Wings), Buddy Bowzer (saxophone player from The New York Dolls), Andy Shernoff (bass player from The Dictators) and Jeff Magnum (bass player from The Dead Boys).
• John Waite references Johnny in his song "Downtown" from his Temple Bar CD. In the song, the lyric "Johnny Thunders on the Radio, ah You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory".
• The Schizo's, an infamous Dutch punk-rock band played several covers from Thunders. For them Thunders was one of their main influences.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Johnny Thunders

• Unofficial site
• The Johnny Thunders 'Chatterbox' Fan Forum
• Streaming video posting of "Born To Lose: The Last Rock N' Roll Movie"
• The Official 'Chatterbox Forum' Pandora Radio Station
• Article from NY Rock Magazine
• Johnny Thunders Cyber Lounge (not updated since 2001)
• Johnny Thunders info – Diary-based site
• Johnny Thunders – Lonely Planet Boy
• Johnny Thunders in England
• Johnny Thunders Best
• Johnny Thunders at the Internet Movie Database
• Born to Lose: The Last Rock and Roll Movie at the Internet Movie Database
• Johnny Thunders at Find a Grave