RAMONES benefit!

Well...thanks to Dawn Wirth (again!), we found out about a special benefit for cancer and lymphoma that the RAMONES (Marky Ramone and other Ramone family members) were supporting in conjunction with 103.1 fm in L.A. last Friday. We were lucky to make it on time to the Hollywood Forever Cemetery and watch "Rock'n'Roll High School" and hang out with some of the stars from the film. It was really nice to take our two daughters to the event. Our youngest, a 12 year-old, is blossoming into a real RAMONES fan. She even bought her first RAMONES shirt at the event! It was amazing to see how many people turned out for the event. The grass hillside was covered with both old and new punks alike.

Some of the guests for the event included: P.J. Soles (who starred as Riff Randell in the movie), Alan Arkush the director, Marky Ramone, Linda Ramone, Lars Fredrickson (from RANCID), and some others. The audience was also a 'who's who' of L.A. punkdom. Alice Bag and Jenny Lens were there...many others who we hard a hard time seeing because of the dark. It was a lot of fun and it had a weird feeling for me as I felt like the punk torch was being passed to a younger generation as I saw my daughters getting so excited about the event.

I have not been the biggest fan of indie 103.1 fm for my own reasons, but I do appreciate that they are a big enough force to put on these kind of events and have the communication ability to bring so many together. I truly wish them the best of luck and hope that they continue with these kind of pursuits and can manage to keep the commercialism to a minimum as they have done so far.

Maybe I'll embarrass my daughters and post some of their pictures on here with P.J. Soles and Lars. Thanks again for keeping us informed Dawn! -Greg @ Artifix