CBGB's - Closing October 31, 2006

[Doug Gilmour]

CBGB's is closing. The famous NYC nightclub/bar credited for giving birth to punk-rock, is being forced to close on October 31, 2006 due to lease and contractual issues.

The club has been home to such famous artists as Television, Patti Smith, The Ramones, John Cale, Lou Reed, Blondie, Talking Heads, Pere Ubu, any many underground American punk bands of the mid-1970s. Later on bands such as The Jam, Guns 'N Roses, and Yo La Tengo, The Strokes, Devendra Banhart, and many others also played there.

The influence the club had was immense, and whether you like the genre or not, this was an important place and a musical landmark. Malcolm McLaren used what he saw at CBGB's to mould the 'Pistols around. A place with such cultural and musical significance should be turned into a music museum, not being closed down, very sad.

Pitchfork Media Article
An interesting site I ran across - Save CBGBs.

-Dan

 

[VousDew]

See, kids? This is what happens when you don't pay your rent.

Oh well, at least we'll have the T-shirts.

 

[Doug Gilmour]

Oh well, at least we'll have the T-shirts.

Yeah, I think I'll be placing an order for one soon.

Has anyone here actually visited the club? I've never been to NYC myself...

-Dan

 

[lobotomy]

HERE is some more info.

 

[iPod Master]

Man... I've never been there, but I've been outside it... haha. And well, one of my favorite bands was scheduled to play there last month (DragonForce), but it got cancelled. They had a signing and meet and greet instead, but I wasn't allowed to go... I guess CBGB isnt the safest place around either...

 

[papayaninja]

It is going to reopen at a different place. It won't be the same, no, but if it remains open for another 30 years I'm sure eventually it will have just as much meaning as the original.

 

[Doug Gilmour]

It is going to reopen at a different place. It won't be the same, no, but if it remains open for another 30 years I'm sure eventually it will have just as much meaning as the original.

Being rebuilt, yes, but that's not my point. My point is that such a building is a musical landmark of the modern age, not just a venue. The fact that entire concerts and websites have been made in a means to keep it running where it is and how it is, is a testament to how much it has done for music and culture. NYC even included a ten-second piece on it in their 2012 Olympic bid video for the IOC. It's an icon of underground expression that translated into the birth of a huge genre which took not only NY by storm, but the UK as well. And if you want to continue that causality perspective - would post-punk exist without punk? Debatable...

It can be rebuilt in Las Vegas (seems to be the most popular idea), yet I don't think it will hold anything near the same cultural significance around casinos and other forms of extravagant entertainment than it did as a dingy nightclub in downtown NYC for new emerging young talents that came to express themselves.

-Dan