RAMONES "ROCKET TO RUSSIA" SIRE 1977 SR 6042 NM/EX W/INNER SLEEVE+RARE POSTER

$

80

TWO YEARS AGO I LOST ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS TO CANCER, HE WAS A COOL MUSICIAN A DRUMMER BY TRADE, ORIGINALLY FROM SEATTLE, BUT RELOCATED TO L.A. IN 1985, HE AMASSED A VERY LARGE MUSIC COLLECTION, AND HAD KILLER TASTE FOR ROCK & ROLL, SADLY I AM SELLING OFF A LOT OF HIS COLLECTION ON BEHALF OF HIS WIDOW TO HELP PAY OFF DEBTS INCLUDING HOSPITAL BILLS, TAXES AND STORAGE UNIT FEES. I AM NOT TAKING ANYTHING FOR THIS SERVICE, DOING IT FOR MY FRIEND (MISS YOU DAVE!). THIS ITEM IS FROM HIS COLLECTION.

THE PHOTO'S MAY BE A LITTLE BLURRY, HAVE A LITTLE GLARE, SOME REFLECTIONS OR IN SOME CASES YOU MAY SEE SPECKS OF DUST. BUT THE PHOTO'S ARE OF THE ACTUAL ITEM YOU ARE BIDDING ON. I DO COMBINE SHIPPING.

THESE ARE VISUALLY & PLAY GRADED.

ARTISTS: RAMONES

TITLE: “ROCKET TO RUSSIA”

TRACK LISTING: SEE BELOW

Credits

• Art Direction – John Gillespie (3)
• Bass – Dee Dee Ramone
• Coordinator [Artistic Coordination] – Arturo Vega
• Drums – Tommy Ramone
• Engineer – Ed Stasium
• Engineer [Assistant] – Don Berman
• Guitar – Johnny Ramone
• Illustration [Back Cover And Inside Drawings] – John Holmstrom
• Lead Vocals – Joey Ramone
• Mastered By – Greg Calbi
• Producer – T. Erdelyi*, Tony Bongiovi
• Written-By – The Ramones* (tracks: A1 to B1, B3 to B5, B7)

Notes

LABEL: SIRE RECORDS

CAT.#: SR-6042

YEAR: 1977

RECORD CONDITION: THE RECORD (VISUALLY & PLAY GRADED). IS IN EX/NM CONDITION (UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED). NO LINES, SCRATCHES, SMEARS, SMUDGES ETC. THE VINYL HAS A NICE SHINEY BLACK LUSTER. BOTH LABELS IN EXCELLENT CONDITION. THE SONGS PLAY SUPER CLEAN.

SLEEVE CONDITION: IS IN EX CONDITION. NICE CLEAN STRAIGHT EDGES. NO RIPS, TEARS, WRITING, SEAM SPLITS ETC.THE JACKET HAS A SMALL "CUT" IN THE LOWER RIGHT CORNER, DONE BY THEIR RECORD LABEL (SEE PHOTO).

OTHER INFO: THIS RECORD IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT. INCLUDES THE ORIGINAL INNER SLEEVE WITH LYRICS. HAS A SEAM SPLIT ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE (SEE PHOTO) COMES WITH A 24”x24” FOLDOUT POSTER. MATRIX # SR-1-6042 LW1.

ARTIST INFO:

The Ramones were an American punk rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first band to define the punk rock sound. Despite achieving only limited commercial success, the band was vastly influential in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

All of the band members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname "Ramone", although none of them were related. They performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually nonstop for 22 years. In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played a farewell concert and disbanded. By 2014, all four of the band's original members had died – lead singer Joey Ramone (1951–2001), bass guitarist Dee Dee Ramone (1951–2002), guitarist Johnny Ramone (1948–2004) and drummer Tommy Ramone (1949–2014).

Recognition of the band's importance built over the years, and they are now mentioned in many assessments of all-time great rock music, such as number 26 in the Rolling Stone magazine list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time] and number 17 in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock". In 2002, the Ramones were ranked the second-greatest band of all time by Spin magazine, trailing only the Beatles. On March 18, 2002, the original four members and Tommy's replacement on drums, Marky Ramone, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on their first year of eligibility, though Joey had died by then. In 2011, the group was awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

The Ramones recorded their debut album, Ramones, in April 1976. Of the fourteen songs on the album, the longest, "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement", barely surpassed two and a half minutes. While the songwriting credits were shared by the entire band, Dee Dee was the primary writer. The Ramones album was produced by Sire's Craig Leon, with Tommy as associate producer, on an extremely low budget of about $6,400 and released in April. The now iconic front cover photograph of the band was taken by Roberta Bayley, a photographer for Punk magazine. Punk, which was largely responsible for codifying the term for the scene emerging around CBGB, ran a cover story on the Ramones in its third issue, the same month as the record's release.

The Ramones' debut LP was greeted by rock critics with glowing reviews. The Village Voice's Robert Christgau wrote, "I love this record—love it—even though I know these boys flirt with images of brutality (Nazi especially)... For me, it blows everything else off the radio". In Rolling Stone, Paul Nelson described it as "constructed almost entirely of rhythm tracks of an exhilarating intensity rock & roll has not experienced since its earliest days." Characterizing the band as "authentic American primitives whose work has to be heard to be understood", he declared, "It is time popular music followed the other arts in honoring its primitives." Newsday's Wayne Robbins simply anointed the Ramones as "the best young rock 'n' roll band in the known universe."

Despite Sire's high hopes for it, Ramones was not a commercial success, reaching only number 111 on the Billboard album chart. The two singles issued from the album, "Blitzkrieg Bop" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", failed to chart. At the band's first major performance outside of New York, a June date in Youngstown, Ohio, members of Cleveland punk legends Frankenstein aka the Dead Boys were present and struck up a friendship with the band. It wasn't until they made a brief tour of England that they began to see the fruits of their labor; a performance at the Roundhouse in London on July 4, 1976, second-billed to the Flamin' Groovies, organized by Linda Stein, was a resounding success. T-Rex leader Marc Bolan was in attendance at the Roundhouse show and was invited on stage. Their Roundhouse appearance and a club date the following night—where the band met members of the Sex Pistols and the Clash—helped galvanize the burgeoning UK punk rock scene. The Flamin' Groovies/Ramones double bill was successfully reprised at the Roxy Theatre in Los Angeles the following month, fueling the punk scene there as well. The Ramones were becoming an increasingly popular live act—a Toronto performance in September energized yet another growing punk scene.

Rocket to Russia is the third studio album by the American punk rock band the Ramones, and was released on November 4, 1977, through Sire Records. Its origins date back to the summer of 1977, when "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" was released as a single. That summer was known as the peak of the punk rock genre since many punk bands were offered recording contracts. The album's recording began in August 1977, and the band had a considerably larger budget with Sire allowing them $25,000 and $30,000; much of this money went toward the album's production rather than recording.

The album's cover art was directed by John Gillespie. John Holmstrom and guitarist Johnny Ramone both worked on illustration, with the entire back cover contemplating a military theme, while the inner sleeve artwork depicted many of the themes portrayed in songs. The subject matter of songs varied throughout the album, though nearly all the tracks on the album incorporated humor into the lyrics. The musical style showed more of a surf rock influence, and many songs had minimal structuring.

The album received positive reception, with many critics appreciating the matured production and sound quality as compared to Rocket to Russia's predecessors. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it his favorite Ramones album as it contained several hooks and featured more variety of tempos. The album was not as commercially successful as the band had hoped, peaking at number 49 on the Billboard 200. Band members blamed the Sex Pistols for their lack of sales, saying that they changed the punk image for the worse. This is the last album to be recorded with all four original members, as drummer Tommy Ramone left the band in 1978 to work solely on production. The album was ranked at number 106 in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" in 2012.

Background[edit]

In the summer of 1977, the single "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker" was released shortly after the release of the band's second album, Leave Home. This period was extremely significant to the punk rock genre, as it was the initial wave of New York City's underground punk bands receiving recording contracts. New York-based clubs CBGB and Max's Kansas City began to see bigger audiences crowd in to hear these bands. Punk fans commonly believed that this musical style would soon top the market, to which author Tom Carson explains: "To be in New York that summer was to have some sense of what it might have been like to live in San Francisco in 1966 or '67, or in London when the Beatles and the [Rolling] Stones first hit."

Recording and production[edit]

Sire Records allowed the band between $25,000 and $30,000 to fully record and produce the album, which is a considerably larger budget compared to the band's previous albums. The band spent most of the money Sire had given them on the album's production value. The studio rent was $150 per hour, usually using the first take of a song as its final recording. Johnny explained that "it's best to do it quickly ... You do not wanna sit there and bullshit. It's your money they're spending." 

The recording began on August 21, 1977 and took place in Midtown Manhattan at Media Sound Studios, a premises of a former Episcopalian Church. On the first day of sessions, guitarist Johnny Ramone brought a copy of the Sex Pistols' single "God Save the Queen" with him, remarking that their type of music "robbed" the band. He emphasized that the album's sound engineer Ed Stasium needed to incorporate better production than that of the Sex Pistols, to which Stasium replied "no problem". Johnny relates: "These guys ripped us off and I want to sound better than this." 

Though the album cites Tony Bongiovi and Tommy Ramone as the head producers, much of the album's production was done by Stasium; Johnny so far as to insist that Bongiovi was omnipresent during the band's recording sessions. Rocket to Russia's final mastering was mainly done in Bongiovi's Power Station studio. Infamous record producer Phil Spector offered to fabricate Rocket to Russia, but the band declined, feeling as though the album would not be the same without Tommy and Bongiovi.

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