The Ramones: The Tragic Death of Dee Dee Ramone

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Today we take a look at legendary punk rocker Dee Dee Ramone a founding member of the punk band The Ramones

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Tragic Story of Dee Dee Ramone

What’s going on my fellow rock n’ rollers don’t forget to hit the bell notification icon to be notified everytime i upload a new video on my channel. The Ramones bassist Dee Dee Ramone was only 50 when he died in 2002. He lived a pretty tragic life that was consumed by drugs, alcohol and rock n’ roll. This is his story.

Dee Dee ramone was a founding member, main songwriter as well as the bassist for the hugely influential punk rock group the Ramones. Dee Dee’s struggle with substance abuse was no secret as he would publish an autobiography in the late 90’s and documented his crippling addiction. The story of the ramones is one of great tragedy as dee dee would die within almost a year of when Ramone’s frontman joey ramone passed at the age of 49 from cancer.

Originally named Douglas Glenn Coven, Dee Dee was born in 1951 in Fort Lee Virginia. His father was in the military and his mother was a German a women. Given his Father’s profession he moved around a lot and Dee Dee by his own admission claimed his childhood was “lonely”. When he was an infant his family relocate to West Germany where he would stay until he was the age of 15. His father would struggle with alcohol and resulted in his parents splitting up. Dee Dee, his mother and sister would move back to the States finding a new home in Forest Hills, New York. It was in Forrest Hills he met two other guys named John Cummings and Thomas Erdelyi (erdalee)later dubbed Johnny and Tommy Ramone, who were playing in a band named Tangerine Puppets After some discussion the trio decided to start their own band. But They would add friend Jeffrey Hymann who was a drummer in another band named Sniper to cement the lineup. They would call themselves the Ramones. They would draw inspiration from the Beatles Paul McCartney who would use the alias Paul Ramon when staying at hotels. Each band member of the band would change their surname to Ramone as an act of solidarity. Douglas Coven would become Dee Dee Ramone, John Cummings would become Johnny Ramone, Thomas Erderly would become Tommy Ramone and Jeffrey Hymen would become Joey Ramone.

It was a struggle at first as the Ramones had revolving cast of members in different positions as Dee Dee originally was the vocalist, while Joey was a drummer. After some maneuvering Joey became the vocalist while Dee Dee would focus on bass as he found singing and playing bass at the same time difficult, but he’d still add vocals on a few Ramones tracks. A year later in 1974 the band made their live debut and soon made a name for themselves on the New York music scene.

Mixing pop with their hard rock influences including the Who, The MC5 and the Stooges they would soon become synonymous with the New York punk rock scene using just three chords to write songs. By 1976 the band released their self titled debut album which included the punk rock anthem Blitzkrieg Pop. Dee Dee would end up being one of the band’s most prolific lyricist and songwriters penning such tracks “poison heart,” “rockaway beach” and 53rd and 3rd that documented his life as a street hustler. Something that would hamper Dee Dee for much of his life starting in his teenage years was drug addiction especially as the musician took a liking to heroin.. In the intro to Dee Dee Ramone’s book Lobotomy, Legs McNeil would write, “Dee Dee was the archetypal f--k-up whose life was a living disaster. He was a male prostitute, a would-be mugger, a heroin user and dealer, an accomplice to armed robbery -- and a genius poet who was headed for an early grave, but was sidetracked by rock ‘n’ roll.”In addition to drug abuse Dee Dee would also suffer with mental illness and drug abuse put a strain on his marriage to his first wife Vera Boldis The couple would separate in 1990 before finalizing their divorce in 1995.

In the years that followed the Ramones would undergo numerous lineup changes with Dee Dee remaining intact until 1989 after playing on 11 records. It was during his time in rehab in 1987 he soon learned about rap music, which changed his career path following his exit from the Ramones. I always loved playing live with the ramones but I had to kind of like go my own way and stick up for myself and do what i wanted to do. There freaked you know at first they didn’t believe it. thought i was going through a midlife crisis, they thought i’d be back. He won’t be though.

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