Commoners Choir - Hey! Ho! 10" vinyl

It was fifty years ago today that the Brudders taught themselves to play in the dirty playground that was New York’s CBGB nightclub. An absolute scuzz of a place that, nonetheless, reeked of big ideas and reckless ambition. The Ramones challenged musical orthodoxy in a way that, fifty years later, Commoners Choir aspired to. Taking an idea and twisting it into something not-quite-normal, not-quite-right.

The 75-strong choir teamed up with the 40-strong West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra to pay their off-kilter respects to The Ramones by creating orchestral and choral arrangements of five of the band’s biggest hits, making them sound like they have never sounded before.

Commoners and West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra probably wouldn’t have even fit into CBGBs (it’s gone now, replaced by a high-end Art Gallery…), and the likelihood is that if they did somehow manage to squeeze into it they’d be kicked out for not fitting in.

Which is where all this started, and why Commoners and WYSO chose to take on these magnificent (and magnificently simple) four-chord anthems – to honour the pre-punk ethos of The Ramones that said, listen to this, it’s not like anything you’ve ever heard before…

So here we go, 1, 2, 3, 4 – Five Ramones songs sounding like you’ve never heard them sound.