Review: Kepi Ghoulie – “Ramones in Love”

Pirates Press Records – 14 Feb 2023

Kepi Ghoulie goes against type to serenade sensitive punks with a batch of Ramones’ finest love songs.

Hot on the heels of his nod to all things goth, Full Moon Forever, Kepi Ghoulie returns with a record on the other end of the musical spectrum. His second release for Pirates Press Records is Ramones In Love, where he presents stripped down versions of 13 of the Ramones most beloved punk ballads. The seed for the idea was a mixtape of Ramones love songs that Kepi had made for himself and listened to exhaustively many years earlier. It also continues his long running tradition of releasing love songs for Valentine’s Day. 

With Ramones In Love, Kepi has the advantage of performing some of the greatest songs of all time. Like his original mixtape, they are presented in chronological order. The biggest pressure here is just not to screw it up. He largely succeeds by keeping it simple. His twangy voice and acoustic guitar are the backbone of the record, with sparse bits of various other instrumentation for flavor. Two of the songs, “Needles and Pins” and “Baby, I Love You”, are covers of covers. 

Ramones’ first and arguably best love song, “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”, starts side one and features only acoustic guitar and bass. “I Remember You” has a couple of clean electric guitars, one of which has a reverb heavy surf sound, and a touch of ride cymbal. “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” gets a more lush treatment with maybe a cello and violin, plus some more exotic percussion. (The tympani will give you End of the Century vibes.) Rather than downplay the country vibes on “Questioningly”, Kepi plays it up with some slide guitar. “I Want You Around” sticks fairly close to the brilliant original. 

“She’s a Sensation” kicks off side two by keeping it simple and letting the quality of the song speak for itself. Ditto “My-My Kind of a Girl” a little later on. “7-11” has that timeless Ramones quality of hiding darkness behind a cheerful tune. Kepi takes it even further in the direction of a ‘60s tragedy song. (Think “Last Kiss” or “Leader of the Pack”.) “Howling at the Moon (Sha-La-La)” incorporates some vocal echo and the added harmonica gives it a Neil Young-plays-Ramones feel. The dark “She Belongs to Me” has a beautiful piano accompaniment and even an ambient guitar solo. The bittersweet breakup song “Bye Bye Baby” is a fitting conclusion.

The love songs on Ramones records served the purpose of breaking up a string of fast songs. If there’s a weakness here, it’s that all the tracks have a similar tempo. Just a couple of upbeat songs might have done wonders to make it more interesting, but this is a minor criticism for what is ultimately a very pleasant listen. There are a ton of full albums of Ramones covers out there, but this one definitely stands out in its singularity of focus. Kepi is smart enough to not actually try to sound like the Ramones, because let’s face it, no one can do the tough/tender thing like Joey could.

It’s probably worth noting that Mrs. Trauma seemed to enjoy Ramones In Love. While I’m not sure it got her “in the mood”, it certainly didn’t get her “out of the mood” the way the new Napalm Death record did. The bottom line? Light some candles, pop open a bottle of wine and let Kepi be the soundtrack for a night of passion. 

For vinyl fiends: The cover art features a subtle homage to the first Ramones record, and it has a printed insert. It’s limited to 1000 pieces on hot pink wax, and would be the perfect gift for that special someone.