POSTHUMOUS ALBUM FROM ONE OF
ROCK'S UNLIKELY, YET MOST BELOVED HEROES
On May 22, Joey Ramone's second solo album, "...ya know?" will be released (BMG Rights Management), eleven years after his life was cruelly cut short by lymphoma. The tracks were drawn from a cache of demos and unreleased recordings that Joey had cut at various times during the last decade and a half of his life. His brother, musician Mickey Leigh, executive produced the project, which is the follow-up to Joey's first solo album Don't Worry About Me.
"...ya know?" - whose title refers to the phrase that was a ubiquitous staple of Joey's conversation - adds a significant new chapter to the seminal punk icon's hugely influential body of work.
Among the many talented people Mickey Leigh and Joey's manager Dave Frey reached out to in bringing "...ya know?" to fruition was veteran producer Ed Stasium, who was behind the board for many of the Ramones' greatest albums, including their early classics Leave Home, Rocket to Russia and Road to Ruin.
Also contributing to "...ya know?" is a cast of players including Joan Jett, and Little Steven Van Zandt, who plays guitar on "Party Line" and wrote the album's poignant liner notes, along with such notables as former Ramones drummer Richie Ramone, Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick, Dennis Diken of the Smithereens, Richie Stotts, Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, punk survivor Holly Beth Vincent, members of the Ramones' punk-era contemporaries The Dictators, and producers Jean Beauvoir and Joe Blaney.
The resulting album is a brilliant encapsulation of the qualities that made Joey Ramone one of rock's most unlikely, yet most beloved, heroes.
The swaggering album-opener "Rock 'n' Roll Is the Answer" (co-written with Plasmatics guitarist Richie Stotts) will be released as a limited-edition 7" single for Record Store Day on April 21, 2012.
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