TYM Guitars in Brisbane has announced plans to issue the first ever HARD ONS skate deck featuring bassplayer Ray Ahn's tribute to Motorhead artwork.
"It's hard to describe the Hard-Ons to a kid today. It's hard to understand in this easily connected world that trying to naively emulate your heroes used to be harder. You couldn't look up Wiki for names and stream the cool stuff. In the early 80's, 3 kids from western Sydney took that cool stuff and made it even cooler. It was fast, it was exciting and it was catchy. They took hardcore, punk, rock and pop and made it their own They took the Ramones to an even simpler level and made it great.
Back in the mid to late eighties (and later) when The Hard-Ons were out there flying the flag of "pop punk" before it was cool I saw them live too many times, including supporting the Ramones and they always delivered, and they had a singing drummer. What more could you want.
I remember the first time I heard "Girl in the Sweater". SO simple, SO pure, SO good. I remember the first time I saw their artwork ............. and that name. It was all so juvenile and yet so brilliant at the same time. That is a very hard thing to do.
They played a show I used to put on every year called Ramone-a-thon once and I remember standing in a sold out room watching them play We Want the Airwaves and thinking "it really can't get any better than this" ........... well, it has.
Tym skate is releasing THE FIRST official Hard-Ons skate deck in collaboration with the band and fully endorsed by the guys. This is a limited edition deck with original artwork by Ray Ahn and available ONLY through Tym guitars worldwide. The first 20 come with a limited edition T shirt featuring the artwork and the Tym skate logo. Available from Dec 10th. More details soon."
In other HARD ONS news, this Sunday in Sydney the original lineup will reunite on stage again for solo performances. While Keish and Blackie will perform acoustically, Ray will be doing some spoken word. It's free entry too.
Next week we'll be taking a trip down down memory lane as we look back on a defining moment in the history of the Hard Ons.
