Nuria keeps these fantastic graphics coming...Flamingo Swing anyone?
As the world awaits the second Star Spangles album, Connecticut yankees should heed this missive from SSHQ,
"Make sure you get your tickets early for The Star Spangles' return to their roots (for some of them - geographically speaking) on May 29th at the Empress Ballroom, in Danbury, CT. The promoter thinks this show will sell out (it's all ages, only $10 and there's no school on Monday 30th, due to it being Memorial Day)..."
The ongoing wrangle with the German Ramones fan club and website needs your support. Jorg has made some fund raising booty available... Here's the poop -
"Ramones.de is registered as a Fan’s site since 1996, the guy who had it before, gave it to us (to me as the person who’s named at the DENIC now) in 2001. He got no money for this, he just wanted to support our officialised thing. We did the Zine in 96, the Sampler in 99 and tribute Parties in 94,96,99 and last year, all was authorized and officialized by John and Joey in November 93 and by DeeDee in May 94. We met the Ramones lotsa times in person since 89, so they trusted us to do this as an official fan thing. I for myself had the luck to play the drums at one show with DeeDee in 95, one of the greatest moments in all my life.
Warner Germany (WEA) sent me a letter on April 7. It said that I should give them the URL address by April 21 (2 weeks-time), because THEY have “the only and exclusive right to use the Name Ramones and pics of the band” because of the contracts. Otherwise they will take juridical steps, which will cost ME a lot of money... a letter, well, a 16 year old kid might sign it over to them directly but no. Sure they do it NOW, years after the Site is registered, cuz the Ramones sell a lot more records now than ever. I’m sure it’s a test and later they'll get all the other sites (mainly all Ramones. Xx – Sites are registered by fans, like .nl,.be and so on) and then maybe than any Freesite with the Name Ramones into it.
I thought about it a while and didn’t know what to do, the law-situation is very unclear here in Germany, everything could happen when the situation escalates before a court. It's only cost me 200 Euro so far to get a lawyer to tell WEA a juridical “Fuck off!” and that I won’t give the address to them.
They have not reacted to this yet so I’ll have to wait and see what goes on. If WEA decide to go to court then maybe that’s the moment I have to give up, it will be too much money for me to invest in this, and I don’t know if I will win in the end. It could least years. German law is very unclear in this Internetdomain-Thing, a couple of processes ended this way, a couple of them the other way...
I had a very huge reaction from people all over the world to this, which gives me a lot of power... I must think on what John said once “The Fans made the Ramones-not any fucking company...”, but all enthusiasm ends at the fucking moneything, you know."
It's a damned disgrace that this is happening and hopefully the tables will be reversed. Organisations such as this that Jorg runs enhance the importance of the Ramones. It's an honour thing that runs way deeper than money. I wonder if a conglomorate like that has any notion of honour. They should be paying Jorg for his efforts for chrissakes. RAMONES.DE
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