Welcome back to CROSSED CHANNELS — the podcast in which music journalists/obsessives Dan Epstein (the Yank) and Tony Fletcher (the Limey) clash and connect over music from either side of the pond.

We are all hopped up and ready to go for our 30th episode, in which we flash back exactly 50 years to when the US was celebrating its 200th birthday in a far more positive mood than it appears to be commemorating its 250th. That weekend, 3000 miles from the flotilla in New York’s harbor, further still from all the street parties and suburban barbeques, armed with a reputation honed at Manhattan’s Lower East Side club CBGB’s and a debut LP recorded in two weeks in a studio adjacent to Radio City Music Hall, The Ramones made their British debut at the Roundhouse in London - on July 4, 1976 itself.

Their brief show, eagerly anticipated by a small and influential legion of British fans starved for primitive and minimalist rock ‘n’ roll, and conducted in the midst of Britain’s biggest heatwave in living memory, proved to be one of the most exciting and important trans-Atlantic cultural exchanges in music history. It therefore seemed the perfect subject matter for Dan and Tony to discuss on this otherwise quite muted semiquincentennial.

To access the full episode, please take out a paid subscription either to tonyfletcher.substack.com or danepstein.substack.com - or both. You'll get all the previous Crossed Channels podcasts, exclusive posts, and access to all the archives all the time.

Theme music: Blue Diamond Fire by Dan's project the Corinthian Columns.