![]() We felt more of an affinity with them than we did Talking Heads or the others. Their album was a return to rock innocence, but very knowing. I thought they were fantastic.Įverybody was sick of the Eagles and all those overblown, faceless bands like Chicago. It was never much of a crowd – maybe 100. They were more focused than us, so we usually opened. We played with them there a lot in the mid-1970s. I like to think I was part of them winding up there. Tommy, their drummer, approached me and said: “I heard you found this place to play – what’s the story? So we told them about CBGB. Like Lemmy.Ĭhris Stein ‘My daughters sing Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue’ They looked like old hippies, in leather jackets, but they were honorary members of the punk elite, despite having long hair. The lyrics coming out of the pens of the British guys were a bit more agitprop, whereas the Ramones’ were funny. A lot of British bands wanted to sound like that. Their album had just come out and it had a huge impact on the metal side of punk. Suddenly all of us were out in the courtyard – the bouncers threw us out – and it was the Stranglers and the Finchley Boys against the Clash, the Pistols, the Ramones, Chrissie Hynde and various journalists. We were all snaking out of the venue, which was rammed, and as I walked past Paul, he spat on the ground – a tough guy thing – so I punched him. After our set, someone gave me a glass of wine and it went to my head. There was a punch-up outside Dingwalls between me and Paul Simonon. We put a lot of people’s noses out of joint, being on that bill. We were bottom of the bill, next were the Ramones, and Flamin’ Groovies were top. Jean-Jacques Burnel, the Stranglers (bass, vocals) Jean-Jacques Burnel ‘It was handbags at 10 paces’ We’re better than you.” “No, you’re not.” “Yes, we are.” If we had been, the conversation would probably have been something like: “Hello, you’re shit. We were never in the same room at the same time. ![]() At Dingwalls, there was a bit of: “Oh, they’re coming over here to our turf, jumping on our bandwagon.” I think they were taken aback by the reaction – things getting thrown all over the place. He tried to imitate them with his playing, but they were a lot faster. Great songs, really catchy, all two and a half minutes long. They were more basic, three-chord rock’n’roll. It made us think: “We’d better crack on here.” But the Ramones and the Pistols were different animals, with a different flavour. Ramones was the first so-called punk album. British punk was more political, although the Ramones weren’t as dumb as everyone made out. There were parallels: New York was bankrupt and London was a bombsite, with lots of strikes. Punk exploded into New York and the UK at exactly the same time.
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