Out Of The Vaults #6- The Ramones - All This Stuff and More Volume One

Each week or so I will ask my wife to dive deep into our CD cabinets (The Vaults) and pull out one of the thousands of  CDs at random. The chosen album will then be given to me and I will  reflect on the disc for awhile in this blog no matter how good, bad, or embarrassing the chosen disc is. Where did I buy it, how old was I,what was my first reaction to hearing the album, do I still listen to it today and anywhere else my stream of conscious takes me in regards to the "Out Of The Vaults" weekly pick.

Out Of The Vaults #6 - The Ramones - All This Stuff And More Volume One

Every year while I was growing up my family would spend a week on vacation in Ocean City, MD. When I was 15 years old it rained nonstop almost the whole time we were there. I’m not just talking about a few showers here and there either. These were torrential downpours forcing us to remain inside all day. Finally on Friday afternoon the rain let up. As I stood on the balcony of our fourth floor condo I watched as two guys emerged from their rental house across the street with a football and a boom box. Before they began tossing the ball around one of the guys pressed play on the boom box.  The first few chords of a song I would later learn was named "Blitzkrieg Bop" came blaring out of the speakers. It was the first time I was hearing the Ramones and they had me at "Hey,Ho. Let's Go". Their football game lasted only eight songs before  halfway into “Loudmouth” the sky once again opened up. The rain forced the guys to make a retreat inside taking the boom box with them. Being totally floored by what I had just heard, all I could think was I wanted more of it.

Not too long later I bought my first compact disc player and there was only one band I wanted to break it in with. At the time all the individual albums by the Ramones were not available on compact disc. What was available was the relatively new Ramones Mania album. On it were 30 tracks consisting of a few songs taken from each of their albums released up to that point. I played all 30 tracks over and over again. Sometimes I would listen to them in reverse order; sometimes I would program the tracks in chronological order. Every time with the stereo knob turned all the way up. As well as listening to the album dozens and dozens of times I would read through the discs massive booklet almost as much. In the booklet was a short history talking about each individual album. Every time I read it I wanted those albums more. These 30 songs were unbelievable but what about those many songs in between ?

Then it finally happened. Sire records was going to release the first four Ramones albums on two compact discs entitled All This Stuff And More. Volume One was set to contain the classic 1976 first album I heard on that rainy day in Ocean City as well as the second album Leave Home (1977) with Volume Two, containing Rocket To Russia (1977) and Road To Ruin (1978), being released a little while later. These were the four most crucial album in the Ramones back catalog. You can bet I picked each disc up on the day they were released.

I could go into every song on all four albums plus all the extra live songs and demos included on each disc but that could take forever. Plus this would defeat the purpose of the "Out Of The Vaults" series. The disc my wife blindly took out of our CD cabinets was The Ramones All This Stuff and More Volume One. Out of the two, this  disc is definitely the one which recieved the most play on my stereo. Although the first self-titled album is the classic and Rocket to Russia may be their  best my favorite Ramones album has always been the second album Leave Home.

The album's songs just sound a little more varied then on the previous and later albums. Starting off with the very fast "Glad To See You Go" before going into into the classic "Gimme Shock Treatment". The fact that even at this early period, the band felt secure enough to place a slower song like "I'll Remember You" way up at track three when I'm sure most fans wanted another fast one was always something I admired. Of course they could not leave those fast song loving Ramones fans hanging too long, "Oh Oh I Love Here So" quickly picks the tempo right back up.

At track six  we find my all-time favorite Ramones song. "Suzy Is A Headbanger" is a perfect sing-a-long with a great groove and revved up guitars after each chorus. The song is almost impossible to listen to without pogoing around the room. What makes the song even more special is many years later I would marry a girl of the same name who did in fact spend her teen years as a headbanger.

In the next song "Pinhead", for the first time we hear the chant originally taken from the 1932 movie Freaks (which totally freaked me out when I first saw it one afternoon when I was home from school sick), "Gabba Gabba Hey. We salute you" which would go on to open almost every Ramones concert for the next few decades.

Seven more songs, including the Dee Dee Ramone penned  "Swallow My Pride" (another one of my favorites), the old classic "California Sun" and the great album closer "You Should Never Had Opened That Door" round out the album with not one bad track in sight.

Eventually I would go on to own these first four Ramones , as well as almost every other one of their records individually. Most of them I would even own on vinyl, hanging them in chronological order across the walls of my record store. Still it feels great to be able to pull out this disc, which to be honest I did not even know I still had, and relive that first time you heard you heard these songs by what would soon become one of your lifelong favorite bands. It also makes me look forward to that same feeling when it comes again for all those bands I have not yet discovered.