Interview is released in Dig Gallery's homepage in summer of 2011, when they were selling Eileen's punk memorabilia. Dig Gallery's Helen E-mailed me.
Original source of interview text is here.
Interview is long and the most Ramones related stories are in blue letters. I wanted to archive this interview, as after some time or years this interview might disapper from Internet.
This interview is a real gem, really special, and reminds me of my interview with Jenny Lens, who hanged out a lot with the punks and Ramones' in the West Coast of the USA. You can find Jenny's interview and lof of his Ramones photos from Ramones: Soundtrack Of Our Lives book.
Through Dig Gallery, has Eileen Polk put on sale some of his punk
memorabilia. For example few Ramones'
guitar picks, photographs taken by
Eileen and two T-shirts designed by Arturo Vega. Ramones' creative director Arturo designed all
Ramones merchandise in their
career 1974-1996 and still does best Ramones' products (buy products from his site RamonesWorld.Eileen's friend Anya Phillips had introduced Eileen to Dee Dee Ramone one night at CBGB's club in the spring of 1975. Here is description of Ramones 1976 T-shirt (price 3000 pounds):
"Dee Dee Ramone gave this T-shirt to Eileen Polk when they were dating in August 1976, before the Ramones left New York for their first tour on the West Coast. According to Eileen, Dee Dee was to be away for her birthday so he gave her his t-shirt as a memento."
Another Ramones related T-shirt is original vintage black and white T-shirt, designed by Ramones' creative director Arturo Vega, for the legendary Blitz Benefit gig at CBGBs, May, 1978, featuring Blondie, The Ramones, Richard Hell, Suicide and others. The Blitz Benefit was a gig organised by friends and peers of Dead Boys drummer, Johnny Blitz who was stabbed in New York's East Village. Being without medical insurance, fellow punk musicians held a benefit gig to help pay for his medical bills. The Blitz Benefit has taken on legendary status and has been referred to as Punk's Woodstock. T-shirt was given to Eileen directly by Arturo Vega prior to the gig.
Photos Eileen is selling through Dig Gallery are Limited Edition Gelatin Silver Prints, edition 100, signed by Eileen. Size 16 x 20 inches. Prices 660 pounds.
- First photo is of Dee Dee Ramone at Revenge Clothing shop, East Village, New York, 1978.
- Second photo is of Joey Ramone on a Harley Davidson outside CBGBs, The Bowery, New York, 1978.
DESCRIPTION:
Eileen Polk was there on the scene when punk arrived in New York. She worked in punk hangout and clothing store, Revenge and became friends with many of the musicians who have since become icons of the punk era. Dig is offering for sale memorabilia from Eileen's collection and her photographs of Sid Vicious, The Ramones and others. Dig caught up with Eileen to talk about her memories and experiences of the punk scene in New York in the 1970's.
Dig Gallery (Ben): How did you come to work at Revenge Clothing in the East Village? Eileen: Revenge was entirely run by women and we considered ourselves part of a pseudo-gang called "Revenge Girls." We were the first punks in New York to have mohawks and other crazy colored and shaved hairstyles. The Revenge Girls were: Cheryl, Debbie, Eileen, Pam, Natasha, Barbara, Ace, and Trixie. We played loud punk rock records and sound recordings of wolves howling blaring out into the streets. We had an unlucky red stepladder over the front entrance and pet tarantulas in a fish tank.
The weekenders we New Yorkers liked to call "bridge and tunnel" folks could stop by for a punk "makeover" before heading down the Bowery to CBGBs. A used, ripped shirt with rude stuff scrawled upon it cost only 3 bucks, and for a mere 7 dollars more an unlicensed hairdresser would ruin your hair - What a bargain! We rarely threw anyone out, so there were always a few punks hanging out on the big zebra striped sofa.
A band called The Mad fronted by a Japanese artist named Screaming Mad George rehearsed in the basement. One day a naked woman walked into Revenge and asked directions to Rockefeller Center. Screaming Mad George and I followed her outside and watched as hundreds of people stopped traffic to walk behind her up 3rd Avenue. This made almost as much of a stir as the day Sid and Nancy showed up in the late summer of 1978, just after they had moved into their new digs at the Chelsea Hotel. They were overdressed in black leather and studs and Nancy was acting like Sid's manager, meeting and greeting while Sid gave a weak handshake. When they left Revenge to head further into the East Village to buy drugs, the crowd on the street parted wide to let them pass as if they were two of our escaped tarantulas.
Dig: What was your first experience of the punk scene in New York? Did you realize that something significant was happening at the time?
Eileen: The punk scene began for me in the summer of 1974 at a block party for Bacchus rehearsal studio on 19th street in the Chelsea neighborhood. The New York Dolls had recently joined forces with Malcolm McLaren, and he was trying out his ideas with them. People were starting to call the New York underground music scene by strange sounding names like "switch blade rock" indicating it's tougher, back to roots stance. The other name for the burgeoning scene, which thankfully stuck, was punk rock. The Bacchus block party even showcased a band whose music was less than memorable, but their name was "Street Punk." The ambiance was more of a streetwise, hangout in the neighborhood, sensibility; thus, avoiding the ego driven superstars, pushy music industry insiders and complacent fans which characterized the stadium rock scene. We started going to bars that were dives in bad neighborhoods and actually fun to hang out in and dating guys who were abject failures, but perhaps had potential!
Another scene which had been melded to the old glitter rock scene and the remnants of Warhol's Factory was made up of a contingent of outrageous drag queens. The New York Dolls were there at this party, so were members of Television, Blondie, the Ramones, Patti Smith Band and future Heartbreakers and Voidoids. The punk scene had a "sit on the stoop and drink a beer" ambiance where everyone was welcome, rather than VIP room exclusivity. Roller skates, hula hoops and left over platform shoes from the glitter era were all welcome. No one had to be too cool. There was a feeling of something new coming, but we weren't sure what it was, which is a rare and good feeling!
By the summer of 1975 it had gotten big. CBGB's which had been a Hells Angles hangout held a summer rock festival "battle of the bands." Everyone started going down to the Bowery to get their kicks and the street which had formerly been lined with homeless alcoholics sleeping in the gutter, was all of a sudden filled with young people.
A reporter for the Aquarian magazine, Charlie Fricke wrote a cover story entitled Punk Rock, in which he saw the potential for a Paris, May 1968 type of resistance developing out of this scene, which recognized the anarchist strain in punk. But the early New York punk scene had such a varied mix of people there was no fixed opinion on anything political. It was a hodge-podge of anything goes, even if it was really silly, and tongues were held firmly in cheeks. The fire-starter of a magazine; Punk had a perfect environment for stirring up this new movement and making everyone laugh at themselves. They took nothing seriously, especially rock stars, which was very refreshing.
Dig: How did you first meet the Ramones and the New York Dolls?
Eileen: The New York Dolls were the first band that I truly loved because they were my friends and they were the epitome of rowdy outrageous fun! I met Jerry Nolan first, after the Dolls played at the Academy of Music. That show was unforgettable because the band showed up fashionably late to a packed house in a vintage Rolls Royce and walked right through the front entrance in their big Platform boots, carrying their instruments. It was the immediacy of the band mingling with the audience and then taking the stage like that that drove the audience into frenzy. The rock stars were one of us and we loved them for it!
Jerry gave me a drumstick from the show while we shared a taxi to an after concert party and it was there that I first saw the Dolls bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane, my future boyfriend, sitting on the couch. The floor was covered with groupies and the band rested like royalty on the only available seating. Some people were batting a balloon around and it wafted slowly towards Arthur. The crowd began chanting "Killer, Killer.." and with the most nonchalant and infinitesimal flick of his wrist Arthur popped the balloon with his cigarette to cheers and applause from the adoring crowd. I was smitten!
My roommate Anya Phillips had introduced me to Dee Dee Ramone one night at CBGB's in the spring of 1975 and I became their biggest fan. I went to afternoon matinees at CBGBs when there was nobody in the audience but Bowery bums and Hells Angels. I traveled to tiny empty theaters in upstate New York and New Jersey to see them play. I battled the Long Island Railroad in ridiculous outfits to show support in towns that I hadn't visited since High School. I loved the Ramones.
Their humor was deadpan; they would get into fights onstage. Dee Dee was impossible as a boyfriend. But Dee Dee and I had a lot in common. We loved the same weird stuff; like "Ripley's Believe It Or Not", and horror movies (because we liked to scream). I was the one to first take Dee Dee to the Todd Browning horror film about circus side show performers called, Freaks which inspired the Ramones song Pinhead.
Dee Dee and I both had beautiful platinum blond mothers who were throwbacks to an older age of etiquette and propriety. They were mothers who were always trying to rescue us from our unsavory bad habits and the bad influence of our naughty friends. I would go to dinner at Dee Dee's mother's home in Queens to get a lecture from his mom and he would come to dinner at my mother's home for the same lecture. When my mother first met Dee Dee she stood on his foot and pulled him up out of his seat because she thought he should learn to stand up when a lady enters a room.
But both Arthur and Dee Dee always had a home at my house and we were friends for many years. Dee Dee wrote a song for me called Locket Love, being true to his sardonic, sick humor, he changed the last line from "Hang on, I'm getting stronger" to: "You're a goner!", when we broke up. But I will never forget what fun we had and I will always love him even though he drove me crazy!
Dig: Where was the real punk hangout? Was it CBGBs or Max's or is there another bar where people on the punk scene would hang out?
Eileen: The great thing about the punk scene is that it didn't just happen in bars or rock clubs, it was a neighborhood scene which happened out in the streets and in the daytime too. The famous rock clubs of the 70's weren't even necessarily intended to be rock clubs at first. Some of these places were just local dives and restaurants or out of the way holes in the wall. Like Paris in the 1920's, the streets and cafes were as important to artists as performance venues and museums.
The punk scene had clothing shops, and storefront lofts which became art galleries. The lower east side was full of strip joints and gay clubs where the skulking Wall Street crowd could find entertainment and drinks by day, then after dark the rock scene would move in. But the pimps, drag queens and exotic dancers and other inhabitants of the demimonde would still be there to make the atmosphere more interesting. Then there were the after hours clubs; the best one was Harold Black's 210 Fifth Avenue, which was loved by both punks and rock stars. When things got really crazy in '79, a whole slew of after hour's clubs opened up in worse and worse neighborhoods and they stayed open until the sun crept through the black painted plate glass windows.
In the end of the 70's many clubs were trying to intentionally attract the drug scene. But in the beginning it was more like a vaudeville atmosphere where anyone with the guts to perform could find an audience. I saw people perform with chainsaws and wearing nothing but plastic wrap. There was even a Magic and Occult show at Madison Square Garden. All the magicians would come down to Max's and get drunk and perform magic in the back room. It was a circus side show atmosphere everywhere. And no one cared about asking for proof of how old you were so there were people of all different ages at these events. A lot of this was experimental and would probably be killed off at birth with negative publicity today.
Dig: What is your fondest memory of those times?
Eileen: My fondest memory of the punk scene has to be playing at Max's Kansas City in the Blessed with my friend Howie Pyro who always instigated me to do crazy things. I was asked to join the band about a week before their very first gig at Max's on Christmas Day 1977. The guys in the band: Howie, Nick and Billy; were all 15 or 16 years old; the youngest of the New York punk bands. They came into Revenge one day and asked me to play and I thought; "On the same stage as the New York Dolls, Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper played upon? "You Betcha!"
Finally all those years of classical piano lessons; playing at church recitals and family cocktail parties like a trained monkey; would pay off! If I could play piano, I could play drums, right? So at the first rehearsal I had to use wooden hangers from the clothing racks at Revenge because I'd never played drums before and didn't have any sticks.
Later that week I dug out Jerry Nolan's old drumstick he had given me after the Academy of Music show, and brought it to Max's and told Jerry about my plans to commemorate the Blessed event by using his old Ludwig drumstick from 1974 for my first gig. But it was so beaten up I was getting splinters so Jerry showed me how to wrap one end with electrical tape and save my fingers and told me that the best sound was made by using the wrong end of the drumstick on the skins to make the sound even louder! He said he played with the fat end of the sticks all the time. The other drumstick I used for the gig, I had gotten when it came flying out at me while I was photographing a Kansas concert and somehow I'd caught it in mid air flight. That and a borrowed drum kit was the extent of my equipment.
Terry Ork, from Ork Records, was there for sound check and just rolled his eyes. The night of the gig I thought, "People will recognize me and think; She can't play drums!" and that will ruin everything, so I wore a disguise inspired by the Unknown Comic, Steve Martin. I wore a paper bag over my head. I came out onstage and tripped over all the electrical cords because I couldn't see a thing in spite of the holes I'd cut out of the bag for my eyes. We played so badly but were quite inspired into mayhem by the large crowd who had come for the free buffet dinner that Max's management kindly provided for all the musicians on holidays.
I wore a plastic bag from a local pet shop, American Kennels, as a shirt; because it had a silly picture of a sheepdog on it. I thought people would think; "Their drummer is a real Dog!" I kept sticking my tongue out of the hole I made to breathe through and the paper got stuck to my mouth. By the last song the band and I were laughing so hard we could hardly play, but we could hardly play anyway so it didn't matter! Then the guys in the band did something I did not expect, they attacked me and ripped the paper bag off my head and revealed who I was to the audience. Finally I could see and immediately thought; "Oh No! Every musician in New York is in the audience!" One of my all time idols, Alan Vega, the astonishingly aggressive front man for Suicide, was sitting in the front row looking very serious. I was mortified, and laughing hysterically and crying too. As I left the stage and prepared to walk the gauntlet through the audience to the bar as every musician does when they finish a set at Max's, Alan Vega stood up from his seat and shook my hand heartily. It was a complete surprise and a huge triumph for me. I was vindicated in front of everyone - He must have thought we were performance art!
Dig: Who was your favorite Punk band of all time?
Eileen: There is no question that the greatest punk band of al time was the Sex Pistols. For the madness and mayhem they created they take the prize. The Sex Pistols songs were seditious rabble rousing fun; no one was spared, they took no prisoners, all were fair game to be torn down, destroyed and reconstructed in the punk bricolage. Not only were the songs and music great, they could only have been pulled off in such a spectacular way by the individuals involved. The people behind the scenes, especially Jamie Reid and Vivienne Westwood, as well as Malcolm McLaren made them more than just a band but a phenomenon that epitomized the raucous 1970's.
Malcolm was a mad genius, a narcissistic megalomaniac who was just crazy enough to pull off his insane ideas without caring what anyone thought. Unfortunately he wasn't a great band manager, which is why I never saw the band play live! I went to London three times during the 70's and never saw the Sex Pistols because the gigs were always canceled, or I couldn't see them in the USA because I could not afford to follow the band to Texas (Texas?!) it made no sense at all. But the Sex Pistols records speak for themselves, perfect punk rock time capsules wrapped in fantastic original art. I thank the gods they were captured on film a few times.
But, before the Sex Pistols won my heart and soul,
there were the Ramones; My favorite American band and the one I have
seen countless
times since their first gigs at CBGB's, when they were still learning
how to play their instruments. The Ramones were the original blueprint
for punk, four sullen boys with a bad attitude and penchant for
troublemaking. The songs were sardonically funny and reflected the
distinct personalities of the band members. Plus, they hated each other!
- which added even more fun to their live performances; the glaring in
contempt and occasional fights breaking out.Dee Dee was like an overgrown toddler with ADD. Joey was the oddest creature, but sweet and intelligent. Tommy was a musician and one wondered how he got mixed up with these guys. And Johnny,.. what an asshole! He was always in a bad mood and barking at everyone to straighten up and fly right (and I was often blamed for whatever Dee Dee had done wrong - like missing rehearsal because we were up all night fighting off stalking groupies!).
However, one night while I was photographing the Ramones at a big venue the metal barrier which separated the photo pit from the audience was destroyed by a stampeding hoard of ecstatic fans. If Johnny hadn't reached out in the middle of a song, and pulled me up on stage, I would have been crushed to death. Whatever differences we may have had were canceled out immediately by this totally chivalrous act of kindness. I always respected Johnny after that because I realized that he had his own personal ethics which he did not shun when the pressure was on. The Ramones were my knights in tarnished armor and of all the Punk bands, I loved them the most.
Dig: Which band was the best live act? What was the best gig you ever saw?
Eileen: One of the best live punk acts was the Dead Boys. They were one of the more musical, (if not politically correct!) of the punk bands, but they were hard edged and full of fun and spunk. Stiv Bators, the lead singer, would go into original impromptu pantomimes that recalled the great performances of Iggy Pop. He could do back flips while making obscene gestures and strangling himself with a microphone cord, then climb the Marshal stacks like a mountaineer and hurl himself into the audience without a care whether he would be caught, or impaled on a beer bottle. Stiv was the original inspiration for punk stage diving the way Sid was the catalyst for the pogo. The Dead Boys music was pure driving rock and roll without some of the repetitiousness of punk rock. They always had a phalanx of groupies throbbing to the bass guitar in front of the stage. They were wild!
The best gig I ever saw was the Slits and the Clash at the Lyceum in London in 1978. I loved the Slits, with their quirky songs and amateur behavior - they had fun. They were the first real all girl band I'd ever seen and it gave me new confidence in being a woman just to see them doing what they felt like doing in such a blissful way. The Slits were not afraid of challenging the boys for the spotlight. Then the Slits were followed up by the Clash, who played so well and had no problem filling up a large stage with their high jumps and guitar smashing.
But the best part of that show was the audience. I was used to the detached attitude of the New York scene where audiences were more laid back and prone to want to be passively entertained. But the London scene represented punk solidarity. The audience was pogoing so hard and fast, and it wasn't just a few fans in the front row! It was exhilarating, like group flying, but a bit scary like being caught in a rip tide. Everyone was charged up and spitting at the band - a grotesque way of showing approval - which filled the atmosphere with danger. I got the feeling that I was missing something back in New York with it's "too cool to care" indifference.
Dig: Nancy had a certain reputation amongst other groupies and musicians on the punk scene in New York. What kind of person was she really like underneath the surface?
Eileen: Nancy Spungen was an interesting combination of nihilism and materialism, low self esteem and dogged determination. She really didn't think she had much to offer people except sex and drugs, so she did this with a vengeance in order to be popular, and in the hope of getting a rock star boyfriend. But she could also be nice, and cook people breakfast and listen like a true friend sometimes. She had intelligence and ambition and wanted to work in the music business, but she went about it the wrong way! I actually liked Nancy when I first met her because I found her brutal honesty refreshing. Instead of telling people she was a "dancer" or "model", she said quite bluntly that she was a prostitute and a drug addict. I'm not saying that I had good taste in friends back then! But, I tended to like the underdog, and Nancy was definitely that.
She had been hardened by growing up in a bourgeois suburban community where most of what she found thrilling and exciting she was mocked for. Nancy loved rock and roll and wearing tight flashy clothes and proudly claimed to have had sex with entire bands. She loved the negative attention this kind of bragging got her. This was not acceptable behavior in suburban Philadelphia, so she moved to New York City where the worst behaved individuals can always find a niche.
She also had been hardened by prostitution and her experience with pimps. When I met her she was proud to be working independently and no longer had a pimp to control her. This was dangerous behavior for a 17 year old and whatever people think of Nancy, she was tough, and had no fear. However, she was using the same technique pimps use to create dependencies. She gave drugs to musicians so that they would hang out with her, something that had been done by many drug dealers on the rock scene, but it was unusual for such a young woman to behave this way.
Nancy moved to London when the punk scene was just getting hot and the Sex Pistols were rumored to be Malcolm McLaren's new band, after the New York Dolls had their demise; due in part to drug supplying groupies and dealers. Nancy died her hair platinum blonde and became a super-slut in Fredrick's of Hollywood spandex. Her strategy worked so well that she became the new owner of a Sex Pistol, Sid Vicious. I'm sure she was a terrible influence on him. I didn't see Nancy for about two years, but when she returned to New York with Sid Vicious on her arm it was about a triumphant a coup as Cleopatra showing up in Rome with Julius Caesar!
All the groupies who had been mean to her and gossiped behind her back now had to deal with the new Nancy barring them from any contact with Sid. This was quite amusing to behold! Nancy remembered that I had been nice to her and she graciously allowed me to take some intimate portraits of them.
I was sorry when I heard she was dead, but not surprised. I also suspected that she had many enemies, and I was not in any way afraid of Sid, except when he was drunk and throwing things; that was always the time to leave him alone. I think Nancy would have been proud of finally becoming famous and the permanent legacy of having the bad reputation to beat all other bad reputations. Since Sid enjoyed offending people as much as possible, what better way than to choose Nancy as his girlfriend? But I think he truly loved her. She was relentless in her pursuit of what she wanted, and the most determined girl I ever met.
Dig: If Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen had been around today, do you think their story would have had a happy ending?
Eileen: In a word: No. Sid and Nancy were the most self destructive people I ever met. I think that they actually believed that they were supposed to act the way they did; to play some kind of role as "punks." They thought that they were supposed to get totally inebriated and get into fights and smash things up. They played the roles of disintegrating rock star criminal and moll to perfection. I don't think under these conditions they were meant to live very long.
Even if the so called "cures" of mental ward, drug detox and medication had worked temporarily, people didn't really understand that the real challenge is not just getting the stuff out of your system, but in changing the patterns of thinking and behaving that got them into the mess they created. Sid should never been released from Bellevue Hospital into the bowels of New York City after Nancy's death without ongoing psychological care. Nancy had never gotten help for her problems which stemmed from childhood. In the 1970's, doctors realized that they could make much more money in a shorter time by giving people the new antidepressant and antipsychotic medications and the old ways of talking to patients were left to only the wealthy. Drug addicts were given meds, methadone (which is its own addiction) and if you wanted to talk there were 12 step meetings. I know a lot of people would like to hear that this would have worked if only Sid and Nancy had rid themselves of their victim mentality and gotten serious about their health. But I think without long term psychotherapy; especially in the absence of friends and family who cared or knew what to do; they were doomed from the start.
And believe me, their friends and family did not know what to do, not many people had the answers back then. Sid needed to be in a healthy environment, not living with his mother in cheap hotel rooms and going to bars, or running around making rock videos for record companies and contemplating playing Las Vegas! He would have been better off in an ashram. If Sid and Nancy had lived they would probably have gone on to die another day. Without all the money made from their spectacular deaths, I doubt they would have saved up enough cash to eventually buy new livers. Sid and Nancy were like a nuclear reaction; two potentially dangerous things colliding in a void to create a weapon of mass destruction. They were both suicidal and should have gotten more help from people who cared.
Dig: In your article for Punk Magazine in 2007 and your subsequent book Punk is Dead , you put the record straight about a number of myths about the punk era, including the death of Sid Vicious. What made you speak out after decades of silence?
Eileen: The death of Sid Vicious was very traumatic for me and I have been thinking and writing about it for over 30 years, because I can't forget what happened to my friends. The events surrounding their deaths and the tabloid press stories made me realize for the first time how a lot of the news is just made up. I have become much more skeptical of The News since then. When I read a news story that says; "Reportedly."; I always ask; "By whom? Who was the actual witness?"
Many stories about Sid and Nancy, and Sid's mother Anne Beverly are just hearsay, printed as fact by reporters desperate to get some mileage out of a hot story and scoop the other tabloids, but without true information. Sometimes it is just hack writing where the author of a story wants to say something shocking and has no qualms about writing anything at all about people who are dead, or whose reputations are so ruined that they can't sue.
Sometimes they just make incorrect assumptions or mistakes; everyone makes mistakes. I heard so many conflicting and fabricated tales that I wanted to set the record straight about what I had witnessed. I am actually torn between telling the whole truth and keeping the mystery alive with the legends, because at least a legend is better than a tabloid story.
Sid and Nancy are so identified with the archetypes of Love and Death which are totally ingrained in our subconscious minds. Their story has parallels to other myths we grew up with. Wasn't Jesus a poor boy whose family had fallen on hard times? Didn't he have a prostitute friend, Mary Magdalene, or was this just the bad rep that the Roman Empire gave him when they accused him of being a common criminal? This is how myths are created; they attach themselves to the archetypes already hidden deep within our psyches.
Other writers have compared Sid to Prometheus, the suffering hero or his spin off, Dr. Frankenstein's monster. I was especially fascinated at how the women in Sid's life were demonized. Was Nancy a succubus feeding off someone else's fame and fortune? Or is she Pandora releasing the ills of the world to destroy mankind? Why were people who were obviously mentally ill and in crisis so easy to hate?
In real life they were just human beings who made terrible mistakes like everyone else. They were drawn into a vortex of fate that happens to countless families every day. But the media made them out to be the worst people in the world! This is because they dared to be celebrities and had the effrontery to not be perfect little role models of health, wealth and consumption of commodities and the dominant ideology that everything is "fine" with the world on TV.
They were anti- famous; they played their roles for themselves and in the end, not very well. The spectacular rise of the Sex Pistols had to have a scapegoat and Sid was the perfect patsy. Nancy and Anne Beverly were spin-off monsters like Frankensteins from Prometheus. So I tell my story because I want people to know something about the real human beings and how easy it is to destroy a family. I realize that I'm just a little squeaky voice shouting at the windmills of mendacity, but it is how I'm working through my feelings about the traumatic events of the late 1970s.
As I wrote in a beginning of this page, this Eileen Polk's interview by Ben is released in Dig Gallery's homepage in summer 2011, when they were selling Eileen's punk memorabilia.
Dig Gallery's Helen Hall wrote about it to me.
Original source of interview is here.
I wanted to archive this interview, as after some time or years this interview might disapper from Internet.
Thanks Eileen, Ben and Helen.
GO BACK TO MAIN PAGE OF MY RAMONES SITE.