Remembering a Rock Music Icon CBGB
Underground Rock Club was the Hottest Ticket in New York City
Nov 18, 2008
Few music venues can claim the kind of reputation that New York’s CBGB enjoyed. In its 33 year history thousands of bands performed for the hoards that packed the tiny club every week. And when it closed its doors in 2006 a chapter in the evolution of live music ended with it.
From Country Bluegrass to Punk Rock
When the Club opened in December 1973 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan its owner Hilly Kristal intended to feature Country Bluegrass Blues music, hence the acronym CBGB. But it didn’t take long for the new wave of rock bands to gravitate to this seedy, virtually derelict venue whose only stipulation was its acts played original material.
The performance space was challenging, cramped and claustrophobic, the air thick with cigarette smoke and the sweat of tightly packed bodies. Its damp walls (from the leaking pipes above the Club) and the derelicts and drug dealers that prowled Bowery and Bleecker Streets, added to the Club’s alternative stance. It was a fitting place for the birth of punk rock in New York.
The Ramones Television and Blondie
CBGB’s stage played host to bands that would become icons to a musical genre. The Ramones, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads and the Patti Smith Group all honed their skills at CBGB.
In 1975 Patti Smith signed her first record deal with Arista after being spotted at the Club where her band was the support act to Television. That same year her legendary Horses album was released and the Patti Smith Group did a seven week residency at the Club.
NME journalist Charles Shaar Murray saw the Patti Smith Group perform. In his 1975 review he said that Smith could “generate more intensity with a single movement of one hand than most rock performers can produce in an entire set…(she) embodied everybody that I’ve ever dug on a rock and roll stage.”
From Talking Heads to The Police
As CBGB’s reputation spread the crowd at the Club began to broaden. It was nothing for artist Andy Warhol, musician Lou Reed, and Beat Generation writer Allen Ginsberg to be in the audience especially when Patti Smith took the stage.
Other bands like Talking Heads attracted a different audience. On the nights they played the Club would be filled with friends of the band members all of whom were art school graduates.
But it was when the Club hosted its own event, ‘A Festival of the Top 40 New York Rock Bands’, in 1975 that CBGB’s got on the radar of the new music press including Rolling Stone magazine and its popularity increased. Hilly started to field calls from bands outside of New York.
As the years rolled on bands like The Police and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers also took the stage on their way to mega stardom.
CBGB Farewells New York
Throughout its history CBGB managed to stay relevant and keep the music fresh. There were protests when Hilly declared he had to close the Club and its merchandise store. With thousands of dollars in back rent due and a lease that wouldn’t be renewed Hilly knew CBGB’s days were numbered. With his health deteriorating (he died in 2007 from lung cancer) it seemed inevitable that this iconic venue would be relegated to the annals of history.
Many artists who had performed at the Club in the past took the stage in its final weeks. Debbie Harry returned as did Patti Smith who was the final act. Her last words on that famous stage were “33 years. The same age as Jesus. Goodnight everybody”.
On October 16, 2006 CBGB closed forever.
