Not the Great American Rock and Roll Band


Ladies and gentlemen, Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers. Just because it’s great, because it’s Wednesday, because Johnny’s still dead, because Max’s is a faint memory, and because there’s a lightning storm sweeping across Manhattan. And it’s not the Grateful Dead. Comment away.

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July 11th, 2007
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    • ^
    • v
    "And it’s not the Grateful Dead."

    Amen.

    Thanks for the jolt of energy on a muggy (though now sunny) day.
    • ^
    • v
    This is the second time we have something in common. I agree w/you warts and all. I last saw 'john' in a no name nite club in hoboken with some gal he released something with. He whined the whole show yet I still felt lucky to see him in person before his fall. Sometimes I think this country grinds up originals like him.
    • ^
    • v
    Again, you could not be more right. Thunders over the Dead any day.
    • ^
    • v
    Hard to believe, but I first heard this version of Chinese Rocks last month on the "No Thanks" Rhino 70's punk collection my wife brought home. From the liner notes:
    The history of "Chinese Rocks" reads like the travels of a dirty syringe. When Dee Dee Ramone couldn't get the Ramones to record his starkly truthful song about addiction, he brought it to his drug buddy Hell who added a couple of lines and put it in The Heartbreakers' repertoire. Hell was no longer a Heartbreaker by the time the band released "Chinese Rocks" as the A-side of its English-only 1977 debut single...A couple of years later, Sid Vicious recorded "Chinese Rocks" on Sid Sings, a live album that employed Nolan's post-Heartbreakers band, the Idols...And, tying it all in a neat bow, former Voidoids drummer Marc Bell was in the Ramones when they belatedly recorded (the suddenly singular) "Chinese Rock" on 1980's End Of The Century.
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