Acid Eaters:The Ramones

Acid Eaters is the 13th studio album by the American punk band Ramones.

Recorded in 1993, towards the end of the Ramones' career, the album is often set apart from other Ramones releases in that it is entirely composed ofcovers. Acid Eaters forms a musical tribute to the Ramones' 60s favorites, and highlights the influence that garage rock bands like The Seeds or the Amboy Dukes, and better known bands such as The Beach Boys, The Who and The Rolling Stones, (all of whom are covered in this album) had on their music.

Contents

 [hide] *1 Overview

• 2 Track listing
• 3 Personnel
• 4 Additional musicians
• 5 Charts
  • 5.1 Album
• 6 References

Overview

Acid Eaters was not the first time that the Ramones had played or recorded cover songs. In the past, the Ramones had placed cover songs in almost every album to translate their favorite songs to the punk rock sound. Covers had always formed a minor part of the Ramones' act, and a version of Chris Montez's hit "Let's Dance" (written by and credited to Jim Lee) even appeared on their debut album. Other notable covers previously performed by the group include The Searchers' "Needles and Pins" (written by Sonny Bono and Jack Nitzsche, originally recorded by Jackie DeShannon), "Baby, I Love You" by The Ronettes, "Take It As It Comes" by The Doors, "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen, "California Sun" by The Rivieras (originally recorded by Joe Jones) and The Beach Boys' "Do You Wanna Dance?" (originally recorded by Bobby Freeman). Acid Eaters, however, was the first complete set of covers, and the songs it contains are much more significant than the seemingly randomly distributed covers on the Ramones' other works.

Covers such as "Surf City" by Jan and Dean—which was performed live by the Ramones in the early 80's—can easily be related to the Ramones' previoussurf-rock influenced songs such as Rocket to Russia 's "Rockaway Beach". Pete Townshend supplies backing vocals on The Who cover "Substitute", whileTraci Lords sings on "Somebody to Love".

Track listing

Side one
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
1.	"Journey to the Center of the Mind" (Original by Amboy Dukes)	Ted Nugent/Steve Farmer	2:52
2.	"Substitute" (Original by The Who)	Pete Townshend	3:15
3.	"Out of Time" (Original by The Rolling Stones)	Mick Jagger/Keith Richards	2:41
4.	"The Shape of Things to Come" (Original by Max Frost and the Troopers)	Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil	1:46
5.	"Somebody to Love" (Original by The Great Society, popularized by Jefferson Airplane)	Darby Slick	2:31
6.	"When I Was Young" (Original by The Animals)	Eric Burdon/John Weider/Vic Briggs/Danny McCulloch/Barry Jenkins	3:16

Side two
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
7.	"7 and 7 Is" (Original by Love)	Arthur Lee	1:50
8.	"My Back Pages" (Original by Bob Dylan, popularized by The Byrds)	Bob Dylan	2:27
9.	"Can't Seem to Make You Mine" (Original by The Seeds)	Sky Saxon	2:42
10.	"Have You Ever Seen the Rain?" (Original by Creedence Clearwater Revival)	John Fogerty	2:22
11.	"I Can't Control Myself" (Original by The Troggs)	Reg Presley	2:55
12.	"Surf City" (Original by Jan and Dean)	Brian Wilson/Jan Berry	2:26

Note: The 1997 vinyl version has the same songs, but a different track order.

CD Bonus track in Japan and Brazil
No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
13.	"Surfin' Safari" (Original by The Beach Boys)	Brian Wilson/Mike Love	1:47

Personnel

• Joey Ramone – lead vocals
• Johnny Ramone – guitar
• C. J. Ramone – bass, lead vocals on tracks 1, 4 and 8
• Marky Ramone – drums

Additional musicians

• Joe McGinty – all keyboards
• Pete Townshend – backing vocals on track 2
• Sebastian Bach – backing vocals on track 3
• Traci Lords – backing vocals on track 5

Charts

Album

Year	Chart	Position
1994	The Billboard 200	179