When Dee Dee Ramone passed away earlier this year, the punk community was again in mourning over the loss of another one of the founders' of punk rock. Dee Dee's bass guitar powered the Ramones trough each and every song, while only utilizing three chords and speed, he was able to not only make some of the best music ever. But more importantly he inspired every kid with a guitar, an attitude, and a dream to form a band. With his passing German label Trash2001 knew that they had to do something to not only honor him, but release some of his last recordings to his fans. The end result is a split with the two last songs Dee Dee recorded, and two from German pop-punkers Terrorogruppe.
The first song I Got a Right to Lover Her if I Want To, is a Ramones' style love song to his wife. I really liked this song, in that the message was I don't care what others think this is the woman I love and the rest of you can go to hell. His next offering Horror Hospital, is a harder sounding song that is a little depressing since it is a song about how much he hates being in rehab and would rather self medicate his pain with drugs. I have mixed feelings for this song. While I enjoyed the music, the lyrics of a depressed junkie wanting more drugs just seemed really desperate and pathetic.
Terrorgruppe are a pop-punk group that follows up with a great Ramones sounding tribute song titled Dee Dee. The song sounds like it could be a lost Ramone song, but it makes it's distinguish itself by possibly being the only punk song with chimes in it. The song just talks about the greatness of the Ramones and that with only three fast chords they were able to kill the "prog-rock dinosaurs" and will always be in our memories. The next is a live cover of Sunny, which is some song from the 60's but I can't remember who did it, but it sounds familiar as hell. There is also a video for Sunny on this disc which features Yuppies beating up janitors, street musicians, and playing racket ball in an office lobby, funny stuff.
The cover art for this was also painted by Dee Dee and his wife, and it's a cool painting, while the inside features a four page booklet of people saying good-bye. This is a fitting tribute/last effort by the man that created punk rock. If you're a Ramones' fan you should pick this up as a way to good bye to the man that did so much for punks.