I am pleased to announce that Rare Bird Books will be the publisher of my forthcoming book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones. The book is scheduled for publication on May 9th. The contracts are signed, the proof has been edited and approved, and the book is on its way. Hey-ho, let's GO!
Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones collects my 1994 interviews with Joey, Johnny, Marky, and C. J. Ramone, expanded to include a wealth of unpublished comments that couldn't fit into the interviews' original magazine appearance in '94. After the Ramones were inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2002, the Hall of Fame's website listed these original interviews among its recommended Ramones reading, along with Jim Bessman's book Ramones: An American Band and a 1979 Rolling Stone article by Timothy White. I was honored to be in such exclusive company.
The interviews have been out of print for more than twenty-eight years. It's time to fix that, and to let you read more of what the Ramones had to say to me in 1994. The result is a career-spanning discussion of the Ramones' career, an intimate glimpse at how the Ramones viewed their work, their experiences, their impact, their legacy, their fans, and each other.
.jpg)
Rare Bird Books has published far too many cool things to attempt even a cursory listing here. Some Rare Bird books of recent note are John M. Borack's The Beatles 100: 100 Pivotal Moments In Beatles History and S. W. Lauden's Forbidden Beat: Perspectives On Punk Rock Drumming, plus the two collections of power pop essays edited by Lauden and Paul Myers, Go All The Way and Go Further. I am proud to see my own work join these ranks.
This is my first book. Preorders are available NOW!! More information will follow soon. Meanwhile, I thank Rare Bird's Tyson Cornell for his interest in this book, Rare Bird's Alexandra Watt, Halie Johnson, and Kellie Kreiss for their hard work on behalf of the book, and the above-mentioned S. W. Lauden for introducing me to Tyson in the first place.
Beyond that? Gabba Gabba Hey. Kinda says it all, doesn't it?
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.
I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl
Congratulations! Your stick-to-it-ness is impressive. Sheena is still a punk rocker.
ReplyDeleteThanks very much! I always ask myself: What would the Ramones do?
DeleteSo proud of you!
ReplyDeleteJust saw this! I've been blessed to have a handful of albums change my life(for the better), most of them in my preteen and teenage youth. I was 14 years old when "Ramones" was released in the spring of '76, picked it up a few weeks after it came out in Kenmore Square, Boston after following the buzz on the band from reading "ROCK SCENE".
ReplyDeleteFrom first few seconds, I understood that my world of rock 'n roll(and its future) was starting to make perfect sense. I listened to the debut dozens of times in the coming months, years - and still do. Seeing them the first time live in the fall of '77, skipping school to buy good seats at the Orpheum Theatre, 4th row, center was one of the most special live shows...STILL. Meeting them at the Harvard Coop the day before(or was it day of?), getting my fresh copy "Rocket To Russia" signed, confirmed they were the mold of that mysterious "New York Cool" I was reading about.
Iggy, the MC5 and the Dolls started me on the path to work in rock 'n roll in the early/mid 70s, but the Ramones poured the concrete in the foundation - and it was up to me, to create my own path.