The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 322

Pop Music The Menace and Charm of Punk-Rock BY ROBERT HILBURN The Romanes, rear, and the Runaways are pushing different styles of teen-age oriented punk-rock. If parents got so outraged over the essentially tame sounds of Bill Haley and Fats Domino in the 1950s that they petitioned city councils to have rock banned, the culture shock of the far more menacing Ramones back then might have been enough for the parents to have simply taken the law into their own hands. Can you imagine the reaction of a mother already alarmed over her teen-ager's aggressive behavior toward a kid brother after noticing the teen-ager's fascination with this tale of sibling rivalry from the new Ramones album: Beat on the brat Beat on the brat Beat on the brat vrith a baseball bat Oh yeah, oh yeah If the parents', outrage wasn't enough, it's doubtful any legislator election year or not could have safely turned down a police commissioner's plea for an an-tirock ordinance after hearing evidence that the Ramones' album also contained songs about violence drugs I Wanna Sniff Some male street hustlers and a "sour grapes" love song Is a and even a Nazi-tinged rock anthem To add a touch of insult and uneasiness, the album cover photo which looks as if taken from a post office wanted poster shows four young toughs wearing black leather jackets and old, wrinkled jeans. Two of the guys are wearing dark glasses and smirking in the slightly perverse way that would make even the sadistic gang from "A Clockwork Orange" consider crossing the street to avoid a confrontation. Only one conclusion is possible.

The Ramones would have faced much resistance in 1956. The question facing us now is whether the group is acceptable even in 1976. If not, the reasons for rejection will be vastly different. Whereas the Ramones may have been too much of a threat to parents in the 1950s, the group may be too much of a joke now. The irony of the Ramones' situation is that another group with punk-rock overtones the teen-age, female Runaways would probably have been considered a joke by parent in the 1950s (Girl rockers? Come on now), but it may have just the right amount of charm to capture the rock audience's imagination today.

The Ramones the most publicized and critically endorsed group to come out of New York since the Dolls is, in some ways, the final extension of the punk-rock movement; a band whose flashy, pugnacious stance pushes rock 'n' roll conventions to the point of anarchy Virtually every current commercial guideline in rock is broken somewhere in the Ramones' debut album '(Sire Records SASD 7520). The songs are too short (sometimes less than two minutes); the lyrics are dismal; the musicianship is rarely above that of the average garage band and the relentless tempo and tone show almost no variation. The group consisting of four Forest Hills, N.Y., rockers in their early 20s who have adopted the common surname of Ramone built a following in New York through a series of appearances at a small club (the CBGB) which became the most important showcase for adventurous young rock acts after the glitter movement at the Mercer Arts Center (the launching pad for the Dolls) lost its shine. Of the many critically backed outfits there (including Television, the Miamis, Talking Heads), the Ramones thanks to its Sire Records contract is the first group to follow Patty Smith from the CBGB to national attention. As with Smith, the Ramones' music is passionate, raw-edged assault that flaunts its own.

artistic shortcomings in the hopes of achieving a strong emotional bond with its audience. Assault, perhaps, is the key word. The band Johnny on guitar, Joey on lead vocals, DeeDee on bass and Tommy on drums attempts to reflect the anger, frustration and (at times) insanity of urban life, using conventional rock themes and poses. They act and sound dumb because much of what they see around them is so dumb. When asked about the night an audience impatient for Johnny Winter began throwing beer bottles when the Ramones walked on stage, Tommy Ramone quipped, it goes with our music.

We're giving out World War III and they're giving it right back." Subtlety, then, is not one of the Ramones' trademarks. Even supporters of the band acknowledge the group's crudeness. "Proficiency, poetry, taste, Art have nothing to do with the Ramones a Creem magazine writer notes in a favorable article on the quartet. (They) are the latest speed-crazed cruisers to drive chicken down that white line that extends straight from Eddie Cochran to Iggy (Stooge) and their own Bowery loft." Similarly, Paul Nelson, a critic with an excellent feel for passionate new rock forces and a big booster of the band, concedes, without any sense of apology, that the Ramones is a band "whose basic and primal musical philosophy makes the Dolls sound like virtuosos." The reference to the Dolls is an important one. The Dolls led by the colorful David JoHansen was the most exciting and inspired punk-rock outfit to surface in the 1970s.

Loved generally by. critics as a refreshingly cynical exercise in parodying the early spirit and charm of the Rolling Stones, the group was almost totally rejected by rock audiences outside its small New York club base as simply a shabby imitation of Mick Jagger and crew. Part of the band's problem in gaining acceptance was sociological. Its attempt to link up with the widely discussed, but short-lived and largely uncommercial rock 'n' rouge movement backfired. Mainly, however, the group failed to live up to what seems to have been established by audiences as even the minimal level of professionalism andor musical proficiency on stage.

Though the Ramones doesn't have the glitter image to combat, it does face the challenge of inadequate musicianship and limited artistic direction. It's biggest problem, however, may prove to be its attempt to use a single rock emotion (the rebellion, defiance and punk-rock sensitivity of a song like the Stones' and build a whole career around it. An occasional dose of punk-rock works, but an insistence on it borders on novelty and being viewed as a novelty eats away at the validity of the whole punk-rock stance. When Elvis Presley and Gene Vincent among othersbecame models for the eventual punk-rock movement in the 1950s, their rebellion was conveyed primarily through their voices and persona as opposed to the specific words of a song. It wasn't so much what they said, but the way they said it.

It wasn't until the Stones' enormous sociological impact in the 1960s that the media and rock audiences became conscious of punk-rock as a subject for the music. That's when it became, for some groups, an all encompassing direction. Iggy Pop, with the Stooges, took punk-rock to one extreme when he shifted the target of" his aggression from society to himself and began flirting with his own physical well-being on stage. Alice Cooper, of course, also celebrated the punk-rock role at times, but it was clearly in the form of an amusement and audiences accepted it as such. It was the Dolls who tried to turn punk-rock into a living art form.

The fact that the group was able to come up with some better songs in that style than the Stones have done in recent years showed just how good the Dolls were, and how ultimately self-defeating a self-conscious punk-rock exploration can be. While the Ramones' passion is welcome on the pop scene, the group's inviting, super-charged instrumental thrust is not given sufficient purpose or direction. The problem, one suspects, goes deeper than simply the deficiencies of a first work. The group's music and stance is easy to like, but difficult to believe. It lacks, crucially, an added, authentic ingredient the imagination of Patti Smith, the art of Bruce Springsteen, the musical affection of Dr.

Feelgood, the fury and growl of Aerosmith to give it personality and possibility. As long as the group sticks so religiously to the punk-rock mold, the Ramones' music (and image) is easy to like, but difficult to believe. And authenticity has always been a crucial factor in rock. That's why the Los Angeles-based Runaways despite the group's youth (all but one member of the quintet is 16) and the gimmicky undercurrents that, unfortunately, tend to surround female bands in rock has a more viable imageproduct to offer. There's nothing hard to understand (or believe) about five young girls trying to work out their fantasies of being rock stars on stage.

"Most of the time you see older guys on stage who are trying to remember what it was like at our age," says the Runaways' Joan Jett. "We're still living out every night what we sing about." Thus, the only "concept" involved in the Runaways' debut album (Mercury SRM 1-1090) is that of a band that wants a piece of the action. When, for instance, some rock notables (including Robert Plant) showed up at a Runaways appearance earlier this year at the Starwood, Joan Jett yelled from the stage, "We understand there are some famous rock 'n' rollers in the audience. Well, we just wanna let you know we're hot on your heels." Rather than try to break commercial patterns in the Please Turn to Page 73.