All For The Songs: Edwyn Collins' Favourite Music | Page 6 of 14 | The Quietus

Baker's Dozen

Artists discuss the 13 records that shaped their lives

5. RamonesRamones

EC: The first album – nineteen-seventy-one-two-three-four-five-six.  The black and white one. ‘Blitzkrieg Bop’, ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’. It’s classic. Of course, from New York, Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny, Tommy. Now all dead.

GM: Oh shush. That’s a bit harsh!

EC: They are! Incidentally, when I was a teenager, I was in the Nu-Sonics.

GM: This was Edwyn’s band around the same time as this Ramones album, with some of the same members that eventually formed Orange Juice.

EC: And I can remember maybe about 1977 or eight, the second hand charity shops for clothes. The Davy Crockett look! Wanting to look right.

GM: You didn’t throw things together. You worked quite hard on your look. It was seriously considered. Edwyn was a good monitor of the charity shops. It was a serious job.

EC: It was!

GM: Before I met Edwyn, when I was in university in Glasgow, and just getting chucked out, actually, I booked the Ramones at the student union. Joey wasn’t well – he had the flu, and a bad throat – so I got him some lemon and honey, and he was really appreciative. They were really, really nice, and the crew was nice too. It was a big feather in my cap. Edwyn – the look of the Ramones and the way they played impacted on you, didn’t it? With Johnny particularly, guiding the way that you performed and the way he looked.

EC: Yes it really did. And I remember Dee Dee, on the bass with his bowl cut. And a lot of pogoing!

Selected in other Baker’s Dozens: Alan Mcgee, Bob Mould, Morrissey
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