The Morrison Hotel Gallery, at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood, had a special exhibit celebrating the 40th anniversary of The Ramones’ debut album. This was my first time at the Sunset Marquis and I really liked it. Though it was small, it made up for its size with charm and history. Lots of celebrities have stayed at the Sunset Marquis. In fact, as I was arriving, I saw Reba McEntire leaving.
The exhibit was hosted by Linda Ramone and gallery co-owner Timothy White. Timothy came up with the idea because the Sunset Marquis had photos of the Ramones at the hotel from back in the day. He then reached out to over hundred photographers and got awesome contributions to the exhibit. He also came up with the idea to put a large screen at the pool to show the 1977 Ramones’ concert at the Rainbow Room in London. “Listening to music by the pool, that’s so rock and roll,” says Linda, who was just having a blast. Linda is a philanthropist, who founded and is running a charity that donates to prostate cancer research, which was the cause of Johnny Ramone’s death back in 2004.
The exhibit showed a lot of cool photos that really captured the band and their essence. Karen Mason-Blair, a contributing photographer, had a photo of the band playing at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle circa 1990. “I actually left the Mother Love Bone album release party to be at the concert,” tells Karen, “I’ve been a big fan of the Ramones so I just had to go.” I’m glad she left the album release party because she got an awesome shot of the Ramones from the front row.
Chuck Krall use to work for Creem Magazine and met the Ramones at Aquarius Records in San Francisco in 1976. “I asked Joey[Ramone] why he started playing music,” reveals Chuck, “and he said because he wanted to have a girlfriend.” I wonder how many other musicians started with that same goal.
Out of all the photos at the gallery my favorite was the photo of the Ramones coming out of a New York City subway. They just look so cool and so rock and roll in photo I can’t help but love it.
This was an amazing event. They had open bar and great Hors d’oeuvres making the experience very delicious. Timothy told me that he plans on hosting other events like this throughout the summer. I highly suggest checking it out and you can count seeing me there.