A myth destroyed?

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

A week ago, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that

Ramones drummer Marky Ramone [asserts that] legendary producer Phil Spector never pulled a gun on the band.

According to rock 'n' roll folklore, the famed '60s hitmaker held the punk pioneers at gunpoint during recording sessions for their 1980 album "End Of The Century."

Bass player Dee Dee Ramone even claimed Spector leveled a pistol at his heart when he threatened to quit the studio.

But Marky Ramone has finally shattered the myth by declaring it never happened.

I don't buy it, and the commenters to the article don't either—if for no other reason than that the gun was pulled on Dee Dee; Marky had nothing to do with it.

I've almost finished reading Tearing Down the Wall of Sound, and if Spector didn't pull a gun on the Ramones, they were probably the only people to evade the experience.

UPDATE — Being engrossed in the life and times of Phil Spector as I've been for the past few days, I can now say that I'm wholly convinced that dear Phillip did, in fact, shoot and kill Lana Clarkson nearly six years ago.

Leonard Cohen, one of the myriad artists with whom Spector was less than successful, explains it all on pages 302-303 in Tearing Down the Wall of Sound:

"In the state that [Spector] found himself, which was post-Wagnerian, I would say Hitlerian, the atmosphere was one of guns. I mean, that's what was really going on, guns. The music was subsidiary, an enterprise. People were armed to the teeth, [and] everybody was drunk, or intoxicated on other items, so you were slipping over bullets, or you were biting into revolvers in your hamburger. There were guns everywhere."

Cohen speaks here about his experiences with Spector 30 years ago, but Spector never changed, and his fascination with guns (Rare was the time after 1968 when Spector wasn't armed, and his bodyguards always were.) seems to have continued to the present day.

The man is a true genius, but like many geniuses, he's been nutty as a fruitcake for just about his entire life.

Anyway, here's a performance that's referred to in the book—so much better than the actual recording as to beggar description—that shows how profoundly Paul Shaffer knows his Spector.