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It’s
a shame man, because as I watch this lengthy interview
with Dee Dee I can see the little kid from Queens quite
clearly. With a cleaner skin, for sure. The years had
marked his soul, skin and spirit and he sheds some of
what's left in
this interview ( he also pulls back a little, he says, ‘I won’t go in to that’
at
least twice) with filmmaker Lech Kowalski.
Set against a
dark background – in what looks like an abandoned NY
loft - what you see is what you get. An often times
bare chest Dee Dee telling the old stories about Johnny
Thunders and how much he pissed him off (in one of the
best bits Dee Dee says something to the effect of ‘I
didn’t like him, that’s why I left him turning blue in
the bath tub’), about getting ripped off on his
songwriting of “Chinese Rocks”, about tough times in
Europe, trying to stay clean while being surrounded by
drug fiends, about his tattoos and their history.
There is not
much content about the Ramones or his childhood here. There is
not even any music besides a couple of bluesy licks courtesy of
Dee Dee. History On My Arms is more about his struggle to stay
clean, a struggle that finally overpowered him when he succumbed
to heroin in Los Angeles in 2002. The title of the DVD is taken
from one of Dee Dee’s lines. He is talking about all the ink
(and the track marks too), he
is telling their stories, where and why they got done and what
they meant. It’s useful stuff, if you care about what he did and
tried to do with other musicians outside of the Ramones, that
is.
History On
My Arms is a repackage of the documentary Hey Is Dee Dee Home.
This new release includes two bonus features; a very boring
interview with Die Totem Hosen drummer Vom Ritchie in which the
German drummer talks about his relationship with Dee Dee. They
don’t seem to have been that close, so I am not sure what the
point of this inclusion was. The extra ;documentary' actually
titled History On My Arms isn’t anything but outtakes and
some actual scenes from the Hey Is Dee Dee Home interview. There
are a few pics that flash by, but besides that, the extra
features are
rather pointless and meatless. Also included is a CD of Dee Dee
playing his guitar. Not stellar stuff and definitely, not the
stuff you want to remember him by.
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