50th anniversary of the Ramones’ debut honored with Hollywood Forever bash

As Pinky Dubin and Logan Smith wandered from Dee Dee Ramone’s grave to Johnny Ramone‘s memorial at Hollywood Forever Cemetery on Sunday, Aug. 30, the friends paused to talk about what the legendary punk band the Ramones meant to them.

“Growing up, my parents, they met from, like, forming a punk band,” said Pinky, 16, who wore her hair in a tall mohawk, having traveled from Pomona to attend the Ramones 50th Anniversary Tribute. “I just was always raised with punk, with the Ramones. They were always my favorite. Still are.

“And yeah, I just love the Ramones; a big part of my childhood,” she added.

Logan, also 16, stood between the gravesites of Paul “Pee-wee Herman” Reubens and Burt Reynolds, and shared a similar story.

“My dad and my aunt, they were really into the Ramones,” said Logan, who wore a Suicidal Tendencies hat over a Social Distortion T-shirt. “It’s just like the classic stuff that everybody has to listen to.”

Linda Ramone, who married Johnny Ramone in 1984, held the first Ramones tribute at Hollywood Forever in 2005, a year after Johnny’s death.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Ramones self-titled debut album, the event attracted a large crowd to celebrate the band and hear the Cretin Family, a punk supergroup of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Blink-182’s Travis Barker, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, and C.J. Ramone, one of three Ramones still living, to play a set of Ramones songs.

Chris and Erica LoCascio posed for photos with their young children at the Johnny Ramone statue.

“The Ramones were a gateway band for me when it came to punk rock,” said Chris LoCascio, who lives in Pasadena. “It’s a big part of my identity and who I am and how I think about myself in the world. So you’re here with a bunch of people who feel the same way and want to celebrate that.

“It just feels like the right kind of place to expose the kids to punk rock and something that’s really important to me,” he added.

Erica LoCascio said this was technically the second time the whole family had attended a Ramones tribute in the cemetery.

“The last time that we were here, he was one-and-a-half, and she was in my belly,” she said of their children Benjamin, 4, and Madeline, 1. “We bought a book that he saw at the merch table that was counting with the Ramones [“Learn to Count 1-2-3-4 with Johnny Ramone”].

“We read that almost every night and he knows their names,” Erica LoCascio said. “He calls them the ‘Mones.”

Linda Ramone was joined by John Travolta to introduce the Cretin Family – Travolta’s directorial debut, “Propellor One-Way Night Coach,” and the Brian DePalma horror movie “Carrie,” in which Travolta appeared, screened on the mausoleum wall after nightfall.

“I’m sorry I’m a little late, but there’s so many people dying to get in here,” Travolta said, after which a faint booing to be coming from either the crowd – or the crypts.

Then, with Linda Ramone leading the crowd in chants of “Hey, ho! Let’s go!” the Cretin Family walked out and kicked off their set with the Ramones’ instrumental “Durango 95” and “Rockaway Beach.”

Tim Armstrong and CJ Ramone, who replaced Dee Dee as bassist from 1989 until the band’s end in 1996, have played the Ramones tributes at Hollywood Forever before. For Billie Joe Armstrong and Travis Barker, it was their first time at the event.

Both Armstrongs and CJ Ramone swapped off on lead vocals. Tim Armstrong handled songs such as “Teenage Lobotomy,” “Commando,” and “Havana Affair.” Billie Joe Armstrong took lead on many of the more romantic Ramones tunes, including “Do You Wanna Dance,” “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker,” and “Oh Oh I Love Her So.”

After C.J. Ramone sang a pair of songs Dee Dee used to do, “The Crusher” and the Ramones’ cover of Motörhead’s tribute, “R.A.M.O.N.E.S,” the Cretin Family started to bring guest vocalists out for a song or two.

Musician-actor Fred Armisen sang “Danny Says” before the Los Angeles all-female quartet the Linda Lindas popped out to do “California Sun” and “I Wanna Be Sedated,” dancing and pogoing wildly on stage.

The 20-song set came to a close with a trio of tunes sung by Billy Idol, sandwiching a pair of Ramones’ favorites, “Beat on the Brat” and “Blitzkrieg Bop,” around one of Idol’s own, “Ready Steady Go,” from his pre-solo band Generation X.

Earlier, Joleen Green and her daughter Bella Green sat on a blanket sipping beers as they waited for the Cretin Family to begin.

Joleen Green, who owns a hot dog restaurant in Pacific Grove in Northern California, first heard the Ramones when she was about 15 years old.

“They’re a staple; they’re the best,” Green said. “And Tim Armstrong; Rancid is my favorite band,” she added, showing off a Rancid tattoo on her forearm.

Bella Green, who lives in San Diego where she’s a hairstylist and tattoo artist, grew up with her mother’s music often in her ears.

“My mom introduced me to her music at a very young age, and I just tagged along for the trip,” she said of coming to Los Angeles for Sunday’s Ramones festivities.

“I was like, ‘Badass,’” Bella Green added of the change to hear the Ramones played by Tim Armstrong, her favorite as he is her mother’s, and the others. “Happy to be here.”