Jeffrey Ross Hyman better known as Joey Ramone passed away at the age of 49.  His fight against lymphatic cancer ended on this day after a long a widely reported battle.  Hyman was born in Queens on the 19th of May 1951. Joey was born with a parasitic twin, the twin was surgically removed however he did have a sibling, brother Mickey Leigh.

His musical journey began when he played the drums from the age of 13 before picking up an acoustic guitar and then moving onto vocals and the rest, as they say, is history as he performed all over the world playing thousands of shows to millions of people.  He loved the Beatles, The Who, and the stones as much as he loved 50’s girl groups and The Ramones managed to do a fine job of mashing up all those influences throughout their iconic career.

Joey has a street named after him in NYC but the band managed to play their farewell show in California.  His iconic hunched form with tinted shades ripped jeans converse shoes and the black leather jacket has been copied a million times over as has his band’s music. He will forever be remembered in connection with CBGB and leaves behind a wonderful legacy of Ramones records as well as two solo albums before he passed away as well as being immortalised in the Simpsons and even got a speaking part as well as singing the Spiderman theme song doesn’t get cooler than that folks.  Rest In Peace Joey Ramone one of the finest frontmen ever in music – period. King of the outsiders

The last song Joey heard was a U2 tune, not a band I usually like to share but hey it’s about Joey so it’ll do and the Ramones did support U2 at the Longest day way back in the 80’s so kudos to them for doing that at least besides where else was a kid going to see The Ramones?

anyone who ever saw the band can testify as to how good they were and even when they weren’t good they were still good – yeah? Iconic punk rockers amazing image – even more amazing catalogue of songs and albums – incredible characters – dysfunctional, goofy, awkward, enigmatic, influential.  Lucky for us there has been something of an avalanche of reissues, bonus material, box sets, books, DVD’s. The Ramones will forever be remembered and rightly so. Rest In Peace Joey you ruled!