Gabba Gabba Hey

I tend to throw this phrase around a lot when writing about music, I suppose, but this one is the real deal.  This is where nothing was ever the same again.

I used to babysit a lot as a preteen and young teenager, so most Friday and Saturday nights I was at someone or other's house in my hometown babysitting their kids.  I spent a lot of late nights in those days, while waiting for various and sundry parents to come home, watching The Midnight Special, Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and the like.  

Especially Rock Concert, though.  That's where I found many of my favorite bands, including what would be a years-long obsession with Cheap Trick, among others.

And then there were The Ramones.

I was 11 years old, growing up in a small town in almost-rural Northwest Tennessee.  Of course I'd never seen anything like it.  Like them.

I'm not sure how to explain it.  It was Johnny's guitar.  It was Dee Dee's hair, and his counting off every single song.  It was those pounding drums.  It was Joey, who was just - Joey, hanging onto a microphone as if for dear life.

They were so odd.  And so good.  And for the first time, really, it was something of mine - my music - that was all just mine.

Actually, that's even more true that it would seem.  The Ramones weren't exactly popular in rural Northwest Tennessee, so they were kind of just mine and my little secret for a while.  There were probably others around like me, but we didn't know who each other was.

I saw a YouTube video recently that may or may not have been that same night, but it was definitely around that same time.  The Ramones doing "Pinhead", and others, and it was like electricity, like I felt shivers down my spine once again, just like that night 30+ years ago.

More than 30 years ago.  It's really been that long, huh?  Wow.

They changed everything, simple as they were.  Everything.  Believe it.