CBGB

"CB's"
The front facade of CBGB, ca. 2005
Address	315 Bowery
Location	Manhattan, New York
Coordinates	40°43′31″N 73°59′31″W / 40.72528°N 73.99194°W / 40.72528; -73.99194Coordinates: 40°43′31″N 73°59′31″W / 40.72528°N 73.99194°W / 40.72528; -73.99194
Type	Music venue
Genre(s)	Punk rock, bluegrass, blues, country
Opened	1973
Closed	2006
Owner	Hilly Kristal
Website	www.cbgb.com

CBGB (Country, BlueGrass, and Blues) was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.

Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the Patti Smith Group, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, The Dictators, The Fleshtones, The Voidoids, The Cramps, Blondie, The Shirts, and Talking Heads. In later years, it would mainly become known for Hardcore punk with bands such as U.S. Chaos, Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law, Cro-Mags, Warzone, Gorilla Biscuits, Sick of It All, and Youth of Today becoming synonymous with the club.

The storefront and large space next door to the club served as the "CBGB Record Canteen" (record shop and cafe) for many years. Eventually, in the late eighties, the record store was closed and replaced with a second performance space and art gallery, named "CB's 313 Gallery". The gallery went on to showcase many popular bands and singer-songwriters who played in a musical style more akin to acoustic rock, folk, jazz, or experimental music, such as Dadadah, Toshi Reagon, and The Shells, while the original club continued to present mainly hardcore bands and post-punk, metal, and alternative rock acts.^[1][2]

The club closed in October 2006. The final concert was performed by Patti Smith on October 15.^[3] CBGB Fashions (the CBGB store, wholesale department, and online store) stayed open until October 31 at 315 Bowery. On November 1, 2006, CBGB Fashions moved to 19-23 St. Mark's Place, but it subsequently closed in the summer of 2008.

CBGB Radio launched on the iheartradio platform in 2010 and a music festival in 2012.^[4]

Founding[link]

CBGB, a then-little-known rock club, was founded in December 1973, on the site of Kristal's earlier bar, Hilly's on the Bowery, which he ran from 1969 to 1972. Originally, Kristal had focused on his more profitable West Village nightspot, Hilly's, but complaints from the bar's neighbors forced Hilly's to close, leading its owner to concentrate on the Bowery club. The full name is CBGB & OMFUG which stands for "Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers"*. Gormandizer (gourmand) usually means a ravenous eater of food, but according to Kristal here it means "a voracious eater of ... music".^[5] The club was also affectionately called simply "CB's". As its name implied, Kristal intended the bar to feature country, bluegrass, and blues music (along with poetry readings), but it became famous as the birthplace of the American punk movement. Perhaps most notably, the punk rock pioneers The Ramones had their first shows there.

1970s[link]

In 1973, before Hilly's on the Bowery became CBGB, two locals, Bill Page and Rusty McKenna, convinced Kristal to allow them to book concerts. Although the term "punk rock" was not applied to these acts, Kristal's son believes they helped lay the musical foundation for the bands that followed.^[6] After the Mercer Arts Center collapsed in August 1973, there were few locations in New York where unsigned bands could play original music, and some of the Mercer refugees, including Suicide, The Fast,^[7] Wayne County and the Magic Tramps all played in the very early days of CBGB.

Marky Ramone of the Ramones and Debbie Harry of Blondie attend a screening of Burning Down the House, a 2009 documentary about CBGB's heyday.

At the third Television gig on April 14, 1974, Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye from the Patti Smith Group were in the audience. The band went on to make its own CBGB debut on February 14, 1975. Other early performers included The Stillettos, featuring Deborah Harry, Elda Gentile and Amanda Jones on vocals, and Chris Stein on guitar), who supported Television on May 5, 1974. The newly-formed Blondie (under its original name of Angel & the Snake) and the Ramones both arrived in August 1974. Mink DeVille, Talking Heads, The Shirts, The Heartbreakers, The Fleshtones and many other bands followed in quick succession.

CBGB had only one rule for a band to follow in order to play at the venue: they had to play primarily original music. No cover bands were booked to play there. However, most of the regular bands played one or two covers during their sets. Kristal's son claims the policy was meant to help the club avoid paying ASCAP royalties for the compositions being performed.^[6]

As CBGB's reputation grew, it began to draw more acts from outside New York City. The club hosted the first American gigs by The Police, on October 20 and 21, 1978.

Hardcore punk[link]

Though CBGB was utilized as a hot spot for touring bands to hit when they came through New York, the scene that kept the bar alive during the 1980s was New York's underground hardcore punk scene. Sunday at CBGB was matinee day (also named "thrash day" in a documentary about hardcore).^{[citation needed]} Every Sunday, a handful of hardcore bands took the stage in the afternoon to dinnertime hours, usually for cheap. Bands made famous by matinees include Reagan Youth, Bad Brains, Beastie Boys, Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law, Cro-Mags, Leeway, Warzone, Gorilla Biscuits, Sick of It All, The Misfits, Straight Ahead, and Youth of Today.

Over the years, CBGB's matinee became an institution. In 1990, violence both inside and outside of the venue caused Kristal to refuse to book hardcore shows. However, CBGB later brought hardcore back at various times, and for the last several years of its existence, had no rules about what genres could and could not be featured.

Closing[link]

CBGB after it closed

CBGB the day after

In 2005, a dispute arose between CBGB and the Bowery Residents' Committee.^[8] The Committee billed Kristal $91,000 in back rent, while Kristal claimed he had not been informed of increases in his $19,000 monthly rent.^[9][10] After the lease expired, they reached an agreement for the club to remain for 14 more months while Kristal dropped his legal battles and his attempts to get historic landmark status for the club.

Kristal planned to move the club far from its roots with a new CBGB in Las Vegas, Nevada. The owner planned to strip the current club down to the bare walls, bringing as much of it to Nevada as possible.

"We're going to take the urinals," he said. "I'll take whatever I can. The movers said, 'You ought to take everything, and auction off what you don't want on eBay.' Why not? Somebody will."^[11]

The club finally closed on October 15, 2006. The last week featured multi-night stands by Bad Brains and The Dictators, along with an acoustic set by Blondie. More contemporary acts, such as Avail and The Bouncing Souls, opened shows throughout the week.

The final concert was performed by Patti Smith and broadcast live on Sirius Satellite Radio. Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers attended the show and even performed on a handful of songs with Smith and her band. Television's Richard Lloyd also guested on a few songs, including a reworked version of "Marquee Moon". Toward the end of their set, Smith and her band played "Gloria", paying tribute to the Ramones during the chorus by alternating between the original lyrics and the "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" of "Blitzkrieg Bop". In her final encore, the song "Elegie", Smith read from a list of musicians who had died since they last played at CBGB.

Hilly Kristal died from complications from lung cancer on August 28, 2007. In early October 2007, Kristal's family and friends hosted a private memorial service in the YMCA near the village. Soon after, there was a public memorial where CBGB staff and others paid tribute.

After Kristal's death, his ex-wife, Karen Kristal, and daughter, Lisa Kristal Burgman, engaged in a legal battle over the purported $3 million CBGB estate, settling in June 2009 with Burgman receiving "most" of the money that did not go to creditors and estate taxes.^[12]

The ex CBGB now

Building[link]

On November 2, 2007, it was announced that high-end men's fashion designer John Varvatos would open a store at CBGB's former space at 315 Bowery in early 2008.^[13] Varvatos expressed a desire to "do justice" to CBGB's legacy.^[14] Much of the graffiti covering the toilets was preserved, along with some playbills from the club's 10th anniversary shows in 1983 that were discovered behind a wall.^[15] The store opened in April 2008.^[16]

In February 2008, it was announced that Morrison Hotel, a SoHo art gallery dedicated to music photography, would open a second location in the former CBGB Gallery space next door.^[15] However, in June 2009, it was announced that the Morrison Hotel gallery would close.^[17]

It was also announced that the alley behind the club, officially known as "Extra Place," would be turned into a pedestrian mall. The New York Post quotes Cheetah Chrome of The Dead Boys as saying "If that alley could talk, it's seen it all," and "All of Manhattan has lost its soul to money lords."^[18]

The awning from CBGB can be found in the lobby of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

In popular culture[link]

• Most prominently, CBGB featured in a promotional ad during the bid for New York City to host the Olympic games in 2012.^[19]
• CBGB is featured as the only non-fictional venue in the 2010 rhythm game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. A replica of the club was opened for one night only at Paramount Studios for the game's launch party.^[20]
• Talking Heads, who had strong ties to the area, account for perhaps the most famous lyrical mention of CBGB with the song "Life During Wartime", in the verse "this ain't no Mudd Club or CBGB...". Much later, in a related effort, the club played an overtly prominent role in the song "Punk Lolita" by The Heads, a 1996 collaboration of three former Talking Heads members with various guest vocalists.
• In Bandslam, CBGB is a favorite place of central character William Burton.
• A central character in Spike Lee's 1999 movie, Summer of Sam, Richie, becomes a regular CBGB patron after becoming a punk rocker.
• CBGB is also featured in The Simpsons episode Love, Springfieldian Style, named "Comic Book Guy's Bar".
• In Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Nick and Norah breaks in to the by then closed CBGB.
• In Gilmore Girls, Rory Gilmore's friend Lane Kim's band, Hep Alien, gets booked for a gig at CBGB.

References[link]

Sources[link]

• Beeber, Steven. The Heebie-Jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2006. ISBN 978-1-55652-613-8.
• Brazis, Tamar (ed.). CBGB & OMFUG: Thirty Years from the Home of Underground Rock (1st ed.). New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 2005. ISBN 0-8109-5786-8.
• Heylin, Clinton. From the Velvets to the Voidoids (2nd ed.). Eastbourne, East Sussex: Gardners Books, 2005. ISBN 1-905139-04-7.
• Kozak, Roman. This Ain't No Disco: The Story of CBGB. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1988. ISBN 0-571-12956-0.

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (September 2010)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: CBGB

• Official site
• Concerts held at CBGB's
• Rekindling the Punk Flame - shanatinglipton.com article
• The End of an Era antimusic.com article
• Las Vegas Herald story on club's move
• The Heebie Jeebies at CBGB's - Book
• Between Punk Rock and a Hard Place New York Magazine
• Rock ‘n’ Roll High School NY Times op-ed from Richard Hell
• CBGB Takes Final Bow Before Eviction WCBS TV
• CBGB's Last Hours 2006-11-06 MTV News article about the dismantling of the club
• Glide Magazine: Notable Acts that have played CBGB Glide Magazine
• Punk's had its day at CBGB opentomusic.co.uk
• Varvatos opening party- illustrated report
• CBGB at Tribeca Jarrod Dicker
• CBGB – Virtual tour in 3D

Syd Straw @ Heartwreck 2004

Syd Straw is an American rock singer and songwriter. The daughter of actor Jack Straw (The Pajama Game), she began her career singing backup for Pat Benatar, then took her distinct voice to the indie/alternative scene and joined the Golden Palominos (also including Michael Stipe, Matthew Sweet, and Anton Fier). She released her first album, Surprise, in 1989; it featured contributions by Stipe, Fier, Richard Thompson, Jody Harris, Peter Blegvad, and a number of other well-known musicians. A second album, War and Peace, appeared in 1996. Recorded with a relatively obscure Midwest rock group called the Skeletons, it chronicled a brief and unhappy romance. In 2008, she released a new album, entitled Pink Velour, on her own label, Earnester Records. According to an earlier interview, the title track “is about my family moving back and forth between the east and the west, and my being kidnapped by my mother on Valentine's Day in 1969, and about not seeing my dad for almost seven years.”

A frequent backup singer and contributor to duets with other musicians, Straw has also maintained an intermittent acting career, appearing on the television shows The Adventures of Pete & Pete and Tales of the City. Syd Straw can be heard singing harmony and backing vocals on the Rickie Lee Jones albums Traffic From Paradise and The Evening of My Best Day. She is also featured on Leo Kottke's Peculiaroso, which Jones produced. Straw appears on "What Am I Worth" from the Dave Alvin album King of California. For a number of years she has given an annual "Heartwreck" live performance on Valentine's Day.

In 1994, Straw teamed up with Wilco to contribute the song "The T.B. Is Whipping Me" to the AIDS benefit album Red Hot + Country produced by the Red Hot Organization.

Discography[link]

• Surprise (1989)
• War and Peace (1996)
• Live at the Triple Crown (2001) (with The Adventures Of...)
• Whole Wide World (2005)
• Pink Velour (2008)

Compilation Albums[link]

• "Blue Shadows On The Trail" on Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films, 1988 (one of Various Artists)
• "Meeting Across The River" on The Songs of Bruce Springsteen, 2000

References[link]

• Not The Last Straw (2004 interview)

External links[link]

• Discography: Syd Straw
• Syd Straw Group Fan mailing list
• LAist Interview
• PUNKCAST#397 Video from St Ann's Warehouse, Brooklyn - Feb 14 2004
• PUNKCAST#670 Video from Tonic, NYC - Feb 14 2005

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