CbGb's!

Just wondering why in the world the city of New York is standing by idly as a true Rock and Roll icon is being dismantled before their very eyes? Good lord, next thing we%26#39;ll be hearing is the Empire State building is being taken down so they can build a parking garage! Damn, what a cultural faux paus.

CbGb's!

While I personally agree it%26#39;s a terrible loss, the world didn%26#39;t stand idly by. (When you say ';the city of New York,';, if you mean the municpal government, I don%26#39;t they were interested or saw any reason to get involved. Three words: Orignal Penn Station. )

www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON004.htm

If you mean, the people who live here, FYI the fighting, fundraising, debates, negotiations, protests, suits, countersuits and counter-countersuits have been ongoing for at least 2 years. If there hadn%26#39;t been, the landlord would have closed it down at least a year ago.

Since no music star who benefited from CBGBs or philanthropist came through (or was permitted) to buy it, closing CBGBs and moving it to Las Vegas became a mutually acceptable escape route of a horribly sticky mess for both the landlord and CBGB%26#39;s owner.

P.S. ';Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and, ultimately, deserves. Even when we had Penn Station, we couldn’t afford to keep it clean. We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tinhorn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build but by those we have destroyed.';

- ';Farewell to Penn Station,'; New York Times editorial, October 30, 1963

CbGb's!

Some websites that show the support, fundraisers, protests, etc:

http://www.punknews.org/labels/cbgb

http://savecbs.blogspot.com/

mtv.com/news/…

www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi…

p.s. one of the best things about this dispute is the first names of the primary parties: Muzzy (Rosenblatt) vs Hilly (Cristal)

New York Times

October 17, 2006

Music

Fans of a Groundbreaking Club Mourn and Then Move On

nytimes.com/2006/10/17/arts/music/17cbgb.html

By JON PARELES

Just after 1 on Monday morning, the last notes of live music rang from the stage of CBGB %26amp; 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 in the previous song 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,” 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.”

It was no surprise that real estate values finally caught up with CBGB. The wonder was that so much came out of one decrepit bar, and that CBGB lasted as long as it did.

In some ways CBGB, which opened in December 1973, ended its life as it had started. The club 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 lighted 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.

But in a historical long shot, CBGB got lucky. The concepts of bands booked there turned out to be durable ones: Ms. Smith’s blunt, visionary and primal songs; Talking Heads’ nervously oblique funk; and especially the Ramones’ terse, blaring, catchy tunes, which came to define punk-rock. Having nurtured bands like those, and later post-punk bands from Sonic Youth to Living Colour, CBGB became a rock landmark. Its reputation grew strong enough to coast on. Even as its regular bookings grew far less selective through the 1990’s and 2000’s, every now and then a big-name band would play there as a pilgrimage.

Yet CBGB remained a neighborhood joint. The club’s last show wasn’t some stage-managed, all-star sendoff destined to be a television special (although it was broadcast live on Sirius satellite radio). It was just two sets by Ms. Smith with her band and two guests: Flea, the bassist from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Richard Lloyd, one of the two guitarists in Television, the band whose early gigs defined CBGB.

Ms. Smith’s sets included Television’s “Marquee Moon,” with Mr. Lloyd, and songs from other CBGB bands: Blondie’s hit “The Tide is High,” the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer” and a Ramones medley sung by her guitarist, Lenny Kaye, who changed the lyrics of “Do You Remember Rock ’n’ Roll Radio?” from “It’s the end of the century” to “It’s the end of CBGB.” Ms. Smith was ignoring one of Mr. Kristal’s early conditions for CBGB bands — that they perform only their own songs — but forgivably.

Punk-rock never promised that it was built to last. The songs always seemed ready to self-destruct; simple and brief, they were often just three chords and a burst of frustration or pugnacity or humor. Some of the musicians were self-destructive, too. Yet punk, as codified by the Ramones, has turned out to fulfill some perennial adolescent need, and it persisted. Bands kept coming along and embracing it, some lasting just long enough for a few local gigs, and possibly a set on one of CBGB’s nightly septuple bills, and others becoming the first step for musicians who would go on to bigger things. Punk infiltrated a suburban underground in the 1980’s, created its own do-it-yourself circuit and eventually emerged as million-selling punk-pop in the 1990’s. Improbably, CBGB persisted, too: an institution built on music that originally sought to topple institutions.

It’s a shame to lose any working club in New York City with so much history and, even rarer, such outstanding sound. The prospect of a recreated CBGB in Las Vegas, even with original artifacts, can’t make up for it; Las Vegas isn’t in the neighborhood. But CBGB did its job so well that it created its own competition and heirs. Bands whose music is based on what came out of CBGB in the 1970’s perform everywhere from the Mercury Lounge to Madison Square Garden. The closing of CBGB is the end of a lovable chunk of New York City real estate, but it’s far from the end of an era. After a yearlong goodbye — since CBGB’s disputes with its landlord, the nonprofit Bowery Residents’ Committee, first surfaced in 2005 — too much mourning is unnecessary.

“Kids, they’ll find some other club,” Ms. Smith insisted during her set. They’ll find a place, she continued, “that nobody wants, and you got one guy who believes in you, and you just do your thing. And anybody can do that, anywhere in the world, any time.”

After her set was over, and the club had partly cleared out, Ms. Smith returned to the stage for a silent postscript. As fans held up outstretched hands, Ms. Smith reached into a bag and handed out little black pins. They read, “What remains is future.”

October 16, 2006

CBGB Hosts Last Concert Before Eviction

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:33 p.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) -- The final chords reverberated off the black, sticker-covered walls of CBGB as the grungy, iconic club toasted the end of its 33-year residence in New York. Rock poet Patti Smith headlined the Sunday night concert, CBGB%26#39;s last before eviction by its landlord -- the Bowery Residents Committee, a homeless advocacy group that owns the property. The club will close Oct. 31.

Hundreds of music fans packed the small downtown club Sunday, while reporters hovered outside. The mood was both somber and raucous at CBGB, hailed by many as the birthplace of punk.

%26#39;%26#39;This place is not a ... temple,%26#39;%26#39; Smith said during the concert. %26#39;%26#39;It is what it is.%26#39;%26#39;

She refused to wax nostalgic, instead claiming at a pre-show news conference that doubled as a sound check that %26#39;%26#39;CBGB%26#39;s is a state of mind%26#39;%26#39; that will carry on elsewhere for a new generation. She later noted with relish that CBGB, at 33, was the same age as Jesus.

Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea surprised the audience, joining Smith%26#39;s band for much of her second set. Having turned 44 at midnight, he was treated to a loud, enthusiastic %26#39;%26#39;Happy Birthday%26#39;%26#39; by the band and crowd.

Much of the concert was filled with reminders of changed times. Sirius Satellite Radio broadcast the show live, and digital cameras populated the audience.

Nevertheless, Smith often struck a %26#39;60s vibe, urging change and awareness of issues such as the disputed treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. She sang covers of the Who%26#39;s %26#39;%26#39;My Generation%26#39;%26#39; and the Rolling Stones%26#39; %26#39;%26#39;Gimme Shelter%26#39;%26#39; with obvious parallels to CBGB.

The club was founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973 and over the years helped spawn the careers of such acts as the Ramones, Blondie, the Talking Heads and Television. Though its glory days are long gone, it has remained a symbolic fixture on the Manhattan music scene.

The crowd paid tribute to many of the bands forever connected to the club -- including several chants of %26#39;%26#39;Hey ho, let%26#39;s go!%26#39;%26#39; from the Ramones%26#39; classic %26#39;%26#39;Blitzkrieg Bop.%26#39;%26#39;

Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads were on hand, as was E Street Band guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt, who had battled to keep the club open during the protracted dispute over its future.

The Bowery Residents Committee%26#39;s decision not to renew CBGB%26#39;s lease when it ran out in August 2005 sparked protests, tributes and vigils for more than a year. Kristal recently gave up his legal fight to stay.

Though weary from his battle with lung cancer, he remains combative about his club%26#39;s exodus from the Bowery, and said Sunday he was %26#39;%26#39;very disappointed%26#39;%26#39; in Mayor Michael Bloomberg for not saving the club.

Still, he says he remains focused on %26#39;%26#39;generating the energy%26#39;%26#39; for CBGB, which he plans to move to Las Vegas. It%26#39;s very much alive as a brand, too. Kristal will transplant its store, CBGB Fashions, to a new location a few blocks away on Nov. 1.

%26#39;%26#39;I%26#39;m thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and going on to do more with CBGB%26#39;s,%26#39;%26#39; Kristal said Sunday.

Frantz said he and his wife, Weymouth, had to attend the finale because CBGB is like the %26#39;%26#39;center of gravity for us.%26#39;%26#39; He reflected on the club where the Talking Heads got their big break.

%26#39;%26#39;It just had a super cool ambiance or electric vibe ... even though it was pretty much a dump,%26#39;%26#39; Frantz said.

With a capacity of barely 300, CBGB was founded as a place of freedom for different musical acts. Smith said Kristal %26#39;%26#39;always gave us a job, just like tonight.%26#39;%26#39;

%26#39;%26#39;He was our champion and in those days, there were very few,%26#39;%26#39; she added.

Though its letters stand for the music Kristal originally planned to present there -- country, bluegrass and blues -- it quickly came to represent the physical epicenter of early punk and the storied downtown scene of 1970s New York.

Smith%26#39;s final encore was a quiet poem listing many of the musicians who have died in the years since they played CBGB, but perhaps the more fitting send-off came right before it. The band played the punk staple %26#39;%26#39;Gloria,%26#39;%26#39; verging back and forth between choruses of %26#39;%26#39;Gloria! G-L-O-R-I-A!%26#39;%26#39; and %26#39;%26#39;Hey ho, let%26#39;s go!%26#39;%26#39;

The crowd shook its fists high for the Ramones%26#39; classic -- an anthem to CBGB and so much more.

Maybe if Hilly had paid his back rent - nearly $80,000 - it would never had come to this. The owner of the building is a non-profit organization that does some of the best work in the city for NY%26#39;s homeless population. He%26#39;s moving the club lock, stock and disgusting toilets to Las Vegas, where he will certainly make millions off this ';icon.';