MUSIC: CBGB's To Close?

[shivvy]

NME is reporting that the legendary New York City punk club CBGB's may be forced to close later this year. Apparently the owners of the property are making the renewal of the lease a difficult experience and are doubling the rent to $40,000 a month. In addition, the club's owner Hilly Kristal owes $91,000 in back rent. The club also has to spend a large amount of money to bring it up to current safety codes.

Kristal began running the club in 1973. Throughout the decade, the New York punk scene lived at CBGB's --- The Ramones, Blondie, Television, and Patti Smith all were regular performers. NME says that "a consortium of musicians is being formed to help save the venue, but at present no names have been confirmed."

[akip]

i'm kinda surprised it lasted this long. it was pretty smelly even back in '80. :D

but yeah, it's a landmark. spent a few evenings there myself.

[Handy Smurf]

funny, a friend of mine was in NYC 2 weeks ago and went there...itll be goodbye to a haloed ground for punk music I guess

[CablinasianRam]

Shit, this is fucking awful. This is even worse than all the t-shirts that they sell in the mall with the club's name on it. There should be a board bash there later this year to pay tribute.

[rocketman70]

Wow, it that's true, how sad. They should make that place a historical landmark or something.

[Patas]

Some friends of mine played there a couple times. We should all make it a point to try to see a show there if visiting NYC.

[beezlebob]

I think they should just franchise the whole thing out like Planet Hollywood and get bigtime investors like Bono, David Byrne and Michael Stipe and have one in every city.

Just kidding. This is a damn shame.

[slopechz]

Unfortunately rents in the East Village are skyrocketing. Its life in Manhattan which is why I moved to Brooklyn. By the way, Williamsburg Brooklyn is considered the new East Village in many ways.

[beezlebob]

I think they should just franchise the whole thing out like Planet Hollywood and get bigtime investors like Bono, David Byrne and Michael Stipe and have one in every city.

Just kidding. This is a damn shame.


ahhh, here we go! (The Planet Hollywood logo was harder so I opted for a spoof of the Hard Rock)


http://www.sisterplanet.com/woxy/cbgb-cafe.gif

[jdunlevy]

the nytimes has an article here (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/arts/music/07cbgb.html?ex=1110862800&en=1e10d81350f36949&ei=5070)

[Orville Wrong]

i'm kinda surprised it lasted this long. it was pretty smelly even back in '80. :D

but yeah, it's a landmark. spent a few evenings there myself.
Most definitely. It is a smelly hole, but it's our smelly hole.

Saw Lemonheads there when they were still lemony fresh, but it didn't do a thing for the stench.

Goodbye, Country Bluegrass Blues!

[akip]

the nytimes has an article here (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/arts/music/07cbgb.html?ex=1110862800&en=1e10d81350f36949&ei=5070)

very interesting article. same ole tenant-landlord-war-over-insanely-inflated-manhattan-rents theme, except the landlord is a help-the-homeless nonprofit org who wants to charge $40k/mo. rent for space in the "white-hot bowery market."

jeez. i remember when it was just the plain ole crummy bowery.

[akip]

Most definitely. It is a smelly hole, but it's our smelly hole.



yep it was.

[CablinasianRam]

Unfortunately rents in the East Village are skyrocketing. Its life in Manhattan which is why I moved to Brooklyn. By the way, Williamsburg Brooklyn is considered the new East Village in many ways.


Yeah, in fact, Jesse Malin wrote a song about that called "Brooklyn".

[PaleGirl]

I've got a couple of friends who are playing there either this Friday or next... I don't remember! Probably this Friday. (-plug- Ill Revue!! -end plug-) It would be terrible for CBGB's to close before they get a chance to be famous, damnit.

I hope that consortium of musicians will hurry up and support their alma mater.

[elviskitch]

Who cares? Going to CBGB's is like going to the Hard Rock Cafe. Everyone has the T-shirt. So un-original it makes me sick. Unless you were there in 1979, you/we will never ever have the credibility to even speak of it. It's like talking about walking on the moon.

Sorry, owning greatest hits records of the Ramones, Blondie, and the Talking Heads doesn't count.

[Digit1001]

Damn. I like Ramones "Mania". It plays for about 3 hours with 2 minute songs. Guess I'm just not as cool as I hoped.

[akip]

Who cares? Going to CBGB's is like going to the Hard Rock Cafe. Everyone has the T-shirt. So un-original it makes me sick. Unless you were there in 1979, you/we will never ever have the credibility to even speak of it. It's like talking about walking on the moon.

Sorry, owning greatest hits records of the Ramones, Blondie, and the Talking Heads doesn't count.

what's that LCD SS line, "borrowed nostalgia for the 80s?" :D

yeah, it was washed up by '80--everybody had already moved on to the mudd club, etc. but it's okay for the kids to venerate it. the late 70s was nyc's last hurrah as a cutting edge music "incubator" as well as an affordable bohemian mecca. it does 'cause a little pang to see the last vestiges razed.

[Buzzstein]

Who cares? Going to CBGB's is like going to the Hard Rock Cafe. Everyone has the T-shirt. So un-original it makes me sick. Unless you were there in 1979, you/we will never ever have the credibility to even speak of it. It's like talking about walking on the moon.

Sorry, owning greatest hits records of the Ramones, Blondie, and the Talking Heads doesn't count.

oh brother...*rolls eyes*

[CablinasianRam]

Who cares? Going to CBGB's is like going to the Hard Rock Cafe. Everyone has the T-shirt. So un-original it makes me sick. Unless you were there in 1979, you/we will never ever have the credibility to even speak of it. It's like talking about walking on the moon.

Sorry, owning greatest hits records of the Ramones, Blondie, and the Talking Heads doesn't count.

The thing is, CBGBs isn't a cafe or just a t-shirt. The bands playing there today, although derivative, can be considered punk and outside of whatever consumerism the t-shirts have developed.

[Orville Wrong]

Who cares? Going to CBGB's is like going to the Hard Rock Cafe. Everyone has the T-shirt. So un-original it makes me sick. Unless you were there in 1979, you/we will never ever have the credibility to even speak of it. It's like talking about walking on the moon.

Sorry, owning greatest hits records of the Ramones, Blondie, and the Talking Heads doesn't count.
The notion of a chain of dank, vomit-reeking dives with cigarette tar-painted walls, urinals overflowing from syringe clogs and a petulant staff is an interesting concept. Would the Disneyworld franchise be in Discoveryland or Adventureland? Mainstreet USA?

[shivvy]

I was there about 5 years ago and it clearly hadn't been cleaned since 1979...so that instant preservation of the 'funk' has to count for something!

[beezlebob]

The notion of a chain of dank, vomit-reeking dives with cigarette tar-painted walls, urinals overflowing from syringe clogs and a petulant staff is an interesting concept. Would the Disneyworld franchise be in Discoveryland or Adventureland? Mainstreet USA?

Fantasyland. Because people still think it matters if you played there in the last 25 years. Sure it has legendary status but that stopped a long long time ago probably before most of you were even born. Now its just a small piss-soaked bar with mediocre bands and we will miss it anyway but nothing noteworthy has come out of that place in two and a half decades except for the t-shirts.

[postfeminist]

i've never even been to NYC, so i've certainly never been there, but i just wanted to throw out the idea that as the generation of people who were the founders of punk age, and then the generations that follow, there is very little of history that belongs to US. places like this are part of a history that belongs to punk culture, and that's why it sucks that it's closing in my opinion.

ooh, dank pee-soaked nicotine ravaged bars...sounds like my sort of place anyway. :)

[akip]

I was there about 5 years ago and it clearly hadn't been cleaned since 1979...so that instant preservation of the 'funk' has to count for something!

in 1979 it hadn't been cleaned...probably since it first opened, whenever that was, and maybe not even then. take it from me.

[Orville Wrong]

I'd hope the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame would acquire a lot of the fixtures -- particularly the stage, the bar and an interior wall or two. Maybe pipe in a similar funk from somewhere in the Flats. Quite an exhibit that would be.

[Crazycole2001]

If anything to save they need to save the Throne. The amazing toilet exposed in the middle of the grubbiest bathroom known to man.

[turdferguson]

If they close where will the bands playing the music of car commercials twenty years from now get discovered?