BY ALLEN RABINOWITZ

Peter Pan was a hero to many of us in our younger days. Who didn’t want to join Peter’s runaway band of boys in a land where you always stay young and never have to grow up?

Unfortunately, life is not like the James Barrie play. There comes a time when most of us take off our play clothes and put away our toys. We search for substitutes, but usually fall short of maintaining the thrill of being a kid.

There are, however, four men who have decided to make the time stop for themselves; who have chosen not to grow up and instead romp forever in that land that is reserved for boys who enjoy staying boys. Unlike Peter Pan, they can’t fly and do manage to avoid skirmishes with one-handed pirates. Rather, they don black leather jackets and play hard-charging rock ‘n’ roll in concert halls throughout the world. These four modern-day Peter Pans go under the handle of The Ramones.

 Winter, 1975. On the fringes of lower Manhattan, a new music is taking form. At CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City, new wave is being invented. In the forefront are four guys from Forest Hills calling themselves by the same last’ name-Ramone. Forest Hills is known as a nice middle class neighborhood. With their long hair, motorcycle jackets and hard looks, they are the bane of the local chamber of commerce.

Their sound is raw. Big Apple interpretations of surf music, 90 mph power chords and a bottom line that sounds like the F train express that roars through Forest Hills.

Their songs are not the stuff of top-40 radio, not with titles like “Blitzkrieg Bop,” “Beat on the Brat,” and “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue.” Critics call them raw and primitive. Record company executives smirk about the band’s commercial potential. Everybody is putting down the Ramones but their fans, who are too busy jumping around and dancing.

The Ramones prove to be the perfect antidote to the disco madness sweeping the nation. There is no pretense to the act. You can call the Ramones many things, but you have to call them honest. They stay true to their sound􀂯 winning a large, loyal following.

Ramone singles are soon being played on the radio. Progressive FM stations, but radio nonetheless. Roger Corman, the king of the “B” movie producers puts them in a movie, Rock’n’Roll High School. The Ramones are the heroes of high school kids fighting · authoritarian school regimes. The film becomes a staple of midnight movies.

A question goes through the mind of an original fan: Will success spoil The Ramones?

Summer, 1981. The Ramones pull into Atlanta on the middle leg of a national tour to promote their latest alb.um, Pleasant Dreams.

They come on stage to the theme song from The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, and blast right into “Do You Remember Rock ‘N’ Roll Radio,” “Do You Wanna Dance” and “Blitzkrieg Bop.” Non-stop .music; a guitar solo here, a drum break there; but the show remains pretty much the same. With the exception of drummers (Marky replaced Tommy a few years back) the concert is little different from those of six years ago.

For that matter, the act is probably not different from when their audience consisted of neighborhood kids peeking at them rehearsing in a garage. The Ramones still carry that garage-band rawness with them. That goodtime feeling that comes when a bunch of kids gets together to bash out some chords to escape the teen-age blues.

 Backstage at the Agora, bass player Dee Dee Ramone is questioned on how the act has managed to remain unchanged in the last six years. Is there any chance of something new evolving?

“No way,” he answers. It might get better, but it wouldn’t be much different. You’ll never see us with three girls singing harmony, or a horn section or anything like that.”

Although changes aren’t apparent he stresses that there has been growth. “It’s more intense now,” he says, defending his band. “The basic approach is the same. We’re hardened professionals now, then we were blatant amateurs.”

He’s told that the band still has the energy and enthusiasm that distinguishes blatant amateurs. How has the band kept it?

“It’s harder to hold on to. It takes a lot of soul-searching and a lot of stubbornness,” he replies. “We’re such a raw, basic sound. It seems like a perfect foundation to build on. People don’t know that we like it this way, that everything is stripped down on purpose. You have to fight tooth-and-nail to keep it like this.”

Singer Joey is next in line for questioning. He fields a query on whether he thinks that the punk label hurt the band.

“It never hurt us,” he answers. Then, well, “It might have hurt us at the beginning of our career, but we’ve never considered ourselves punk. We’ve always considered ourselves to be a rock ‘n’ roll band.”

A band whose members are approaching their 30s. Is it getting more difficult to write teen-age anthems while staring the big three-oh in the face?

He gives a grin. “It’s just always being a kid in your mind. It’s all in how you think. Age is what people make of it. It’s all in your head, how you take care of yourself.”

The Ramones might be the oldest teen-age gang on Earth. They have avoided growing-up successfully. As long as they can get up on a stage in front of a cheering audience and give that audience hard and fast rock ‘n’ roll, they will never enter the hum-drum adult world.

If you run into Peter Pan, tell him to get out of that Robin Hood suit of his. It’s definitely behind the times. If he wants to retain his youth, tell him to get a black leather jacket and learn how bash out power chords at rap1d f1re. Somewhere down the line, the band might need some reinforcements. With his attitude, I’m sure Mr. Pan could make the transition to Petey Ramone quite easily