On long ago memories from a near-forgotten past

or

How I learned to stop worrying and love The Ramones, again.

A long time ago, in a West Texas town far, far away, I worked in this bar, see. Every Monday Night was dollar pint night, packed to the walls with local Texas Tech folks, and the shot special was quite often, “Make out with Jefe the Bartender and get a Free Shot Night.” I have written extensively in the past about how much I love bartending, and this had to be my favorite experience doing so. Place was packed, I had literally dozens of women lined up at the bar ready to kiss me whom I had never even met, it was quite the party. On top of it all, we had this really great guy who played an accoustic one man show every Monday, when he wasn’t playing in his band. His name was John Sprott, and the guy could play anything. Unfortunately, the drunken fools only requested the same junk over and over and over again.

These days, I know exactly what that’s like. I love my current job, don’t get me wrong, but the piano bar is like Monday’s at the brewery without the big crowds, horny girls, and I have to wear a tie (actually, there are sometimes girls now too, but not like the old days, I must be losing my touch). However, the music is never particularly different from one night to the next. John Sprott, back in those long forgotten West Texas days, used to say that he loved to play so much that the repetition only rarely got to him, but when it did, he was desperate for an interesting request. (Note to anyone who will ever go into a bar again for the rest of their lives: Professional musicians hate you fuckers who scream “FREEBIRD!” at the top of your lungs. Ya’ll suck, and so does that tune.)

Now, John has been a guitar player for most of his life. In the early ’80’s John was in a punk band called The Nelsons (not Nelson, the weird twin brother hairband). In fact, the Nelson’s were the first ever winner of the MTV make-your-own-video contest (I forget what they actually called it). A buddy and I are having lunch at this great mexican restraunt in Lubbock where they have pictures of all these Lubbock bands on the walls, and right next to our table is a picture of The Nelsons, John Sprott and all. After finding this out, I finally had a good request for John on Monday night.

The next Monday, about 1:00am I bring John his standard shot of Jack Daniels (yummy) and ask him, “Hey can you play me a Ramones tune, I heard your an old school punk rock freak.” He giggles, and does not respond, as John was always socially awkward. And, for the last tune of the night he launches into a kind of feedback fuzzy acoustic version of “I Wanna be Sedated”.

Thank God he was drunk, ’cause the crowd went wild.

For the next few weeks, he refused to do it again. He claimed he would never have done it if he had been sober (and that it was all my fault, which was true). So I began to taunt him. During the breaks between songs, when John was bantering on the mic with the crowd, I would yell at the top of my lungs, “PLAY THE RAMONES!” Now, in any bar, the bartender is as much on stage as the musical act, so there were a lot of people staring at me, including the long line of women waiting to make out with me for free booze.

It caught on like wildfire.

By the end of the night, half the kids in the bar were yelling it, though I bet half of them didn’t know one freakin’ Ramones song. I knew John needed a bit of a buzz to get back that far into his past, so I encouraged customers (as I often do in clubs, since musicians are both broke and poor tippers and therefore should not pay for their own drinks) to buy John a shot of Jack Daniels.

He had about seven.

By the end of the evening, when the crowd, led by me, would holler out, “PLAY THE RAMONES!” John, usually soft spoken, would grab the mic and holler right back as loud as he could, “I’M NOT PLAYIN’ THE FUCKIN’ RAMONES!”. And then he would do a Romones tune.

It became a thing at Hub City. Every Monday, people would scream out (often lead in unison by me) “PLAY THE RAMONES!” and John always responded with , “I’M NOT PLAYIN’ THE FUCKIN’ RAMONES”. Very rarely would he actually do it. One night about a month later, I walk into a bar on a Tuesday night, with my buddy Aaron who also worked at the brewery, and there is John playing to about 12 people. There is a spot by the bar where someone has vomited on the floor, and the staff have moved a chair over the spot to keep people from stepping in it, rather than cleaning it up. We were about to have a quick beer (we normally wouldn’t set foot in a place that was so lax in its professionalism, but we knew John and we knew the bartender) and on a lark, I hollered out my usual greeting to John while on stage.

“PLAY THE RAMONES!”

“I’M NOT PLAYIN’ THE FUCKIN’ RAMONES!”

And he kicked off a five song Ramones set, even though I was the only one in the place who knew the songs.

About twenty minutes ago, the new piano player here at the Ivory Cat launched into “I Wanna be Sedated”.

For me, The Ramones will always mean Lubbock. I just bet I’m not the only one.