Latest news with #Ramones
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Rock Icon Says This 90s Band Is 'Bigger Than the Ramones'
When you think of punk, you think of the Ramones, right? The New York City quartet ushered in the sound we now know as punk in the 1970s. But to of The Smashing Pumpkins, one band has eclipsed the Ramones: Green Day. 'I think it had something to do with the fact that they just got their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,' Billy told Rolling Stone. 'I'm watching them get their star and…I had this moment where I was reminiscing and I was like, 'Wow, I've known these guys for over 30 years, and we just did this tour. Oh my God, they're bigger than the Ramones.'" The 58-year-old alternative icon explained his reasoning in putting his fellow '90s rockers ahead of the band many consider invented punk. 'In the world I grew up in, the Ramones were number one,' he said. 'In a way, they always will be number one because they were first.' "But then I realized, 'Oh my God, Green Day has actually done it. They are bigger than the Ramones. Their influence is greater, their reach is greater, and certainly their success is greater,'' said Corgan. Both Green Day and The Smashing Pumpkins formed in the late 1980s but experienced massive success in the early '90s. The Pumpkins became synonymous with alternative rock with Siamese Dream, released in 1993, and 1995's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Green Day ushered in the punk explosion with 1994's Dookie. A decade later, they experienced a career renaissance with the release of American Idiot and remain one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. The Pumpkins toured with Green Day in 2024. 'It was awesome,' Billy told Rolling Stone. 'Green Day was so gracious. We couldn't have had a better summer. It was one of my favorite tours of all time.' 'They were so gracious in being hosts, not only to us, but to Rancid and the Linda Lindas,' said Corgan. 'It was just the spirit of what it's supposed to be when you put bands together. It was one of the best experiences we've ever had, and we're forever grateful to them.'
San Francisco Chronicle
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Can a rock star also be humble? Bono's ‘Stories of Surrender' will surprise you
Reading Bono's 2022 memoir ' Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story,' you might be struck by an intriguing juxtaposition: For a rock star often accused of harboring a messiah complex, this guy also, somehow, seems admirably humble. That same spirit guides the new performance documentary 'Bono: Stories of Surrender,' adapted from the U2 leader's one-man stage show inspired by that book. Given stark cinematic life by director Andrew Dominik, the film — which streams on Apple TV+ starting Friday, May 30, after premiering at the Cannes Film Festival earlier in the month — features paradoxes worthy of its subject. It is both stripped-down and grandiose, over-the-top and understated. 'Stories of Surrender' was shot before an adoring live audience at the Beacon Theatre in New York and enhanced with filmic touches provided in post-production. While it sometimes struggles with the transition from stage to screen, it ultimately succeeds due to its star's unassuming charisma and effortless storytelling. 'It is preposterous to think others might be as interested in your own story as you are,' the Irish rock star, born Paul David Hewson, tells his audience from the stage. But we know that he knows his story is worth hearing, and it's clear that he relishes the opportunity. That story is about a rebellious Dublin teen who at 14, his mother, Iris, dies from an aneurysm, and his already-reticent father (or 'the da,' as Bono consistently calls him) grows even more distant. Under the sway of punk acts like the Ramones, dreaming of forming his own band, young Paul rounds up some friends — Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr. and the Edge — and, through force of will and talent, make the climb from sparsely populated pub gigs to sold-out stadiums. At only 86 minutes, 'Stories of Surrender' makes no pretense of telling the full Bono story. But it picks its spots with artful precision and with keen cinematic instincts. Dominik (2007's ' The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford ' and 2022's ' Blonde ') and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt use black-and-white imagery shot with chiaroscuro lighting to set an intimate but poetic tone. At times we see multiple Bonos talking to each other. The occasional blast of pyrotechnics tends to be muted. The music itself is presented with a minimalist touch. Music supervisor Jacknife Lee, working with cellist Kate Ellis and harpist Gemma Doherty, provide the backbone, with the occasional prerecorded blast of a familiar anthem. The songs provide autobiographical background and heft, as when Bono recalls the sense of purpose and thrill that came with belting out 'Pride (In the Name of Love)' at the 1985 Live Aid benefit concert — then notes ruefully that the $250 million that concert raised for Ethiopia was a mere drop in the bucket of the country's desperate need. Wearing a suit jacket, pinstriped vest and beads, Bono uses empty chairs and spotlights to recreate key moments of his tale. Three simple kitchen chairs placed in a row represent Clayton, Mullen and the Edge as the aspiring rock stars who try to piece together what would become the early hit 'I Will Follow.' More poignantly, Bono sits in a plush lounge chair as he imagines the pub conversations he used to have with his father, who would begin every conversation with the same question: 'Anything strange or startling?' One day, well into U2's run of stardom, the son decides to turn the question on the father, only to receive the devastating news that the old man has cancer. 'Stories of Surrender' is a disarming portrait of a self-aware megastar with an authentically personal demeanor, the kind of guy you might want to join for one of those pub conversations. If you do think Bono has a god complex, he comes across here as someone eager to sit down, laugh about it and perhaps tip a couple of pints.
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
New Elgin School of Rock to celebrate grand opening with music lessons, concert
It may not be the 'Rock 'n' Roll High School,' but Tommy Evans hopes students who check out Elgin's new School of Rock get the same kick from music that he did when he first heard groups like the Ramones. The music school's newest franchise at 355 S. Randall Road will celebrate its grand opening from 1:30 to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 7, by offering a free music lessons and a concert by Elgin School of Rock's 101 program students. Evans, a St. Charles resident who's been playing guitar since he was a teen, opened the school with his mother, Meg. He remembers the thrill he felt when he first got into music, he said. 'My friends introduced me to bands like Nirvana and the Ramones, and I became infatuated with the sound of the guitar and the process of creating music,' Evans said. He went on to get his bachelor's degree in audio production and design from Columbia College in Chicago in 2012 and has played with bands in the Chicago area, including one he formed called Secret Colours. The band's name is a nod to a Beatles song, its sound inspired by '90s Britpop acts like Oasis, Blur and Pulp. 'My (late) father (Jim Evans) listened to a lot of those bands in that scene,' Evans said. 'Something about the sound of that time and place will always make me feel nostalgic. It had such raw energy and aspiration behind it. I think it will always influence my songwriting in one way or another.' Secret Colours' music has been featured in YouTube videos, the 2015 horror movie 'Wind Walkers,' and TV shows including Showtime's 'Shameless' and 'Californication,' CW's 'The Vampire Diaries' and Hulu's 'Difficult People.' Still, like many musicians, Evans needed a full-time job to pay his bills and started working for School of Rock in 2013. Since then he has played various roles with the organization, most recently as general manager of the location in Naperville. After gaining experience, Evans said he realized it was time to open a School of Rock franchise of his own. 'I love the mission of School of Rock,' he said. 'It does so much more than teach music. It helps people learn how to work together, encouraging each other toward a common goal, building confidence and having great experiences in rehearsals and at venues,' Elgin's is the 401st School of Rock in the country; more than 20 of those are located in Illinois. Evans opened and operates the business with his mother, Meg, who lives in Geneva. 'My husband, Jim, passed away unexpectedly in 2021, just six weeks after I retired from a 35-year sales career with Johnson & Johnson,' Meg Evans said. 'When Tommy came to me with the desire to get involved and open his own school, it helped give me some purpose back. Jim would have loved it. He supported Tommy in everything Tommy ever did.' In addition to the free lessons and performance, the grand opening celebration will feature a ribbon-cutting, food, beverages and tours. The students who will be performing are among the 40 who have come on board since the school's soft opening two months ago. They already have eight adult students, and 'as soon as we get six or more adults, we will be able to form a band with them,' Meg Evans said. 'At the end of each three- to four-month term, they will play at a local venue.' School of Rock teaches guitar, bass, keyboard, drums and vocals. Students have a 45-minute, one-on-one lesson every week followed by a 90-minute band rehearsal lesson, Evans said. The school is offering a variety of summer camps as well, she said. They've also has been getting involved in the Elgin community. They offered free lessons earlier this month at the Elgin Public Museum, and will be doing events at Lords Park Zoo and Elgin Downtown Market, conducting a kids interactive musical experience before the June 20 screening of 'Soul' in Wing Park, marching in Elgin's Fourth of July Parade, and sponsoring the summer outdoor concert series at Panton Mill Park in South Elgin. 'And when we have our own house band, we will be out playing wherever the community would need us,' Meg Evans said.
New York Post
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Photographer revives iconic NYC album covers on Instagram
New York City's streets hide legendary rock 'n' roll moments you never knew were there — until Steve Birnbaum brings them back to life. The Big Apple-based photographer and filmmaker is the brain behind @TheBandWasHere — a viral project that resurrects iconic album covers right where they were shot decades ago. Birnbaum tracks down where famous band photos were snapped, then goes back to those exact spots to re-create the shots — album covers, promo pics, you name it. 9 Steve Birnbaum hunts down the exact spots where iconic photos were taken decades ago — then re-creates them today, like this homage to Don Hunstein's 1963 cover shot for 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.' Olga Ginzburg for NY Post His feed is a roll call of NYC rock legends like the Strokes, Talking Heads, Blondie, Ramones, Bob Dylan, and Simon & Garfunkel — all brought back to life right where the magic originally happened. Think Bob Dylan strolling on the same chilly Greenwich Village sidewalk in 1963, or the Ramones posing outside that gritty East Village wall in 1976, all perfectly framed as they are today. But his collection doesn't stop there. He also has iconic images of the Notorious B.I.G., Bruce Springsteen, The Doors, Cyndi Lauper, Madonna, Taylor Swift and more. What excites Birnbaum most is reconnecting New Yorkers with the invisible soundtrack of their daily lives. 'It's crazy how much you walk the streets and go past things … so many of us walk by where Stevie Nicks once twirled or where Debbie Harry once stood … and don't even notice.' Birnbaum's nostalgia-powered hustle taps into our obsession with 'then-and-now' culture and that classic NYC pride to hold on to the past — especially the golden eras of music that helped define the city's identity. 9 Birnbaum has spent years sleuthing out legendary photo shoot spots — digging through old interviews, tour clues and Google Maps. Here, his re-creation of Patrick Morgan's 2007 shot of Amy Winehouse. Steve Birnbaum/@TheBandWasHere His feed — he counts Blondie's Chris Stein, Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan and SZA as fans — is a living museum of rock 'n' roll history, proving that while skyscrapers sprout and neighborhoods morph, the soul of NYC music still lingers — if you know where to look. But don't mistake this for a quick snap-and-post hustle. Birnbaum calls himself 'a music historian' and makes it his ultimate priority to honor and credit each album cover's original photographer. He's spent years chasing down the exact locations of legendary photo shoots, piecing together clues from old interviews, concert tour dates and band itineraries and even scouring Google Maps for hours. 9 Birnbaum has spent years sleuthing out legendary photo shoot spots — digging through old interviews, tour clues and Google Maps — like for this re-creation of Danny Fields' 1977 Ramones cover for 'Rocket to Russia.' Olga Ginzburg for NY Post 'I do challenge myself and I try to find photos that would just be tough to do,' he said. He even studies the original photographer's angle and often finds himself crouching, contorting or lying on the ground to nail the shot. Birnbaum's journey began with personal memories — family albums and snapshots from his youth — but quickly evolved into a full-blown passion project after the seismic shift of 9/11. 'There was a cover of the Village Voice,' he recalls, 'where an artist photographer held up a picture of the World Trade Center just after the attacks. That inspired me artistically.' 9 Birnbaum's feed is a who's who of NYC rock legends — the Strokes, Talking Heads, Blondie and more — all resurrected where the magic first happened. Olga Ginzburg for NY Post What started as a quiet personal archive snowballed into a vibrant chronicle of pop culture and music history, all anchored to the very streets of New York. To uncover these sites, Birnbaum dives deep — and sometimes, a tiny detail can be the key. 'When I was looking for the original location for the shot of the Greatest Hits album from Simon & Garfunkel, I noticed Paul Simon was holding something that looked like an egg-shaped container for L'eggs pantyhose from the 1980s,' Birnbaum recalled. 'But it turned out to be my biggest clue to finding where Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel stood in the photo.' 9 Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits album, released in 1972. Steve Birnbaum/@TheBandWasHere He said walking by an Upper East Side park 'triggered my memory.' 'He was holding onto part of a fence at 7 East 94th Street,' he said. 'I was able to track down the location, which I never thought would still be around. There wasn't a lot to go from, but it was that little piece and detail.' 9 Birnbaum studies every angle of the original shot — whether the photographer crouched, tilted or shot from below — and isn't afraid to contort, crouch or lie flat to get the perfect match. Olga Ginzburg for NY Post But often it's a mix of intuition and persistence, plus knowing and loving NYC's vast neighborhoods. 'You have to be crazy at this at times,' he laughed. 'New York's been tough.' The city's rapid transformation — from the Lower East Side to Chinatown to towering new developments — forms a bittersweet backdrop to his work. Each photograph captures a moment frozen in time, but many of those moments are fading as buildings vanish or get repurposed. 'As much as I love New York, it really has changed a lot in the last five, 10 years,' he said. 9 In a fast-changing, digital world, Birnbaum's work hits a nostalgic nerve — reviving the golden ages of music that shaped NYC's soul. Olga Ginzburg for NY Post His photos, often taken with his iPhone or DSLR camera, serve as time machines, revealing the unseen layers beneath the city's concrete and steel. For Birnbaum, that's the true joy of his work. 'I do consider myself a music historian in regard to the photographs,' he said, noting he's proud to preserve NYC's rich musical legacy — one photo, one street corner at a time. 9 Snapped mostly on his iPhone, Birnbaum's shots — like this 1981 Mick Jagger still from the filming of the Rolling Stones' 'Waiting on a Friend' video — act as time machines, peeling back the layers of NYC's concrete jungle. Steve Birnbaum/@TheBandWasHere 9 'It's crazy how much you walk the streets and go past things,' he said. Olga Ginzburg for NY Post It's also a reminder that no matter how much New York changes, its soul never fades. 'I want people to look up and say, 'Hey, I'm standing where music legends once stood,'' he said. 'That connection, that history, is so important.' 5 NYC locations for legendary albums Led Zeppelin: 'Physical Graffiti,' (1975), 96 St. Marks Place, New York, NY, 10003 Bob Dylan: 'The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan,' (1963), middle of Jones Street, 50 feet from West Fourth Street, New York, NY, 10014 Ramones: 'Rocket to Russia,' (1977), back alley off First Street behind John Varvatos (formerly CBGB), 315 Bowery, New York, NY 10003 Neil Young: 'After the Gold Rush,' (1970), northwest corner of Sullivan Street and West Third Street, New York, NY, 10012 Simon & Garfunkel: 'Greatest Hits' (1972), 7 E. 94th St., New York, NY, 10128
Chicago Tribune
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Column: AC/DC and the underrated art of doing the same thing forever
Angus Young, the AC/DC guitarist who still dresses in the round cap and short pants of an Australian schoolboy (despite turning 70 in March), once gave an amazing response to a frequent criticism about his band: People say AC/DC, founded in Sydney in 1973 (and playing a sold-out show at Soldier Field on Saturday), have been making the same album, and writing the same song, , for the past 52 years. Since 1975, they've made 17 studio albums and every single one, to the non-metal head, casual listener and plenty of fans, sounds just like every other one. So sometime in the '80s, when they still had only a dozen records, Young told a reporter he was 'sick to death' of critics who say they have made 11 albums 'that sound exactly the same — in fact, we've made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.' That's the healthiest thing a metal band ever said. There's freedom, and a profound understanding of craft, in repetition. I admire artists who do one thing again and again with little variety, sidling up to a proverbial lunch counter and proudly ordering the same sandwich every day without deliberation. I don't mean the Warhols of the world espousing commodification, and or someone like Martin Scorsese who merely made a lot of gangster films. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean — artists who repeat, and repeat, and repeat. There may be variation in there, but that would only be evident to a connoisseur. Also, I don't include the cynical artist who recycles endlessly without intending to repeat. Mark Rothko, the great abstract painter who made countless 'color fields' that could be described as soft hues arranged into blurry rectangles, arranged rectangles in many ways. But what's moving about Rothko's rectangles is the commitment. He died three years before AC/DC formed. He had more of a thing for Schubert than Australian metal. But if they found themselves at the same table at a wedding, Angus Young and Mark Rothko could have bonded. That sounds like a cool table. Also seated there is the Ramones — whose shows were one 60-minute punk squall broken by shouts of Since this is a large table (please don't ask who the Ramones, Mark Rothko and AC/DC would know in common to be invited to the same wedding), seat Agatha Christie there, too. Picking over their rubbery chickens, they'd recognize a shared philosophy: Insanity is not always doing one thing over and over, and expecting different results. Doing one thing can mean refinement, even appreciation. Christie likely wrote at least one mystery without a dead body in a train, steamship, boarding school or coastal mansion, without the usual suspects or a tweedy inspector, but I don't want to read it. She was so devoted to one thing, for 50 years, that reading enough Christie and identifying the mechanics that make it all interesting, and not the killer, is the fun part. These are one-track minds. These are artists who rarely wander, and somehow both artist and audience never seem to care. Adoringly so. To say both like a good formula doesn't capture this intense bond. You get a feeling both parties are tucked beneath a warm blanket. There's no more disappointment here than realizing that waves keep coming, and coming. Knowing that behind every swell is always another is soothing. But when is it just lazy? My mind immediately goes to decades of 'Friday the 13th' movies in which a masked killer hunts countless variations of the same teenagers in the first movie, only allowing for a tweak here or there: killer in 3D, killer in New York City, killer in space. Why are those lifeless while, say, the latest Steven Soderbergh crime movie 'Black Bag,' as effortless and familiar as any Soderbergh crime flick from two decades ago, is still satisfying? Because Soderbergh is playing variations on a theme, a style or a structure, appearing to surprise himself that he can stretch it as far as he does. As serial killer franchises go (and there are good ones), the 'Friday the 13th' franchise was never that curious about itself. Comparatively, AC/DC, which nobody would accuse of being curious, can still get your blood surging because they still locate something exciting in two chords. At that wedding table, I imagine Young pulls out his cell phone and Christie peeks over and notices that his home screen is one of Monet's countless haystacks, and she smiles knowingly. An artist who repeats over and over again and rarely bores is the artist who is always seeing, unwilling to move on until they explore an idea completely — maybe for a lifetime. It's as if they have been locked into a long conversation with the idea itself. Pick up nearly any big multi-disc jazz reissue and you hear this playing out in real time, with the same musicians picking over one or two songs again and again, sometimes with inaudible differences. Jim Nutt, the Chicago Imagist, now 86, made so many paintings of female heads, it's like its own genre. Woody Allen, for years on end, seemed to shoot the same movie about the same characters having the same tics in the same city (New York City), you could have been fooled into thinking he was the most well-adjusted filmmaker ever. Part of the genius of blues and country artists is in the million ways they say only a few things. There's a new Lana Del Rey song with a funny line warily bemoaning: 'All these country singers / And their lonely rides to Houston.' Part of the joke is that Lana Del Rey herself is the AC/DC of contemporary pop stars — thrillingly so. is her thing. Some might say her only thing. Her songs rarely go beyond a light gallup, her tone is always breathy and lush. My daughter groans whenever I ask Siri to play Lana; it's like I'm calling up the same song once again. Yet I don't hear any boredom in Lana Del Rey's sound. She is so thoroughly exploring the limits of contemporary ballads, you hang on every digression or alteration — a fast electronic hiccup, a touch of Ennio Morricone twang. The other day, I was talking to Chicago artist Theaster Gates and asked why he repeats himself so often, especially with his pottery. He mentioned growing up in a Baptist church where the pastor would riff on a single Bible verse for hours. He thinks of his own repetition as meditating on a single thought, or like a marker he carries through life: the Pledge of Allegiance, he said, means one thing when you're 6, but something else when you're 16, and another thing entirely if you fight in a war. We put a premium on artists who can't sit still, who show endless range and seem to switch hit every time at bat. David Bowie, for instance, is our contemporary ideal of an artist who refused to rest on laurels and do one thing well. Bowie, like Prince, like Bob Dylan, gravitated to change with an almost evolutionary fear — if you don't adapt, eventually you become irrelevant and get eaten. But the artist who repeats obsessively leans into a different truism: If every work of art is made up of only a handful of fresh thoughts, then what matters is . Every R.L. Stine 'Goosebumps' book is only slightly different than any other. Characters in novels by Haruki Murakami — who refers to his own repetition as meditation — make a lot of omelettes and listen to a lot of jazz. John Irving's characters get visited by bears. Alfred Hitchcock — who once remade his own film ('The Man Who Knew Too Much') — never met a mistaken identity he wouldn't explore. Elin Hilderbrand likes unease in paradise. John Carpenter has made too many variations on 'Rio Bravo' to count. I have never been able to distinguish between Jackson Pollock's splatters. The amazing Art Preserve in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, an extension of the Kohler Arts Center, is several floors of psychosis and artists who, oh, decide to paint only skulls or sculpt clay into only religious figures. I love that, not despite the predictability but of it. I insist I want variety in everything — eating, visiting, etc. — and yet one of the best feelings is seeing a well-trodden trail in a dense forest. Plenty of consumer studies bear this out: We say we long for new experiences but don't mind the same thing again and again. If you love something enough, you tend to change alongside it; if you're lucky, you notice those changes every time you return. AC/DC only ever sounds like AC/DC, and in a world being upended, that's a form of life insurance. Listening to their early stuff now, I hear cave men with guitars, but with the newer songs, rock stars with private jets, though really it's one long thump and always should be. Crunch, thump, hell, blood, thump, back in black, high voltage, crunch, live wire, thump, let there be rock — . For those about to rock, I salute you.
