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Ramones Documentary Gets August Release

added 10 August 2004 at 12.42

The documentary ‘End Of The Century: The Story Of The Ramones’ will receive its premiere in New York on August 20 and details the full history of the legendary punks. In fact, its so accurate that surviving guitarist Johnny Ramone has described it as leaving him ‘disturbed’.

The documentary chronicles the life of the band from its 1974 conception in New York and follows their tumultuous 22-year career up until their obligatory farewell concert in 1996.

"It's a very dark movie. It's accurate,” the currently hospitalised Johnny told Rolling Stone. “It left me disturbed as I was watching it. I'm basically portrayed as a tyrannical monster, Dee Dee is on drugs, and Joey is an alcoholic and a drug addict at various times."

Of the original members only two remain, guitarist Johnny and drummer Tommy. Vocalist Joey died of lymphatic cancer in 2000, while bassist Dee Dee died of a drug overdose two years later. Johnny meanwhile is currently fighting prostate cancer in hospital.

In other Ramones news, the band will release their first authorised DVD entitled ‘Raw’ on September 27. From the time he rejoined the band in 1987, sometime drummer Marky Ramone shot over 400 hours of home movie footage of the band on the road and it is from these tapes that the DVD has been compiled.

"There's a lot of things... that I was really grateful to put in because if I didn't have that camera, nobody would have," Marky told Billboard.com.

The DVD will also feature ‘I Ramone’, a half-hour of concert footage captured in Rome in 1980, just after the release of the band's Phil Spector-produced album, ‘End of the Century.’ Thought to be lost, the footage was rediscovered in the vaults of an Italian television station two decades after its one-time broadcast.

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Jon Ford

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