The New LoFi

Bossa N Ramones Rockaway Beach Taco

We’ve been focusing a lot on NEW releases and NEW bands and NEW songs lately. When we first started this blog, we decided not to box ourselves in and just do one type of music. But for whatever reason we’ve just been really focused on the new stuff lately. All of that said, when I got home from the beach today and saw the post that J-Oates did on Cadillac Cruising tunes I felt pretty refreshed. Luckily, his post helped me transition into this post which is also an older-ish track.

As I got home from Rockaway Beach, I wanted to do a post that was related to my Rockaway Beach experience. I can go directly into the song right now or I can ramble a little about my Rockaway Beach experience. I’m choosing to ramble a little.

In short, Rockaway Beach is a little bit weird to me. First off, it’s definitely still a big shit hole BUT you can see and feel a lot of new energy and growth there as well. There are a lot of new houses, condos, hotels, etc but right next door, there are still projects and crack houses. There are a lot of young people around like surfers, musicians and artists but at the same time you still have a lot of crackheads and undesirables. And then came the end of the day . . .

With the end of the day came a stop at Rockaway Taco. If you haven’t been there yet or even heard of it, it’s worth a trip out to Queens just to hit this place. This place is only open during the summer as I’m sure there aren’t any people in the area to eat tacos in the winter. Be warned though, Rockaway Taco literally has a line around the block and the wait is about 30 minutes in the scorching sun. That said, the vibe is pretty cool, the tacos (especially the fish tacos) are excellent and the music is endorsed by The New LoFi. Hmmmm? I really wish I had some New Lo-Fi stickers with me at the time to bomb the hell out of that place with . . .

Anyway, the summary of the story is, I went to far Rockaway, it’s an interesting place and you can get some good ass fish tacos there. And now, here is a song to go with my day at the beach . . .

We all know the Ramones song Rockaway Beach. I love the Ramones. I love that song. But, I’ll spare you from posting that version since we’ve all heard it about 500,000 times in our lives. Instead, I’m going to share with you a pretty sweet and totally random cover of the same track by Natalie Renoir & DJ Leao. This cover comes from the 2008 album Bossa N Ramones (so this is not a new release.) If you haven’t made sense of the title yet, it’s literally a compilation of Ramones songs done in a Bossa Nova fashion. Strange. Yes, I know. But we are into the obscure and often bizarre here on The New Lo-Fi.

Sidenote: If I was to make a video for this version of Rockawy Beach, it would be a bunch of people cruising in the J-Oates White Caddy with this tune playing, top down of course. Only I picture everything in slow motion and in hyperreal color. The crew in the car would be cruising the strip, going past boarded up buildings, projects, graffiti, even driving past Rockaway Taco. And everyone on the streets, on the beach, in line at Rockaway Taco etc would be smiling from ear to ear and waving to the crew in the caddy as if it was the best day of their life and as if Rockaway Beach was the best place in the world. Even the crackheads without teeth would be smiling from ear to ear. Did I mention that all of this would be in slow motion?

Anyway, without any more of my nonsense, here is Natalie Renoir & DJ Leao covering the Ramones Rockaway Beach from the album Bossa N Ramones.

Cheers,

D-Hall

Natalie Renoir & DJ Leao – Rockaway Beach (Ramones Cover)