...Then Again

Here is another essay I wrote for my English 104 class. If I remember correctly, the assignment was to write a short essay about an iconic place/structure, etc. that played an important role in our life. I think the Professor thought that he would get lots of school, church, amusement park, etc. types of examples. Naive old man. Before the Professor read each students essay out loud to the class, I can still remember the facial expressions as he quickly read the opening paragraph to himself before speaking out loud. Some of the essays were simply horrendous, while others were quite good. I distinctly recall the pained look on his face when he reached my essay and realized that he would be forced to say the word "fucking" out loud. This was, after all, a conservative Catholic University in Pennsylvania and I didn't fit in too well. But I laughed. The entire class laughed. And I received an "A" on the paper. A little background...

When I moved to NYC in Summer 1979, I was like a kid in a candy shop--never had I experienced the sights and sounds that accompanied such a large city for any appreciable length of time. My father was (and still is) a Jehovah's Witness (I'm not) and was rather restrictive in his "house rules"--like "If you want to go to College, you will have to do so on your own" and "if you leave this house, don't expect to come running back if you fail." Being 17 years old at the time I naturally thought I could handle life on its own terms and moved out. As you can see, I hadn't experienced much of life outside of my peaceful little steel-town. And as you can imagine, I had alot of catching up to do when I left my childhood home and arrived in NYC--CBGBs being the first.

For those of you that had the great privilege of experiencing CBGBs, I salute you and simply remind you to stay up-to-date on your tetanus shots. For those of you that didn't have the opportunity to visit CBGBs, I say "sorry," it closed October 2006. There was not--and will never be--another place like CBGBs; plywood stage, beer-soaked floors, barely functioning bathrooms, loaded with freaks, etc. But CBGBs was unique. CBGB was located in the Bowery, a section of NYC that at the time few sane people ventured, but is now a trendy and desirous area of Manhattan. During any particular week you would be just as likely to see slamming punk-rockers such as The Ramones, Richard Hell and The Void-Oids, and Blondie and you would folksy acts like Elly Greenberg or the Wretched Refuse String Band. It was cool. And people accepted each other for who they were. No pretentiousness allowed--it would be just as likely to see a Wall Street broker as you would a member of Hell's Angels. And I think that is part of the reason I was attracted to CBGBs, for one of the few times in my life I felt like I actually "belonged" to something bigger than myself. Of course I was 17, so what did I know. The time I spent at CBGBs was short--but fun. I drank massive amounts of alcohol, got laid for the first time behind CBGBs, ran out of money by October of that year, kicked out of College and then my life drastically changed--but that's a story for another blog.


So here it is...

“CBGB: How Fucking Refreshing”


The above quote, by Ann Marlowe, Village Voice reporter, sums up her feelings on one of America’s most notorious and famous clubs, CBGB. America is filled with iconic structures that bear ideological significance to its citizens. While some may not carry as much notoriety or be as widely popular as others, their importance in the development of American culture is just as striking. New York City’s music club, CBGB is one of those structures.

Considering the distinguished place that music takes in our society, its not surprising that a club like CBGB’s has become a symbol of music’s influence on our society as a whole. More than just a building or institution, its internal operations have given birth to new music genres and trends for almost thirty years, the likes of which may have never had a voice without it.

Music has been the modeling clay of American culture as far back as recorded history goes. From the promiscuity of the Jazz Age to Elvis Presley’s swiveling hips, the music scene has imparted a dramatic impact on our society. But this kind of sway doesn’t control a society on its own. It needs an avenue of some sort to feed its influential components to the masses, hungry for the independent and unrestrained conviction that comes in the form of music. That’s where iconic institutions like CBGB’s take their prominence.

CBGB is a club renowned for its role in taking less-than-acclaimed bands and their cutting edge music styles and turning hem into well known and sought after public images. CBGB’s creator Hilly Kristal is often asked what his club’s name means. He tells them, “It stands for the kind of music I intended to have, but not the kind that we became famous for” (Kristal). CBGB stands for Country Blue Grass Blues.

There is actually more to the acronym, which includes OMFUG, meaning Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers. And what is a Gormandizer? It’s a veracious eater of, in this case, music. Kristal says that he opened the club to showcase the music styles of country, bluegrass and blues, but it actually became the show grounds for those and much more.

In a 1975 review article for NME, Charles Shaar Murray described the club like this-“CBGB is a toilet. An impossibly scuzzy little club buried somewhere in the sections of the Village that the cab drivers don’t like to drive through” (Murray). A thorough reading of the article proves that Murray’s relatively pessimistic opening line was actually an incredible compliment to a club that, after only two years running, was bringing in headliners from all over America’s music underground.
While the headliners have changed over the last twenty-odd years, the club itself has changed very little. Describing the physical attributes of the club is like detailing the least of its attributes, but its necessary to fully understand the whole aura of CBGB’s club scene.

In an editorial profile, Kerry Burke describes CBGB’s atmosphere: “CBGB has the ruined charm of a blighted biker’s bar” (Burke). Such a description lends itself to the darkened image of a smoke filled saloon lined with bearded malcontents, ready for a rumble. But CBGB’s has always been more than that. Instead of the rumble, society’s restless have waited patiently at this club for the next wave of music that would imitate or fashion their ideals.

Burke goes on to detail the club’s marred walls, plastered with the posters of bands from years gone by, their personal signatures and anecdotes a legacy of the club’s groundbreaking and influential past. One can hardly compare the pristine walls of newly erected venues across the country with the nostalgic persuasions of CBGB’s “graffittied” walls.

The club’s most descriptive element, a “long narrow bar” is, according to Burke, “lit overhead by old neon beer signs and crowded by a raised platform that gives pool players and table customers a better view of the plywood-pile stage in back” (Burke). Regardless of whether the club’s dance floor contains a discriminating rock crowd or “a mosh pit in full pummel,” (Burke) the club introduces each band approximately every hour on the half-hour once the doors open.

The club itself has a crowd capacity of 350. In his editorial, Burke almost complains about the club’s less-than-complimentary view of the band platform: “Unless the joint is half empty, CBGB’s narrow width limits unobscured sightlines, even from the club’s rear raised platform. Downfront on the dance floor/ mosh pit is the only place for a clear shot at the band” (Burke).

Surprisingly, such physical limitations have done little to keep the crowds away, a clear indication that it's the music that the customer wants, unlike the throngs that fight for front row seating at boy-toy concerts by the likes of the Back Street Boys and N’Sync.

CBGB’s has always catered to innovative music styles and eclectic new bands. Genres like punk, thrash, and indie-rock formed their popularity here and the bands that played these styles gained their popularity by playing gigs at the club. Without a doubt, the majority of bands that played and still play at CBGB’s aren’t headliners but the club still made and makes room for the likes of Patti Smyth, Juliana Hatfield, and Sonic Youth (Burke).

Players like the Ramones, the Talking Heads, and Television have a unique association with CGBG. These are groups that were obviously out of the mainstream when they started, but CBGB’s has a way of putting bands like these in the forefront. It’s not presumptuous to suggest that CBGB’s gave them the credibility needed to be recognized by mainstream music listeners, not to mention mega exposure.

The club’s current gigs include groups such as Eager Meat, Sour, Evil Adam, and Root Philosophy. But don’t let the names fool you (CBGB). CBGB’s knows what music lovers want regardless of the names that bands chose to present themselves with. And it almost stands to reason that the more unusual the name, the more versatile and inventive the band.

In Murray’s 1975 review for NME. He described CBGB’s unique clientele with the same veiled homage that he described CBGB’s physical atmosphere: “The audience, who consist mainly of nondescript urban hippies, a smattering heav-vy street bro’s, rock intelligentsia and the occasional confused tourist, are reveling in the tack and basking in their own hipness just for being there” (Murray).

CBGB’s audience hasn’t changed much since then. The club CBGB’s “musicians, tourists, and friends of the bands” (Murray) are still there. Consider the fact that the urban hippies have been replaced by today’s yippies and by even more but “less confused” tourists, and the club is still the iconic structure it has always been.

CBGB is no longer just the meeting grounds for the music industry’s wayward bands and burgeoning music styles. It is all that and much more for both music lovers and the band’s that typically choose the “road less traveled.”

For the next century, CBGB has moved on to bigger and better ventures to move America’s alternative music scene into the limelight. Hilly Kristal, the club’s founder has partnered with Genya Raven to form the superlative indie, funk, punk, hardcore, and above all, refractory and self-contained record label-CBGB’s Records Ltd. (Interview). Yes, now we can all be stars at CBGB’s. What has been the stepping-stone to alternative music greatness for almost three decades, CBGB’s is, to an even greater degree, continuing its dedication to music’s underground and at the same time maintaining its influence on the ideologies of our American Society.











Works Cited

Burke, Kerry. CBGB. Editorial Profile. [Online]
Available: http://www.newyork.citysearch.com/E/V/NYCNY/0010/73/87/.

CBGB. [Online] Available: http://www.cbgb.com/club front page.htm.

“Interview: Making A Commitment to Artistic Integrity”. [Online]
Available: http://www.gumguy.com/cbgb.html

Kristal, Hilly. “The History of CBGB & OMFUG”. [Online]
Available; http://www.cbgb.com/history1.htm.

Murray, Charles Shaar. “Shots From the Hip”. The NME reviews a 1975 CBGB’s show.[Online] Available: http://www.netaxs.com/~rzepelaa/csm1.html.