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Tommy Ramone, a co-founder of the seminal punk band the Ramones and the last surviving member of the original group, has died, a business associate said Saturday. Dave Frey, who works for Ramones Productions and Silent Partner Management, said Ramone died on Friday. Frey didn't have additional details. Ramone — born Erdelyi Tamas in Budapest, Hungary — was 65. Tommy Ramone, a drummer, co-founded the Ramones in 1974 in New York along with singer Joey Ramone, bassist DeeDee Ramone and guitarist Johnny Ramone. The band members weren't related and had different last names, but took the common name Ramone. The...

Vega designed the Ramones' legendary logo Arturo Vega, the man who designed the Ramones' indelible logo, and was the band's artistic director for 22 years, died Saturday (June 8), announced friend and Please Kill Me author Legs McNeil on his Facebook page. First reported by Slicing Up Eyeballs, McNeil wrote: "Sleep gently my dear friend, you were the must optimistic, jubilant and fun pal anyone could wish for. I don't know what the world will be like without, nor do I want to even imagine it... But I know you will find eternal happiness wherever you end up....I love you...

Steven Van Zandt, Tommy Ramone, Debbie Harry, Ted Leo, Jesse Malin, and more band together to save the beleaguered NY landmark. Debbie Harry performs Blondie classics at CBGB, hopefully not for the last time. / Photo by Lane Brown If the graffiti-splattered, poster-covered walls of CBGB could talk, aside from asking for a good scrubbing, they might wax nostalgic about an era when they watched the Ramones grow up and fantasized as Debbie Harry sauntered across the stage. With those legendary walls facing possible demolition in a month, the venue's owner kicked off a month-long campaign on Monday to save...

Linda Cummings arrived at Hollywood Forever Cemetery in a white, backless, nearly see-through mini-halter dress, white fur jacket and white high-heeled go-go boots. Not exactly site-specific attire, but then again, she is Johnny Ramone’s widow. Various celebs milled about, including Anthony Kiedis, who showed up wearing a Johnny Ramone–style hairdo to go with the anorexic-model type on his arm. The crowd included everyone from mohawked gutter punks in leather jackets and bondage pants to businessmen in three-piece suits. They had all come for last Friday’s unveiling of the Johnny Ramone memorial statue. Ramone (born John Cummings) died in September from...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Late punk guitarist Johnny Ramone is being immortalized with a bronze statue at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Ramone, co-founder and guitarist of The Ramones, was 55 when he died of prostate cancer on Sept. 15, 2004, at his Los Angeles home. The statue is near the grave of bandmate Dee Dee Ramone, who died of a drug overdose in 2002. The Johnny Ramone monument, created by artist Wayne Toth, shows Ramone playing his Mosrite guitar and it features the words, "If a man can judge success by how many great friends he has, then I have...

Johnny Ramone, member of punk legends ’The Ramones,’ dies at 55 LOS ANGELES (AP) — Johnny Ramone, guitarist and co-founder of the seminal punk band “The Ramones,” has died. He was 55. Ramone died in his sleep Wednesday afternoon at his Los Angeles home surrounded by friends and family, his publicist said. He had battled prostate cancer for five years, and was hospitalized in June at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Ramone, born John Cummings, was one of the original members of the Ramones, whose hit songs “I Wanna be sedated” and “Blitzkrieg Bop,” among others, earned the band induction into the...

George W Bush: Punk icon? By Damian Fowler BBC reporter in New York It sounds unlikely, but there is a surprising new subculture emerging in the United States: Republican punk rockers. In his knee-high Dr Martens and with his head shaved, Michale Graves is the Bush-friendly face of punk rock. He is the front man for the band Gotham Road, which has just kicked off its US tour. On stage he belts out angry, obscure lyrics, but offstage he is also known for his conservative rants and raves. "The leftist radical agenda seems to be resonating loudly from within pop...

With his mohawk, ratty fatigues, assorted chains and his menagerie of tattoos — swallows on each shoulder, a nautical star on his back and the logo of the Bouncing Souls, a New York City punk band, on his right leg — 22-year-old Nick Rizzuto is the very picture of counterculture alienation. But it's when he talks politics that Mr. Rizzuto sounds like a real radical, for a punk anyway. Mr. Rizzuto is adamantly in favor of lowering taxes and for school vouchers, and against campaign finance laws; his favorite Supreme Court justice is Clarence Thomas; he plans to vote for...

Ever since R. F. Outcault’s irreverent creation, The Yellow Kid, first appeared as an incidental character in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World on Feb. 16, 1896, comic art in America has seen an enriching array of artists whose unique personal visions have transformed popular culture. For over a century, every era has had its own defining graphic delineator. So when the punk-rock/new-wave revolution hit North America in the summer of 1976, it was only fitting that this nascent movement should also be documented by its own cartoon chronicler. Enter John Holmstrom, the writer-artist-founder of New York’s legendary hand-lettered PUNK magazine....