Rewind album: Rocket to Russia, by The Ramones

The Ramones
Sire Records

It's amusing to think of The Ramones - Joey, Johnny, Dee Dee and Tommy - as brothers. They were, for one, the snarling, dysfunctional response of a poverty and crime-riddled New York City in the mid-1970s to Utah's wholesome Osmonds.

And in reality, the family moniker (a misappropriation of Paul Ramon, a pseudonym used by Beatle Paul McCartney early in his career) was an affectation adopted to suggest unity of purpose: the four original members were unrelated.

They all hailed from the same middle-class neighbourhood of Queens. But even when dressed alike in the band's uniform of bowl haircuts, black leather jackets and ripped skin-tight jeans, never could a band of brothers have been less unified and more varied in personalities.

Lanky, awkward and gentle singer Joey (real name Jeffrey Hyman) had spent part of his teens in a psychiatric hospital due to the severity of his obsessive-compulsive disorder. Guitarist Johnny (John Cummings) was a violent thug turned malevolent right-wing control freak. Heroin-addicted occasional male prostitute Dee Dee (Douglas Colvin), on bass, was the clown, while level-headed Tommy (Thomas Erdelyi) backed up the motley misfits on drums.

Despite their differences, the band created a primitive, minimalistic proto-punk sound - always played with exhilarating intensity and velocity - that was greater than the sum of its parts, influencing wannabe rockers from Los Angeles to London. Without The Ramones, could there have been the Sex Pistols, Green Day, The Clash or Nirvana?