Author(s): Marky Ramone

Music Biography

THE FINAL WORD ON THE GENIUS AND MISCHIEF OF THE RAMONES, TOLD BY THE MAN WHO KEPT THE BEAT - AND LIVED TO TELL ABOUT IT. When punk rock reared its spiky head in the early seventies, Marc Bell had the best seat in the house. Already a young veteran of the prototype American metal band Dust, Bell took residence in artistic, seedy Lower Manhattan, where he played drums in bands that would shape rock music for decades to come, including Wayne County, who pioneered transsexual rock, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, who directly inspired the entire early British punk scene. If punk has royalty, Marc became part of it in 1978 when he was anointed 'Marky Ramone' by Johnny, Joey, and Dee Dee of the iconoclastic Ramones. The band of tough misfits were a natural fit for Marky, who dressed punk before there was punk, and who brought with him his 'blitzkrieg' style of drumming, as well as the studio and stage experience the group needed to solidify its line-up. Together, they would change the world. But Marky Ramone changed, too.
The epic wear and tear of a dysfunctional group endlessly crisscrossing the country and the planet in a van - practically a psychiatric ward on wheels - drove Marky from partying to alcoholism. When his life started to look more out of control than Dee Dee's, he knew he had a problem. Marky left music in the mid-eighties to enter recovery and returned to help the Ramones finally receive their due as one of the greatest and most influential bands of all time. From the cult film Rock 'n' Roll High School to 'I Wanna Be Sedated' to Marky's own struggles, Punk Rock Blitzkrieg is an authentic, unflinching, and always honest look at the people who reinvented rock music. And not a moment too soon.