The Last Original Ramone Has Gone To Heaven

This will be very sad news for those of you who ever spent a Friday night in high school in a dank suburban basement watching three of your friends practice “Beat on the Brat” while a girl named Jenny offers to give you a stick-poke tattoo in the laundry room. Variety says that Tommy Ramone, the last original member of the Ramones, has died at the age of 65 after succumbing to bile duct cancer.

Tommy (born name: Erdelyi Tamas) started the Ramones in high school with Johnny Ramone and played drums on their first three albums as well as wrote “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” and “Blitzkrieg Bop”, but decided he wanted to focus on studio work and being a producer, so he left the band in 1978 (at which point he was replaced by Lily Tomlin look-alike Marky Ramone).

So now Tommy joins the rest of the original Ramones in Heaven. Joey Ramone was the first to say “Hey ho, let’s go” and flew up in 2001, Dee Dee Ramone died in 2002, and Johnny Ramone followed him in 2004. And now that Joey, Dee Dee, and Johnny have a drummer, they can finally play “Happy Birthday” for Jesus at his birthday party this year.

Don’t rest in peace, Tommy; keep playing as loud and fast as you always did. I hope you get noise complaints every single night from the other angels.