Last week, my sister Denise sent me a copy of the picture you see above. It's the oldest of four photos she found and forwarded, a mini-stash that included a snapshot of me and future wife Brenda in Pennsylvania in 1979, and a pair of pics from (I think) the '80s. The Pennsylvania photo was the only one I recognized.
It may be just another sign of my essential narcissism, but I'm fascinated by this earlier pic. I've been trying to figure out when and where it was taken; my best guess is summer of 1977. That would put me at the age of 17, right after I graduated from high school, right before the start of my freshman year at college.
My baby-faced appearance notwithstanding, I have to be at least 17 here. I lost a lot of weight during my senior year, and this is most definitely an AFTER shot rather than a BEFORE. Furthermore, the Sensasia t-shirt teen me is wearing was a tie-in to a 1977 film called White Rock, a documentary about the 1976 Winter Olympics. I never saw the film, and never had any interest in the Olympics, but I believe I won this and another White Rock t-shirt from WOUR-FM in Syracuse in '77.
The locale of the picture doesn't look familiar. But the scene outside the window suggests spring or summer; I visited Denise in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in August of '77, and I betcha this was taken at the house she shared. I'm probably reading the Cleveland Scene tabloid (unless it's The Syracuse New Times, or maybe even Phonograph Record Magazine).
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When I posted this pic on Facebook a few days ago, I said it was probably taken just a little before I realized I wouldn’t be able to join the Ramones. In August of 1977, I hadn't yet heard the Ramones...but I had heard of them. I'd read about the Ramones in PRM, and I'd seen a review of their Leave Home album by a Playboy music critic who snidely dismissed them in no uncertain terms.
Well. As much as I may have wanted to be Playboy-cool and maybe hang with Playmates (and I have a sort of related tangent that occurred on this very same Cleveland trip), I already suspected that I was going to become a Ramones fan. I had heard the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" on WOUR, a station that hooked me on music by Graham Parker, Nick Lowe, the Rubinoos, and more. I was ready for new music, new music as great as the '60s British Invasion stuff I adored. I was ready for punk. I was ready for the Ramones.
It all fell into place after that. I heard "Blitzkrieg Bop" on my Brockport college radio station WBSU that fall. Over Thanksgiving break, "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" became The Record That Changed My Life.
So: here's a portrait of the blogger as a young punk, a picture taken at a time when I knew I wanted to be a writer but had not yet heard the Ramones. I had no idea how important the Ramones would be to me, and I certainly didn't foresee the Ramones as the subject of my first book. At 17, I kinda thought I'd already have a bunch of books out waaaaay before I turned 63.
Brash young punk. But I got there. Here's to the insolence of youth, and the transcendent rock 'n' roll sounds that can see us through all of it. Call me CC Ramone. With apologies to Janis Ian: I learned the truth at 17.
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Carl's new book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones is now available for preorder, courtesy of the good folks at Rare Bird Books. Gabba Gabba YAY!!
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.
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