Porn Valley- I spoke to Kurt Lockwood, www.kurtlockwood.com about the death of Johnny Ramone. At one point in his career, Lockwood almost became Stevie Ramone with a band being formed by the late Dee Dee Ramone.

“I’m sitting here with a heavy heart wearing my Ramone shirt and sneakers,” Lockwood told me this morning. “I went to the Ramone’s reunion thing [last weekend] that they held at the old Palace, now called the Avalon. I was hanging out backstage and it was awesome.” Lockwood said he’s good friends with the man who discovered groups like The Doors and The Ramones. “He clued me in that he had been to see Johnny and Johnny was really sick.”

Lockwood wanted to make it clear that he didn’t play in the Ramones. “Dee Dee Ramone was the founding member of The Ramones,” Lockwood explained. “He left the band and I played with Dee Dee. But I knew all the guys and stuff- it’s a real loss. Those guys died within a couple of years of one another. Dee Dee died of an overdose. Those guys invented Punk Rock, and there’s so many bands who owe so much to those guys.”

From what he’s heard, Lockwood says there’s going to be a statue erected of Johnny playing guitar. “And Dee Dee’s grave in Hollywood has become like Jim Morrison’s. People go and leave little presents and play Ramone songs.”

Lockwood played with Dee Dee Ramone about a year. “We toured around- the North American tour,” he says. “A funny story is we were on our way to Europe to tour. Initially my band would open up for him [Dee Dee]. Then me and my drummer would stay on stage and then him and his wife would come on stage. She’d play bass and he’d sing. We’d go on as a band that way. So he thought it was cost prohibitive to take two bands to Europe.”

Doing an impersonation of Dee Dee with New York accent, Lockwood describes how Ramone wanted to call the band The New Ramones.

“And we’re going to get shirts made up with all our names and you can be Stevie Ramone.”

Lockwood said that never materialized but for the length of that conversation with Dee Dee he was Stevie Ramone of The New Ramones. Asked if he had any good groupie stories, Lockwood said he was travelling with his girlfriend at the time who was in the band.

“She was the one I did my first porn with way back in the day,” Lockwood points out. “It was a scene for Fallen Angel.” Lockwood also recalls having done a scene for Shane’s World. “They actually shot the band- that was back in ’97. Then I dropped out for a few years then got back in.”

Lockwood said he’s been getting calls all day on the passing of Johnny Ramone.