jennie fennell

I was riffing with RRTHUR (yes ladies, THAT Rrthur) the other day about how every dipshit in college had the same two, and usually only two, albums: Bob Marley's "Legend" and Steve Miller's Greatest Hits. Every dorm room I walked into, these two albums were being played. Ugh. Even as this was the heyday of grunge, for every Nirvana spin there were six of these two.

Which was so disappointing to me - I've written here many times about how lucky I had been as a young buck to get turned onto the Ramones and the Replacements and countless other great bands that weren't on Casey Kasem every Sunday; amazing bands that were unheard by the masses but formed the backbone of my musical life. Whatever that was. Since it was passed down to us by my friend's older brother who was in college, I assumed that as soon as I got outta my hick town and into college I'd be surrounded by like-minded people, people who loved the Ramones and the Clash et al. I couldn't wait - I even started hand-crafting a t-shirt for each Ramones album. This project was abandoned 1/2way through "Leave Home", but you get my point.

So, as I sad, all the air was sucked outta this dream the first week when I realized that even though it was college, everybody's tastes still sucked. Steve Miller, Poison, Vanilla Ice, "Legend" etc etc. Heartbroken is too strong a word for something like that now, but it wasn't at age 18. I had given up finding someone who liked my favorite bands until I was standing in the dining hall and in walked a girl with...a Ramones t-shirt!!! And this was back when wearing a Ramones t-shirt meant you actually loved the band; not like today where you get one in every box of cereal or some such. My eyes lit up, I sprinted (this was 1990 after all) over to her and what do you know, she was as thrilled as I was to finally meet someone there who knew what we both knew.

We never became best buds or nothing, but through the years we'd meet up every once in a while and talk about how much we loved the Ramones, culminating with our senior year when she was responsible for bringing them to play at our Student Union. The night before the show we did a 3-hour all-Ramones radio show (which pretty much was the same radio show I did every week anyways), then the next day got to hang out with them before they played. Fucking awesome. She remained the only other person I ever met at school who knew, much less loved, the Ramones and I can still picture her walking into the dining hall with that black t-shirt on. A little while after I graduated Praise the Laude I came up to NYC to record a record, and one of the songs was about that feeling of meeting someone who shares something like that with you, it was called "jennie fennell" (she always wrote her name in non-caps for some reason), and here it is:

Yeah yeah, kinda sucks, my singings terrible, but it always brings a good feeling to me whenever I hear it. Here's to jennie fennell, here's to the Ramones.


ps - if you want a copy of the record, simply send a money order or cash for $700 to:

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100 Metropolian Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211