Every new wave band owes a debt to the Ramones, according to Patti Smith
Whether they feel it or not, Patti Smith doesn’t care. Even if a band won’t admit to the influence or wouldn’t ever call them an inspiration, Smith still thinks everyone in the New Wave scene should be on their knees, bowing at a certain band’s altar.
Smith is never shy about hero worship. On her social media, she rarely misses a birthday, a death day or an anniversary as she dedicates so much of her own platform to honouring the legacy of others. At any opportunity she can get, she talks loudly and proudly, not about her own work, but about the work of the people who inspired or influenced her.
Jimi Hendrix, Lou Reed, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Sylvia Plath, Frida Kahlo – the list goes on. Across every realm from music to literature to art and beyond, Smith bows to those who came before, or who she has the honour of working alongside, and never misses an opportunity to thank them.
That’s how she thinks it should be – we should always understand and acknowledge how the work of one person, or one band, opened up the doors for our own. That’s why, in her mind, all New Wave acts should bow to the Ramones, whether they get it or not.
It’s all geographical, and it all comes down to one place: CBGB. The famed venue that once sat in the East Village of New York changed music forever, and that’s not an understatement.
At a time when the city felt like a vacuum, when the old rock and roll venues were closing down and those bands were breaking up, CBGB opened like a saving grace to a blossoming new scene, the punk scene, of which the Ramones were undeniably the leaders.
Forming in 1974, they played their first ever public show in March of that year and then, by August, they’d landed at the CBGB. That was arguably the show that christened the place, as after that, all the other acts began to dabble in the rougher punk world, and all the fans interested in it came flocking. Pretty soon, it was the place to be as acts like Television and even Smith’s own band were undeniably influenced by their vision, as well as the venue they ran to.
But the CBGB would also help form a slightly different genre. Alongside the rowdier acts, names like Talking Heads played there who weren’t quite punk but also weren’t classic rock and roll. Subtly, from the venue’s uncategorisable rib, New Wave began forming.
All of these things are connected to Smith in one long chain of influence. It’s the same chain that meant that even when things looked very different at CBGB, she couldn’t be mad or jaded about it. “I’m still excited about this new time in rock and roll. I don’t even care if CBGB’s winds up as a tourist trap,” she said in a 1978 interview with Hit Parader, adding, “At least there’s some excitement.”
By the end of the decade that launched the Ramones, herself and so many more, she was already aware of the impact as she said, “I know that we inspired a lot of those bands,” before adding, “Just like I know that every new wave band owes half their heart to the Ramones.”
Inevitably, by the time New Wave moved in a more glam, futuristic direction, those acts likely wouldn’t really draw a line of reference between themselves and the Ramones. But for Smith, that’s besides the point. Yet the rolling of era to era demands these kinds of ruptures where one class steals from the other in order to keep things moving, as Smith puts it, “They may not say anything about it, I mean those kids aren’t going to give credit…they have to maintain their swagger, they have to kill off their ancestors…”
