"The Ramones were an answered prayer, the antidote to mellotron solos and stadium power ballads....
This book explains why they not only mattered, but were a vital, inspirational, earth shattering force."
- Anthony Bourdain
“Gaines whips up a literary three chord meal that she baked in her five-borough heart, and serves it with side orders of grit, wit, and grace. As it should be, this meal is fat and gluten free. Donna is smart, and she’s tough, and she’s family. But, more than even most of their own family members (yours truly excepted), she knows why the Ramones matter!!” ---Mickey Leigh, musician and author of I Slept with Joey Ramone
"Donna Gaines combines the perspective of sociology and the immediacy of memoir in an extended love letter, at once moving and insightful, to one of the most important and musically enduring American bands of the 20th century. Why the Ramones Matter places the group in social context, tracking their careers through their origins on Long Island, early days in the East Village, their formative role in the Punk Internationale, and beyond -- chronicling a group that made rock music democratic again." --Paul DiMagggio, Sociologist, Princeton University
