With the opportunity for shoppers to pick up a Ramones t-shirt alongside their groceries in Tescos now, it’s hard to imagine that the band never really made it to first base in terms of radio play, and never actually registered a bona fide "hit". End of the Century tells the story of the tortured punk quartet's struggle from their childhood meeting in Queens, New York to their unlikely and slightly vacuous induction to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The documentary portrays a band almost constantly at war with itself. From onstage bickering about what song they were going to play next to stolen girlfriends resulting in a fifteen year silence between band leader Johnny and frontman Joey, we learn that The Ramones never really were a happy camp. As each member of the band’s character is revealed to us, it is perhaps not too hard to see why they often came to blows with each other. The shy, frail and geeky Joey Ramone suffered from severe OCD, and was extremely prone to illness, making life on the road a nightmare for him and his bandmates, while Dee Dee Ramone seemed almost constantly lost and unaware of his surroundings, with drugs and a desire for recognition seemingly consuming his sanity. "Holding" the band together is the dictator-like Johnny Ramone, whose ruthlessness, fury, and single vision focused on the band makes him a pretty unlikeable character throughout the film, showing little compassion for his band mates who he has spent most of his life with.
One of the most prominent points that comes across in the film is that despite the constant arguing, music was a labour of love for The Ramones, and The Ramones were The Ramones because that was their job. Like their trademark hundred miles an hour song tempo, the work ethic of the band was also non-stop throughout their career. Featuring amazing and insightful footage of some of the band's first shows at CBGBs, it's easy to see why The Ramones were considered so revolutionary at the time. The spectacle of Joey Ramone, looming over the microphone stand backed by three aggressive and primitive figures blasting out walls of fuzzed out guitars, cuts just as striking an image as it did then. As the film progresses it covers the band's growing popularity around the world and particularly in Brazil where their van is mobbed by thousands of children. They are treated like The Beatles in South America, but the film then cuts to their next show in the USA, where they have gone from selling out a football stadium to playing in a small and dingy club, similar to when they first started the band.
One of the most entertaining parts of the documentary comes from the encounter with Phil Spector who, after showing an interest in the band, offered to produce their fifth studio album End of The Century. Although the bubble-gum pop of The Ramones and the wall of sound recording technique used by Spector seemed like a perfect combination, Spector's attention to detail and quest for perfection did not sit well alongside The Ramones' spontaneity and aggression. Dee Dee recounts Spector forcing Johnny Ramone to play the opening chord of 'Rock and Roll High School' hundreds of times to get the perfect sound, unsurprisingly resulting in conflict between the two which Johnny doesn't seem to have let go, describing Phil Spector as “a little Jewish man with lifts in his shoes and a wig on his head”. The album reached #44 on the US Billboard chart and #14 in the UK chart, making it the highest placing Ramones album. It failed however to register a hit, leading the band to accept that if they couldn’t have a hit working with Phil Spector, then they probably weren't ever going to have one.
While producing many entertaining insights and recollections of the band's time on tour and growing up together, the film also exposes a darker side to the band, never more so than the rift caused by Johnny stealing Joey's girlfriend at the time, resulting in the song 'The KKK Took My Baby Away'. The fifteen year silence that followed was never broken, meaning that the two never made up before Joey's death in 2001. The impenetrable Johnny - captured only years before his own death - talks about the death of Joey, almost showing a little sadness at the death of his childhood friend/quarter of a century long bandmate, before concluding that the death of Joey did affect him, but he's not sure why
The documentary is a fascinating look at the musical and personal journey of The Ramones, providing a great introduction and overview to the band that saved rock 'n' roll from itself, becoming one of the most influential groups of all time.