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When you hear your first Ramones record, you sort of feel like kicking the shit out of the guys in Styx and every dj who forced that shite on you in the first place. Nothing is the same after your first punk record. You can’t find enough new music, you can’t get to enough shows, you stop talking to kids who “hate” punk and maybe get in a fist fight or seven over it. All your old Kiss records become simply old Kiss records and your punk collection grows like it’s alive and swallows up the music from your past. The Ramones, The Clash, The Damned, The Buzzcocks take over the shelf space that Led Zeppelin once held like a hostage and who gives a shit about long guitar solos now? Who cares about the 7 minute song about love when The Clash is challenging us to question authority in under 3 and The Ramones are sniffing glue in under 2? Everything changes. At least it did for me. Eleven Ramones shows later, I still hate Styx.
