JOEY RAMONE B-DAY BASH

Others may have cracked open the door, but it wasn’t until Joey Ramone lifted his black, snorkel flipper-sized Converse high-top and kicked the thing wide open that it became an undisputed fact: you don’t have to be a pretty boy to be a rock star.

Tonight is Joey’s birthday, so let us honor of the man, the myth, the urban legend, the six-foot-six, skinny outcast from Forest Hills, Queens with a subway tan who spun the notion of what a rock and roll frontman could be on its ear, and celebrate some other “offbeat” characters who’ve hijacked the stage:

Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull)

Adam Durwitz (Counting Crows)

Meat Loaf

Dee Snider (Twisted Sister)

Oderus Urungus (Gwar)

Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit)

Claudio Sanchez (Coheed and Cambria)

John Popper (Blues Traveler)

As far as the eighth annual Joey Ramone Birthday Bash goes, Joey’s brother Mickey Leigh is throwing tonight’s hang-loose at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza. The party features Richard Lloyd of Television, Shangri-La’s Mary Weiss, Jesse Malin, Little Steven Van Zandt and a ton of other crisp, vintage rock survivors including headliners, the riotous rumblers Manitoba’s Wild Kingdom. Whodat, you may ask? Trust us, the party starts NOW! Just watch this: