Johnny Ramone seriously ill

Rolling Stone reports, "Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone is in a Los Angeles hospital battling prostate cancer, according to his longtime bandmate, drummer Marky Ramone. "Johnny's been a champ in confronting this, but at this point I think the chances are slim," says Marky, who joined the Ramones in 1977 when Tommy Ramone left the band. (...more)

Reuters reports, "Johnny Ramone, the guitarist with pioneering punk rock band the Ramones is fighting a losing a battle with cancer in a Los Angeles hospital, Rolling Stone magazine reported on its Web site on Tuesday. (...more)

Ramones documentary fate still unknown

Over the last 15 months, End of the Century, a documentary about punk rock's founding fathers, the Ramones, has been shown at major film festivals in New York, Toronto and Berlin. It has attracted a following among influential figures like Nicolas Cage and the director Jim Jarmusch. It has been praised in Variety, Entertainment Weekly and the Los Angeles Times for its unflinching portrayal of the dysfunction that both fuelled and undermined the Ramones.

About the only thing the film hasn't gained is a release date. The film-makers, Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields, say the movie has not been released after nearly seven years of work because of the very same tenuous relationships they hoped to document. (...more)