Hey-Ho, Let's Go - Uncle Monk
by Peter Aaron

Woodstock on a weekend night. On the stage of the Bearsville Theater’s wood-lined lounge is a male-female acoustic duo, the leader a dude on mandolin sporting faded jeans, a beard, and long gray hair. They’re doing a fine job, too, singing and picking out oldtime and bluegrass tunes; mostly originals but there’s one or two classics in there by the Carter Family and other greats. Big deal, you’re thinking, sounds like just another pair of hippies that missed the last bus home in 1969, locals that discovered this music the way most of that generation did; through the Grateful Dead or Jerry Garcia’s side projects. How wrong you are.

The group is Uncle Monk, and that bearded mountain man up there is none other than Tommy Ramone, the founder, producer, and original drummer of the group Joe Strummer once called “the granddaddy punk band of ‘em all”—yes, the Ramones. Wait a minute, you say, the man whose bass drum-pedal foot pretty
much kicked off the entire mid-’70s punk rock explosion, playing old-time country? Seems like an inconceivable stretch.

“Well, there actually are a lot of similarities between the two genres,” says Tommy [aka Tom Erdelyi], who also plays banjo, dobro, fiddle, and guitar in the band. “Punk and old-time music are both very home-brewed styles, where the players are usually self-taught; in both, you can just pick up an instrument and learn some simple chord structures. They both have songs that tell stories, and they’re both very emotionally intense music. Plus, both have a kind of intangible hipness, something that’s just inherently cool.”

Tommy’s partner in Uncle Monk and in life is Claudia Tienan, who sings and plays guitar and bass. So what’s it like being in a band with a former Ramone? “Well, it can be difficult sometimes, because he has such a history and sometimes people expect something different than what we play,” she says. “But it’s still very nice.”

The couple met on the music scene in the 1980s and formed Uncle Monk in the early ’90s. “Originally, it was an electric group with a drummer,” recalls Tommy. “Kind of a jam band, with longer songs, lots of solos. I’d always loved bluegrass and old-time stuff, and I got a banjo and a mandolin and brought those in just for fun. Then the drummer left and we decided not to get another, to go in more of an acoustic direction. So it all happened very organically.”

The seeds of this new, earthy direction eventually resulted in a self-titled debut album, released late last year on the duo’s own Airday label and populated with rousing hoedowns like “Emotional Needs,” wounded heartbreakers like “Mean to Me,” even a couple of bemusing, autobiographical ditties, like “Mr. Endicott,” which takes to task an ornery boss from Tommy’s youth. The CD has been warmly received, garnering positive reviews in MOJO, Harp, and other taste-making magazines, and resulting in tours of the South and the West Coast. [The band hopes to hit England and mainland Europe next.]

Although Tommy and Claudia still keep a place in New York City, they’ve been part-time Phoenicia residents since 1993. “Claudia’s mother lives in [nearby] Mount Tremper, so we were coming up to visit a lot,” says Tommy. “We saw a place we really liked and we ended up getting a really good deal on it. It’s just so beautiful up here, and I’ve become much more of a nature person. I guess the
change in music goes along with that.”

It’s certainly a long way from CBGB and the Bowery. Looking back, how does the punk legend feel about the loss of not only his former bandmates, Joey, Johnny, and Dee Dee Ramone, but of the club itself and its former owner, Hilly Kristal, who passed away in August? “It’s all very sad, very hard to absorb,” says Tommy. “To have all three of those band members die so young [Joey, 50; Johnny, 56; Dee Dee, 50] and so close together was really tragic and unusual. And Hilly wasn’t that old, either [75]. It was sad to see CBGB go, too, but every place has a lifespan, I guess. It all reminds us how fast time goes, and how we should count as a blessing the friends we have that are still around.”

It must be pretty gratifying, now that the Ramones are finally getting their due after so long. “Very gratifying,” says the one-time drummer, who conceived the group but handed over his sticks to Marky Ramone in 1978 in order to concentrate on management and studio production. “Historically, I knew the Ramones would eventually be recognized. Because the band was just so different than anything else at the time [it began], and we influenced so many other bands. But how it’s just gotten bigger and bigger in terms of commercial popularity and how it keeps getting bigger all the time—that’s a really unexpected phenomenon.”

Tommy’s second career, that of an award-winning record producer, has seen him working with the likes of Talking Heads, Redd Kross, The Replacements, and, of course, the Ramones [1985’s Too Tough to Die]. Any plans to get back into that side of the business? “Not right now,” he says. “But if something worthwhile comes along that I like, then maybe I might. It has to be the right thing.”

And when it comes to the concept of playing rock’n’roll again, the exalted keeper of the four/four beat is similarly non-committal. “Sure, it’s possible,” says Tommy, “It never really occurs to me because I’m so into Uncle Monk right now, but sure, it’s possible. I mean, who knows?”

So Tommy Ramone, then, is a man who lives firmly in the now. Despite any acclaim—overdue or in situ—for his previous work, he’s no slave to his past and he’s learned enough not to try to predict the future. But there’s certainly a paradox here, in that the music of Uncle Monk is inspired by recordings made 50 to 80 years ago [in addition to the Carter Family, Tommy cites Gid Tanner and The Skillet-Lickers and the Louvin, Stanley, and Monroe brothers as favorites].

For many new listeners, though, the rawly recorded, often amateurish howl of early rural American music is just far too weird. “Well, yeah, it might be hard to get into at first, it might seem strange,” offers Tommy. “But if you stick with it and immerse yourself slowly in this music, you’ll find it’s very rewarding.”

Kind of like what a lot of people first said about punk rock.

Uncle Monk will play at Muddy Cup in Kingston on October 13 and Club Helsinki in Great Barrington on October 26.