Rocket To Russia: 40th Anniversary Deluxe Edition is out now via Rhino (opens in new tab).Ramones is the debut studio album by American punk rock band The Ramones, released on April 23, 1976, by Sire Records. When the shore front was devastated by 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, the song was used in a radio ad for the rebuilding fund, Dee Dee’s quintessential Ramones lyrics spilling out once more: ‘ Chewin’ out a rhythm on my bubblegum/The sun is out, and I want some…’ These are the definitive remastered box sets for each of these albums.”Įven if the Ramones never surfed, Rockaway Beach will never lose it’s crested-wave sparkle and resonance. This is a great treat for true fans of the Ramones who’ll love this stuff, and I’m so proud to be associated with the legacy. “Who would have thought after recording them forty years ago that in 2017 I would literally still be working with them going through the multi-tracks, finding this great stuff and putting out these lovely box sets? People might diss it and say: ‘Ah, you’re just a money grabber’, but I don’t look at it that way at all. The Rocket To Russia reissue bodes well for similar treatments planned for Road To Ruin, the Phil Spector-produced End Of The Century and, hopefully, all five concerts recorded for It’s Alive. Stasium is very aware that, with all four Ramones who recorded Rocket To Russia now deceased, he is responsible for their magnificent legacy.
It’s pure driving Ramones the way it starts off the record with that E-to-A chord progression and they slam into it. “It’s a funny song, so typical of the Ramones with the lyrical content and hilarity of it. Stasium remembers Rockaway Beach as first song recorded at the sessions, but cites opening track Cretin Hop as his perfect encapsulation of the album regarded by most as the Ramones’ best. No double-track vocals, guitar overdubs or background vocals all Ramones all the time, balls-to-the-wall.”
But what a revelation hearing those tracks now! Those mixes are the band in the studio, live an in-your-face, bare-boned tracking mix, just the band going at it in the studio, captured by those room microphones. When we originally mixed the album we didn’t incorporate that room sound too much, it was just lying beneath.
Holy mother of pearl, it sounded amazing. “When Bill Inglott, my co-producer on these box sets who finds the multi-tracks in the Warner Brothers vaults, transferred the tapes to digital, the first thing I did was listen to the room sound. The room sound picked up everything, and doing the tracking probably took two days. “When I went in there I thought: ‘I’m going to use this room sound and ambience that Roy inspired me to do.’ As well as close-mic’ing the band out in the studio, I put up room mics to capture them live. “It was a huge room, almost cathedral-like,” remembers Stasium, who has masterminded Rocket To Russia’s spectacular reissue, complete with outtakes, live recordings and 40th Anniversary Tracking Mix that captures the Ramones as they sounded in the room.
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