I didn't know Joey Ramone, but I felt like I did; after all, he was born and bred in New York, just like me.

I was just a kid when the first Ramones record came out, but my cousin Scott wasn't. He played the role of the cooler, older but not-so-wiser brother to me, and it was Scott who introduced me to the Clash, the B-52's, Kraftwerk and the Ramones.

One night, when Scott was supposed to be taking me to see a G-rated movie, we took the downtown 2 train instead of the uptown. When I asked him where we were going, he said "It's a secret; don't tell your mom. It's going to be a hundred times more fun than the movies." I was kinda scared, but really excited. I kept swinging my feet and kicking under the seat in anticipation.

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Forty-five minutes and a train change later, Scott was taking me through the doors of the very R-rated CBGB. (There was no PG-13 back then.) We had to stand in the back because it was so crowded (or maybe because I was way underage) and he put me on his shoulders. It was loud, and there were four guys up on stage who dressed just like regular guys from our neighborhood with one exception: They had guitars.

It was all so new. It was exciting. It was like no other music I had heard before, yet it reminded me of the stuff my parents listened to on WCBS-FM, the oldies station.

To use the most clichéd cliché, it changed my life. Nothing would be the same after that. I got more into punk rock. I went to junior high. I am sure my mom knew where Scott took me that night, but she never said anything. Maybe because she's a Ramones fan too.

Joey Ramone was 10 years older than Scott. Scott was 10 years older than me. Both of them are gone now, and I miss them.

(Jodi Shapiro has written about music for Rockpool, Reflex and a bunch of other magazines that don't exist any more.)

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Bob Massey:

In the springtime of 1989, when I thought I was a badass but really I was a college freshman, two of the other misfits on my hall wheedled me into a road trip to catch the Ramones. (I had the car.) I'm like, Fuhgeddaboudit, it's 1989, are those guys still alive? Good Lord. I was all obsessed with Hüsker Dü and the like. You know, the newer, harder stuff. C'mon, when the Ramones coughed out "Sheena Is a Punk Rocker," I was eight. But I went.

There towered Joey. He spat: "ONETWOTHREEFOUR!"

God.

I'd seen some thunderous shows, but I had to admit I was shocked at the purity and muscle that roiled that huge room. None stood still. None stood unmoved. The power was bliss. I repented.

Cut to: 1994. I'd just purchased the final album Hüsker Dü would release, a live document called "The Living End." I guess I was still hanging on to that band, sort of the way my folks' friends faithfully bought every tepid new Bob Dylan record. MTV had done a little spot on it and they asked Joey Ramone what he thought of the Hüskers. His reply, from behind those shades and that hair, went: "Well, I always thought they were ripping off the Ramones."

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