This Day In Punk History: Ramones Go Nationwide, Adam & The Ants Hit London, & Sid Vicious Does 'My Way' His Way!

Who knew April 23 was such a pivotal day in punk rock history?

On this day in 1976, the Ramones' first album hit record store shelves. Were I old enough to have driven myself to the mall, there is no doubt in this ten-year-old's mind that I would have been the first in my little part of the world to go "Christ, this sounds like shit".

Admittedly, on first listen, the first Ramones album sounded to the untrained ear like four kids pressed "RECORD" on a cassette tape recorder in their basement, sent the tape to Sire Records, and Sire released it as-is. Each successive listen blasts away preconceived notions of what rock music should sound like and you find yourself humming "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue" while the other kids are stuck with a 10cc song in their head.

Seeing that first Ramones album, with its gritty black-and-white cover photo of four derelicts lined up against a grungy alley wall, next to the spit-shined technicolor pop of the Bay City Rollers and the Sweet must have seemed like a cruel joke to the otherwise sugar-coated world of pop music, but look whose music has now become universal for F-U-N.

In 1977, Adam And The Ants made their live debut at London's Roxy, but, just to prove how much trouble still lay ahead for dear Adam, he was still two years away from forming the line-up that would later blindside him to work with Malcolm McLaren, who would mold them into Bow Wow Wow.

Adam Ant would be left to pick up the pieces and, in doing so. meeting guitarist Marco Pirroni, without whom Kings Of The Wild Frontier, or any of Adam's subsequent success, would not have been possible.

Before the trend-chasing manager could disrupt Ant's career, Malcolm McLaren was still milking the dead horse that was the Sex Pistols, which, by spring 1978, was coasting on fumes.

While one might have suspected that the departure of Johnny Rotten's would slow progress on the movie, filming for "The Great Rock & Roll Swindle" continued through the spring of '78 with Sid Vicious filming his now-iconic performance of Sinatra's "My Way".

Sadly, the film itself wouldn't see the light of day until May 1980, more than a year after the singer's untimely death.