LA TIMES: Tommy Ramone [PICTURED, SECOND FROM RIGHT], drummer and last surviving original member of the punk-rock band Ramones, died Friday, confirmed to the Los Angeles Times by the band’s manager with Silent Partner Management. He was 62, the manager confirmed. Born Thomas Erdelyi in Budapest, Hungary, on Jan. 29, 1952, Ramone was the drummer for the band from 1974 to 1978, as well as co-producing the band’s first three albums.The Ramones, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003 — had to wait until most of their membership had died to be hailed by mainstream pop culture as a pioneering force. The band, whose members adopted a last name used by Paul McCartney to reserve hotel rooms in the Beatles years, were known for their bowl haircuts, ripped jeans and less-than-polished musical style. The four-member Ramones came out of Queens with limited musical skills, but by 1976, their staccato riffs and full-frontal garage rock assaults began to make their mark on British punk musicians. The band has been acknowledged by many as the inventors of punk rock. MORE
TIME: The debut album by punk band The Ramones–creatively titled Ramones–has finally gone gold, with over 500,000 copies sold since its release in 1976. The Recording Industry of America certified the album’s gold status on April 30, almost exactly 38 years after its debut. The slow progress may be thanks to the album’s lack of commercial success in the 1970s. It peaked at 111 on the U.S. Billboard 200. Since then, however, the album has been labeled the most influential punk record by Spin magazine and was inducted into the Library of Congress in 2013 alongside Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Janis Joplin’s Cheap Thrills. MORE