​The Round of 64 for Sound of the City's own version of March Madness—in which you, the Sound of the City voting public, help determine the quintessential New York musician—continues, and you get to vote on who makes it to Round Two. The first pairing in our Queens division pits its top seed, three-chord punks the Ramones, against the Big Four thrashers in Anthrax. Check out the arguments in favor of each, then cast your ballot at the Sound of the City facebook page.

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​Via SOTC pal Will Hermes—whose new book about New York's music scene from 1973 to 1977, Love Goes To Buildings On Fire, comes out next week—here's a clip of the Ramones playing at CBGB sometime during the summer of 1974. (Hermes' blog has a ton of other archival footage from the period covered by his book.) In the grainy video they play "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement," and "Judy Is A Punk"; note, also, the glam-inspired moves Joey throws into his performance here and there. Clip below.

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These riches could be yours.

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1. The CBGB brand is up for auction.
Not all that surprising a development given the financial woes suffered by the company that used to hold the trademark had. But still a little sad? Especially because of the high odds that Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters wins out?

2. Nouvelle Vague's loungey cover of the Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk To Fuck" used in an alcohol-awareness campaign has been yanked from an ad campaign because of concerns that it actually encourages people to binge drink.
"Heineken's aim was to link the idea of 'relaxed consumption' of beer with music that had been 'uncharacteristically slowed down' from the original track." Maybe someone should re-record the track as "Too Drunk To Figure Out A Coherent Advertising Campaign"? Jeez.

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​The Voice has spent the week celebrating the 60th birthday of one of New York's greatest treasures, Joey Ramone. We've made our To Do Lists of things we "wanna do" and things we "don't wanna do," and we've stolen the "Joey Ramone Place" sign on E 2nd St. about a dozen times in the last 24 hours. We figured the best way to round out the week would be testing our smug, smarty-pants rock critics on how well they know a band that has absolutely nothing to do with Brooklyn. So we asked 15 music writers:

Can you name all seven Ramones from their various lineups?

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Joey Ramone would have been 60 years old on May 19. This week, in celebration of the birthday of the Queens-born gone-too-soon punk legend, Sound of the City will run a series of features on his life and his legacy.

​The Ramones may have shouted their last four-count 15 years ago, but whether you see the band as idiot savants spitting out rudimentary songs at machine-gun pace as best they could or as avant-pop deconstructionists of Phil Spector and The Beach Boys, there's no denying the stain they left on generations of punks to come in their wake. Here's a guide to a few bands that are chewin' out the three-chord rhythm on their bubblegum.

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Joey Ramone would have been 60 years old on May 19. This week, in celebration of the birthday of the Queens-born gone-too-soon punk legend, Sound of the City will run a series of features on his life and his legacy.

via MySpace

Jesse Malin at Joey Ramone's Birthday Bash in 2008.

​Talk on the phone to punk-tinged singer/songwriter Jesse Malin about Joey Ramone, and you don't need to see his eyes--his voice gets misty. As he did for so many others in his time, Joey was for Malin, a combination of protective older brother, School of Rock-style teacher and fellow mischievous street kid, the kind of guy who can be easily imagined as someone egging on a friend on to throw water balloons from rooftops. SOTC spoke with Malin about his relationship with Joey, which was sparked by a cold call many years ago.

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Joey Ramone would have been 60 years old on May 19. This week, in celebration of the birthday of the Queens-born gone-too-soon punk legend, Sound of the City will run a series of features on his life and his legacy.

Bruce Frankel/courtesy Allan Arkush

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Allan Arkush has executive produced a bunch of TV shows--Crossing Jordan, Heroes, Hellcats. He made the Temptations miniseries that VH1 shows every other day. He's directed episodes of Melrose Place, Dawson's Creek, Ally McBeal, and Moonlighting. But when he shakes this mortal coil, expect the title of a $300,000 B-flick he barely spent four weeks on in 1978 to headline his obit.

Rock 'N' Roll High School, staring the Ramones, is one of the five greatest American films of all time. Well, five best movie musicals? At the very least, the scene of the band rolling down the high school halls and blaring "Do Ya Wanna Dance" with the teen archetypes (cheerleaders, jocks, geeks, etc.) following, clapping and dancing while brewing up the eventual explosion of the school, could be the most transcendent two minutes of any rock movie. Arkush, who was 30 at the time, was behind the camera. At the time, he worked in the Roger Corman camp, and Rock'n'Roll High School evolved from a simple chance to add to his directing chops into a place in rock-flick history and a lifelong friendship with Joey Ramone.

Arkush--a huge music fanatic--was in the midst of transferring his old mixtapes to digital storage when we reached him by phone. "This is kind of cool because I've been reading the Village Voice since I was in high school--so like 1965, '66," he said. "I first encountered it in my world history class. We were going to do a debate for and against Vietnam, and I hadn't really thought about it much. There was an ad in The New York Times around then that was against the war, and it was signed by every singer or folk singer I respected, and it really gave me pause. So I took the 'against' side, and the source for my argument was a Village Voice article. And I killed in the debate! Though then my teacher wrote a really bad college recommendation for me."

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Joey Ramone would have been 60 years old on May 19. This week, in celebration of the birthday of the Queens-born gone-too-soon punk legend, Sound of the City will run a series of features on his life and his legacy.

​Be A Good Boy

Be Sedated

Be Well

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Joey Ramone would have been 60 years old on May 19. This week, in celebration of the birthday of the Queens-born gone-too-soon punk legend, Sound of the City will run a series of features on his life and his legacy.

​Be Learned/ Be Tamed

Fight On Christmas Night

Get Involved With You

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Joey Ramone would have been 60 years old on May 19. This week, in celebration of the birthday of the Queens-born gone-too-soon punk legend, Sound of the City will run a series of features on his life and his legacy.

​Imitation might be the sincerest form of flattery--and whose style has been aped more than the Ramones--but what do you call it when no less than Lemmy himself writes a song in your honor? From sincere homages to nonsensical rave ups, The Ramones have inspired scores of bands to literally sing their praises. Here is a list of our favorite songs about Forest Hills' own Fab Four.

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