When Joey Ramone died of cancer in 2001, his band's place as the godfathers of punk appeared cemented for all time. One problem: the Ramones weren't really punk. Joey, Johnny, Tommy and Dee Dee (who died of a drug overdose in June) dressed in black leather and scowled like Bowery thugs, but they actually played some of the loopiest pop music ever made. Blitzkrieg Bop's famous "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" was an homage to the Bay City Rollers, while Joey--singer of the immortal line "I'm a Nazi schatze"--was the deadpan alter ego of Jeffrey Hyman, a nice Jewish boy from Queens.
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