Johnny Ramone in Vintage Guitar!

[zarfnober]

Johnny's playing style is featured in the Nov 09 Vintage guitar "Fret Prints" column by Wolf Marshall. He goes over band history and Johnnys sonic contribution for about 3/4 of the article, then gets down to what Johnny actually did. And anyone that ever saw the band will tell you, Johnny was very good at what he did. I've seen several people try to get the sound and never come close, for even one song, let alone 33 in an hour and 15 minutes! Wolf seems to be quite the fan and actually has some interesting things to say about Johnnys style, check it out.

Rocco

[MOSRITE NUMBER ONE]

and of course he played a Mosrite--maybe thats the reson for his unique sound
Andy

[zarfnober]

Not just any old Mosrite, but the coolest one by far, plugged into 2-100 watt Marshall Super Lead heads into a full stack of Greenbacks.

[Johnny]

Not just any old Mosrite, but the coolest one by far, plugged into 2-100 watt Marshall Super Lead heads into a full stack of Greenbacks.

He had up to four 100W JMP 1959 Super Leads and three 100W JMP MK II super leads, checkerboard 120W high power blackback cabinets. :V (I have the same cabinets, and a few older ones with the basket weave mesh and greenbacks.) Blackbacks have a thicker sound, and John's original sound is quite thick. Live at least. The black mesh cabinets were greenbacks, I believe.

[mosman]

I thought the review of Johnny's style was quite amusing. All the time I thought Johnny was just bashing powerful Barre chords out of his guitar he was actually drawing on "his harmony from the typical I-IV-V lexicon of rock and roll with occasional allusions to secondary chords and progressions built from pentatonic scales," as well as sometimes employing "power-chord progressions based on the Mixolydian Mode ".
Well now I know—although I wonder if Johnny himself even knew he was doing all that.

[Johnny]

I thought the review of Johnny's style was quite amusing. All the time I thought Johnny was just bashing powerful Barre chords out of his guitar he was actually drawing on "his harmony from the typical I-IV-V lexicon of rock and roll with occasional allusions to secondary chords and progressions built from pentatonic scales," as well as sometimes employing "power-chord progressions based on the Mixolydian Mode ".
Well now I know—although I wonder if Johnny himself even knew he was doing all that.

I doubt it. Not all songs are I-IV-V progression, and some are in Mixolydian but I've never seen John use a power chord. The sound is all about the strumming pattern and style and the bar chords. Pentatonic scale progressions... nope, dont think so... Or secondary chords. It was always E major and A major type bar chords. RARELY A minor. Maybe in 2 songs. I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend and I Can't Make It On Time are all that I can think of. Add to the list if you know of any. I think Joey was pissed at him for him not playing minor chords when they were making End of the Century. Great songs on that album, too bad Spector basically ruined it with over-producing.