The evening's highlights were:

1. Robert Lund
This guy hangs out at all the punk shows in NYC. F'rinstance, I've seen him at every Bullys show. Apparently he got into punk rock via his teenage son after he took him to a few shows, and now he doesn't wanna grow up. His cover of "Teenage Lobotomy" was awesome. (Although I think he should have covered "Psychotherapy" instead because he has an amazing resemblance to the actor in that video!)

2. Pete Steele
I've never seen Type O Negative, the band that (in the words of The Undertaker) made Pete Steele "famous." This guy was a mess. He fell on the floor in front of Jayne County when he made his gran entrance. He had to carry lyric sheets for "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" and "I Wanna Be Sedated," and still hemanaged to forget all the words. In fact, he had to stop the band - physically - when he got lost in the middle of "Sheena" and in the middle of "Sedated" he started falling on the floor. (He did seem to be on something.) Then he decided to sing Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" after polling the audience (half wanted him to get off the stage, the other half wanted him to stay, so he told both factions to fuck off.) Pete looked and sounded exactly like Jim from the "Taxi" TV show in a Tiny Tim wig. I couldn't tell if he was a pathetic loser whose life in in shambles since his band kicked him out or if he was parodying being a mess. A perfect imitation.

3. Margaux from Dirty Mary
Margot is the sexiest New York singer since Debbie Harry. She was absolutely amazing. Just beautiful. And she covered the Ramones really well.

4. George Tabb
"Furious" George Tabb covered the Ramones like the Ramones should be covered - because he played it like the Ramones would have. It's really easy to screw up the Ramones. George also gave credit to the Don Hill's house band, who managed to make everyone sound good that night. George also warned me that about half of the bands that were playing the tribute that night really had no idea who the Ramones were or what they were doing... Well, as usual, George was wrong. Almost all of the covers were decent, and the performances were all enjoyable in one way or another.

5. Jayne County
Jayne gives him/herself too much credit for inventing punk rock (like most NYC bands, who tried to distance themselves from it when it was actually happening), but she's made an amazing comeback recently as a punk rock DJ and scene celebrity. She did an very entertaining turn as the evening's emcee and added to his/her reputation as the "hostess with the mostest." She's even spinning CDs at Manitoba's, where their "Fun with Dick and Jayne" nights are the best in-joke since the Sex Pistols' reunion.

Here's the complete set list:

Related Link:
www.radicalrecords.com