When the Ramones Played L.A. and the Times Called Them a Joke

In August 1976, the Ramones brought their minute-long songs and leather jackets to the Roxy. The city’s biggest critic wasn’t having it.

Fifty years ago this month, the Ramones played their first West Coast shows at the Roxy in Los Angeles. It was August 11 and 12, 1976. They had already recorded their debut album, torn through London gigs that would help ignite British punk, and become the center of a New York scene. L.A., though, was a different world.

The Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn previewed the concerts with a column that treated the Ramones less like a band and more like a social problem. He described the cover of their first LP—four men in leather jackets and jeans—as something from a post office wanted poster. He warned of lyrics about hustlers, drugs,