End of a Punk-Rock Institution Whose Attitude Won't Die
By JON PARELES
Published: October 16, 2006
Just after 1 a.m. on Monday morning, the last notes of live music rang from the stage of CBGB & OMFUG, the Bowery club where punk-rock invented itself. Patti Smith finished the club's final concert with her ballad "Elegie," growing teary-eyed as she read a list of dead punk-rock musicians and advocates. But just before it, she had worked up a galvanizing crescendo -- from poetry recitation to rock song to guitar-charged incantation -- in a medley of "Horses" and "Gloria," proclaiming with a triumphant rasp, "Jesus died for somebody's sins/But not for CBGB's."
The songs came from her debut album, "Horses," which was released in 1975, when Ms. Smith and CBGB were making each other famous. She was a poet turned rocker, tapping and then redoubling the energy she found in basic three-chord songs. The club -- its initials mean Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers -- was a hangout in a dire location. But its owner, Hilly Kristal, agreed to book artistically ambitious, high-concept, generally primitivist bands that defied the commercial imperatives of early-1970's rock. It was a neighborhood place in a low-rent neighborhood that happened to house artists and derelicts side by side, inspiring some hard-nosed art. During her set, Ms. Smith described CBGB as, "This place that Hilly so generously offered to us to create new ideas, to fail, to make mistakes, to reach new heights."
In some ways CBGB, which opened in December 1973, ended its life as it had started. It never moved from its initial location, which was originally under a Bowery flophouse, now a homeless shelter. It never changed its floor plan, with a long bar lit by neon beer signs on the way to an uneven floor, a peeling ceiling, a peculiarly angled stage and notorious bathrooms. Through the years, the sound system was improved until its clean roar could make any power chord sound explosive. Mostly, however, CBGB just grew more encrusted: with dust, with band posters stuck on every available surface, with bodily fluids from performers and patrons. Ms. Smith did some casual spitting of her own during her set.
Monday, October 16, 2006
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10 comments:
Had any of the Offmen ever been there?
good question. Cant say I have.
Nor have I.
I've never even been to NYC other than passing through JFK and LaGuardia airports. As for CBGB, I did like a lot of the music that came out of there.
When I think of CBGB's I think of the great Ramones.
never been to NYC,
I had no idea that shit is as old as me
Ok, don't mean to be an anal retentive stick in the mud, but somehow I find it hard to romanticize about a place that is known for being half falling apart with absolutely disgusting "oh my god do I really have to pee that bad" bathrooms and "bodily fluids" from patrons and performers spitting and pissing on each other. YUCK! I think I am glad I have never been there; it's not like that is the only place at which those people performed. Give me a show at the Metro or Vic over that anytime.
I definitley think CBGBs is punk rock legend and deserves to be held with such respect. I am sure the place was unclean and not kept up well, but that makes it even more punk rock. The bands that came out of there were dirty....
yea D, cause the Metro can's were so pleasant.
The girlie girls weren't too bad @ the Metro. my point is, I know great music came from CBGB's, and for that platform, I give them props. but c'mon, the way the article is presented, they're all nostalgic about the nastiness. does "punk" have to be disgusting to be legit? all I am saying is music, yay!, but I could do without the rest.
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