Blitzkrieg Over You!

A Tribute to the Ramones (Nasty Vinyl/SPV)
by Scott Hefflon

A few bands I know, a whole bunch I don’t, all covering Ramones’ songs. A quick glance at the booklet makes it clear that this isn’t yer typical tribute (some shithead getting the bright idea that the world needs them to stick their shitty bands in the studio with some loose’n’lame concept that really doesn’t need to be done, but enough people’ll buy it if they can get a couple good bands to kick in a track they knocked off in half an hour as a joke). No, these songs were selected regardless of what decade they were recorded in or what country the band is from. So that makes it pretty excitingly diverse, showing how different cultures have been affected by the Ramones and how they reflect it in their cover. Or something like that. I just know I get a dumb-American kick out of listening to Die Ärzte‘s “Die Wikingjugend Hat Mein Mädchen Entführt,” which, I think is a take on “The KKK Took My Baby Away.” Bands beating on the brat: Die Toren Hosen (featuring Joey Ramone, sounding a little off, like he just couldn’t get the timing right, or his vocals were just spliced rather poorly over the top), Motörhead (“R.A.M.O.N.E.S.” written by Motörhead, but let’s not nitpick, huh?), Newtown Neurotics, Gigantor, Rasta Knast, Badtown Boys, Scattergun, Sigi Pop, Shock Treatment, Action Pact!, Anfall, Schliessmuskel, Nina Hagen (featurng Dee Dee Ramone), Patareni, Hass, Möped Lads, Dirty Scums (doing an original called “I Wanna See the Ramones”), The Bratbeaters, Boogeyman (doing “Surfin’ Bird,” a song the Ramones covered, but this cover fuckin’ smokes, incorporating deep-crooning slacker jazz-porn breakdown, manic punk, and wicca-wicca “Bass!” scratching), Blind Pigs, Ramonez ’77, Ne Luumäet, Rhythm Collision, the Adicts, Zeltinger.
(www.spv.de)