I thought it was very well done, something that did justice to a very odd story in a world of odd stories behind rock bands.

I never saw a gig with Tommy, but I always thought Richie Ramone was the best drummer for the Ramones--and it was good to see that, as the shot of adrenaline he provided had been rarely mentioned until this movie. However, Marky Ramone was by far the most accomplished instrumentalist ever in this band. Underappreciated drummer virtuoso? Absolutely. Listen to the first Richard Hell & the Voidoids & you'll hear some of what he was capable of, but never brought to the Ramones due to the nature of their song structures. The guy's a monster behind the kit.

You could make a laundry list of Dee Dee's foibles. Playing an impromptu acoustic set one night, for which he was completely unprepared, without a shirt & looking like death warmed over. Being arrested for buying pot in Washington Square Park. Dating the woman who tried to cut Arthur Kane's finger off. Hell, he was trying to be a pot dealer there for awhile. The guy was mentally ill. His association with GG was short-lived, and, like just about anything else you could drag up about stuff he did after leaving the Ramones, wasn't really worth mentioning. As for GG...he's kind of an obvious target. But I used to know the guy whose apartment he died in, and he was pretty normal, all things considered. Difficult to imagine someone being friends with that guy who actually had all his marbles, but I think not everyone in GG's world, oddly enough, was a complete wacko.

For me the pivotal scene in Another State Of Mind is when it slowly dawns on you that Mike Ness, clearly the most talented and charismatic individual on that bus, is a selfish jerk who is always partying & hanging with chicks, but never all that interested in helping out carrying equipment or doing what he could've to have made things any better as the ill-fated tour entered its final stages. Youth Brigade ends up riding back to California in the back of a truck, and on a trip where the bands & crew were penniless, Ness conveniently has a ticket home. Very telling. A good watch, but a large part of it is the Minor Threat footage. Much better is The Decline Of Western Civilisation, Part 1.

But comparing either with the Ramones documentary is a little off-base, as they document scenes, as opposed to being a biography of one entity. I thought the Ramones thing was up there with The Filth & the Fury, with both of those being probably a notch above Westway To The World. But that one suffers a bit since there's so much great footage in Rude Boy...which is otherwise mostly boring, of course. I just got my hands on We Jam Econo, and I'm eager to pop that one in, but the one I really want to see made would be a documentary of the Minneapolis scene from the early & mid-80s--the Replacements, Husker Du, etc. Soul Asylum. Those bands were the big scene of the time and they could cover Prince as well, of course. But since most notable punk rock bands from before & since have captured some recognition, and this scene still generates a big collective 'huh?' in the mass imagination, I won't hold my breath waiting on it.