The Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack Interview: Ramones tour manager Monte A. Melnick (Part Two)
The man who kept Joey/Johnny/Dee Dee/Tommy/Marky/CJ’s train running on time elaborates on watching the Ramones grow from Day One.
Monte and Joey: “Whaddaya mean they forgot the pickles with your reuben, Joey?!!”
Here’s the latest Tim “Napalm” Stegall Substack post for paid subscribers only — and with it, an invitation for more paid subscribers to climb aboard the good ship TNSS, or upgrade to paid status if you subscribe for free. The first installment of the interview with Ramones tour manager Monte A. Melnick from March 30th did quite well. 531 people have viewed it to date. The problem is, only 76 people can actually read the whole thing. Two people subscribed for free, just reading the intro. One free subscriber hit the like button. Several free subscribers read the intro many times.
Do any of you understand that you did not read the actual interview part? Did you just simply enjoy what I wrote?
Even if you don’t care about the Ramones, your five bucks a month (or even less than that if you go for the one-year subscription) will give you access to all sorts of other cool stuff not available with the free subscription, both in the future and in the ever-expanding TNSS archives. Stuff like interviews with icons like Circle Jerks/Black Flag/OFF! singer Keith Morris, and Michael Monroe (Hanoi Rocks). Upcoming, I will have interviews with Captain Sensible (The Damned) and Paul Simonon (The Clash, obviously!).
Your five bucks (or less, annually) also enables you to read exclusive pieces you won’t find elsewhere, such as notes from behind the scenes on a ZZ Top tour in 2012. And of course, your paid subscription also helps support the writing of all the fun free stuff I post here, and keeps the lights on in general.
So if you can find a way to spend a few bucks a month – one less pack of cigarettes or fancy coffee drink per month, perhaps – and convert your free subscription to a full one, I would be immensely grateful. And if you can’t swing it, I’ll understand; I’m still immensely grateful that you’re out there in the audience and want to read my stuff. In any case, a huge thanks to all my subscribers, free and paid, for being part of this project.
But if you do spend a few shekels today, you can read today how Monte fine-tuned the Ramones’ touring organization, and the ins & outs of Johnny Ramone’s Mosrite guitars, including how his main one sold in auction for almost $1 million!!!
(Special thanks to Brother Dan Epstein for providing positive inspiration at his own excellent Jagged Time Lapse Substack.)
MONTE: I went along and did sound for them at CBGB, and (Performance Studios) closed down. That’s kinda how I changed directions.
TIM: Right. Then they signed with Sire, and suddenly there’s a need to go on the road.
MONTE: Yeah, and then I was doing sound and pretty much everything else, me and Mickey Leigh and Arturo (Vega) doing lights. Then the bigger they got, the more money they got. I was able to move up to road manager, then tour manager. Then we hired guitar roadies and drum roadies and truckers and this and that. I kinda worked my way from the bottom up.