Forget Sheena — this weekend, everyone’s a punk rocker.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Ramones’ first show at the Manhattan’s legendary CBGB music venue, several Ramones themed pop-up events will be coming to the Big Apple – from ferry rides to Rockaway Beach to a documentary screening.
“There’s this uniqueness [about the band], they just came forward with straightforward songs that were funny, but they made you think,” Sean Sanders, the guitarist for Long Island-based tribute band The Rawmones, told The Post Thursday.
“All four of them went to Forest Hills High School and dressed in leather jackets and the high top sneakers, just like your average tough New York kids … they definitely had a rawness about them.”
Sanders, whose band will be playing during the anniversary celebration, said the Queens-native punk pioneers deserve to be remembered half a century later as they were an inspiration to so much music that came after them.
“They’ve influence so many people and so many bands like Green Day and Pearl Jam,” Sanders said. “Many of those bands that are successful owe a lot to the Ramones.”
The Ramones — singer Joey, drummer Tommy, bassist DeeDee and guitarist Jonny, who all used pseudonyms with the last name Ramone — first met in their home-neighborhood of Forest Hills and coalesced into a hard driving punk band on the city’s burgeoning scene in 1974.
On Aug. 16 of that year, they would first take the stage at CBGB, a now-shuttered Manhattan venue that featured acts from Blondie to the Talking Heads, and became one of the most legendary venues anywhere.
“They were all wearing these black leather jackets. And they counted off this song…and it was just this wall of noise,” author Legs McNeil, who witnessed show, later wrote of the night. “These guys were not hippies. This was something completely new.”
With hits like “Blitzkrieg Bop” and “I Wanna Be Sedated” over the next decade, the group became trailblazers in the punk genre.
In honor of the iconic show, the NYC Ferry will be hosting Ramones-themed rides to Rockaway Beach on Aug. 16 and 17 and offer riders free samples of Rockaway Soda, a raffle for a Ramones prize back from Rhino Entertainment, a “50 Years of Ramones” sticker – all to the tune of “Rockaway Beach” played at the top of the ride as the ferry leaves the Wall Street terminal.
Ramones fans can also grab limited edition “Ra-scones” at the Rockaway Beach Bakery – and “Now I Wanna Sip Some (Cold) Brew” for the caffeinated crowd.
Fans can separately attend a screening of the 2003 documentary, “End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones” on Friday at 8 p.m. at The Claire Shulman Theater — followed by a Q&A with an “esteemed panel of guests from the ‘70s NYC underground scene.”
As Ramones fans gather in New York City this weekend for special ferry rides and limited-edition treats, The Rawmones are slated to take the stage at Mr. Beery’s — a venue the band fondly calls Long Island’s own CBGB — on Friday for a 50th anniversary tribute gig to the punk legends.
The four-piece tribute band began in 2018, fronted by singer Lawrence Tumminia and featuring other members Tommy Hanrahan on bass and Don Kurkowski on the drums. It was the sudden passing of their drummer last March that brought the band together for a memorial gig at Mr. Beery’s that Sanders could only describe as “emotional.”
“We lost him suddenly,” Sanders explained. “We played The Rawmones, and we had friends play also to pay tribute to Donnie. He was a huge Ramones fan — he saw the Ramones open up for Blue Oyster Cult at the Nassau Coliseum [in 1977] … he’s the reason we are here doing this.”
Friday night’s show will bring an extra dose of nostalgia, Sanders said, as the four-piece transports the audience back to that seminal stage for the night that made punk history in 1974.
“We try to bring people back and make them reminisce about the Ramones,” Sanders added. “We try to do the setlist like they used to do a setlist and so on. We just try to make it a Ramones experience.”
