DAVE HANNA
Detroit and the surrounding suburbs also had several important punk rock bands and included one of the first hardcore punk scenes in the nation. One of these short-lived but talented punk bands was the Ramrods that was formed in 1977. Bandmembers were Mark Norton (vocals), Peter James (guitar), Dave Hanna (bass), and Robert Mulrooney (drums). According to Wikipedia, the last official Ramrods show was on January 28, 1978. Before the band broke up, Ramones manager Danny Fields and Seymour Stein of Sire Records had been interested in signing them.
Robert Mulrooney and Dave Hanna of the Ramrods were first in a band called Streets that later evolved into the Deviates; Mulrooney says of that period: “We were a bar band playing covers, four nights a week, but we’d throw in stuff like Television’s ‘Venus De Milo’, and as long as [the audience] didn’t know it was ‘punk’, they’d dig it.”
As reported in Wikipedia, following the break-up of the Ramrods, Peter James was an early member of the power pop band the Romantics, and Mark Norton and Dave Hanna formed a band called the 27.
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Bootsey X was determined to release his final album despite his failing health, and Women’s Love Rites came out on vinyl in June 2013; he was wheelchair bound by then. Musicians performing on the CD include many who had been in the Lovemasters: Mike Marshall, Gerald Shohan, Ricky Rat, Don Jones, and Steve King, plus Dave Hanna of the Ramrods and Matthew Smith, who had played with him in Europe during the tour with Nathaniel Mayer.
(March 2016)
