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I Slept with Joey Ramone is not just a memoir of one of rock's most influential lead singers; it's a psychological study about brothers and what modest sums of money and worldwide fame can do to a relationship. Author Mickey Leigh, Joey Ramone's "kid brother," (three years younger) as he is reminded time after time by the press, gives us the "up-close" that Ramones fans require, having been the one to introduce the others to Joey and having served as their roadie for their earliest tours. But the real story here is how the band's struggle for fame turns against the brothers and makes what would have been a difficult relationship into a nearly impossible one.
Joey spent most of his adult life as the lead singer of the Ramones; Mickey spent his trying to get one band after another off the ground. The "brotherly love" came and went, along with Joey's unpredictable moods, while Leigh spent his life trying to figure out when to call his shot, always aware that his own talents would be questioned since he was, after all, Joey Ramone's kid brother. Technically, Leigh was the better musician among the Ramones. But like most things, the music world is a crapshoot and there was no extra space in the Ramones' minimalism for a seasoned hand. The best and brightest don't always win; inspired amateurism frequently trumps knowledge. The people on top often credit not the benevolence and support of others or the random luck of the universe, but their own God-given talent or destiny. Gabba Gabba Hey, The Ramones got there by being brilliant, brilliant at turning a handicap into an advantage and brilliant at writing the simplest most perfect songs.
Except the Ramones were not as successful as the culture now implies. Sure, these days anyone from toddlers to grannies with tattoos can be seen sporting Ramones T-shirts. However, the band never had a top ten hit, never appeared on Saturday Night Live, never performed at Madison Square Garden. Like the Velvet Underground or the Stooges, the Ramones were met with quizzical, eyebrow-arched skepticism or complete indifference outside of a small but persistent circle of friends that included critics and kids who would one day form bands of their own. Unlike the Velvets and Stooges, the Ramones spent two decades banging their heads against the impenetrable wall of mainstream acceptance, touring extensively to rectify their paltry record sales.
Leigh's fully aware of all this and gently makes these points. The entire book is in some ways an act of restraint: "How I Didn't Come to Kill My Older Brother." Granted, there are at least three sides to every story -- in this case, Leigh's, Joey's and the impossible to access, objective reality monitor that has no emotional investment in any of this. To Leigh's credit, he goes to extremes to understand his brother's point of view and doesn't leave himself without sin.
The brothers grew up as Jeffry (no ‘e') Ross Hyman and Mitchell Lee Hyman, two non-religious Jewish kids from Forest Hills, a predominantly Jewish enclave of Queens, NY. Their mother, Charlotte Mandell, married Noel Hyman to "get out of the house." The good times eventually ended and she married Hank Lesher, a friend of the family who had recently become a widower with two kids. The family changes neighborhoods from the tougher Ozone Park back to Forest Hills. Hank dies unexpectedly. And popular culture makes a major transition as the brothers hit adolescence. Joey's height and lack of coordination make him a natural target for the wisecracks of others, while Mitch is more sociable and less weird.
Mitch takes to the guitar, meets the Tangerine Puppets' guitarist Tommy Erdelyi and asks him for a few quick guitar lessons and becomes friends with the group's bassist John Cummings, who at six years Mitch's senior, acts more decisively as his surrogate older brother. However, Cummings is a borderline sociopath. "The only thing that bothered me was the intense gleam Johnny would get in his eyes occasionally - like the look he had when we were talking about kicking the guy in the nuts onstage," writes Leigh. From there, Cummings comes across progressively worse. At first, he had no use for Mitch's brother Jeff. Writes Leigh, "To him, Jeff was just a spaced out hippie. And John didn't like hippies, though, oddly enough, he looked just like one."
Years pass and John realizes Jeff plays drums and figures why not? Jeff's self-esteem issues are enough to keep him in line. However, his skills are too rudimentary even for the Ramones and his OCD means it takes two hours to set up the kit. Johnny as "The General" is ready to kick him out of the band when Dee Dee suggests Joey Ramone move from drums to the spotlight. "I wanted somebody real freaky," said Dee Dee. "And Joey was really weird looking." Their sound comes together naturally and the band builds a following at CBGBs with Mitch as their trusty roadie, tuning guitars without a tuner and keeping the band happy (as much as one could keep Johnny happy) as they slam through their relentless set.
Leigh works for the Ramones for the slave wage of $60 a week, going into debt for the privilege of a front row seat to musical history. And this is where the book gets really good, tough to put down and tough to read. The battles between brothers become difficult to track: ego, pride, some righteous indignation (Leigh is never credited for his contributions to the band) and tons of heartbreak.
Legs McNeil's contribution here seems to be keeping Leigh on course, keeping the narrative moving ahead, interjecting himself as an occasional voice of reason (and what a gloriously messed-up scene when McNeil and Dee Dee Ramone are your voices of reason). The book has none of the "Sex and Drugs, Drugs and Sex" juicy gossip of Please Kill Me, but rather remains true to Leigh's unpretentious, painfully honest voice. As Joey slips away in the hospital ravaged by lymphoma, the brothers reach a difficult truce and Leigh lives on to tell the tale. Not bad for a "kid brother."
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