Callin' it quits

photo: Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Patti Smith, one of the first musicians to play at CBGB in the 1970’s, arrived for the last concert at the famed East Village club.


I'm a bit behind the curve on this story I realize, but that doesn't make it any less important. A period was put on the sentence of a very important chapter in the history of modern music as CBGB closed this past week. The famed New York city nightclub, opened in 1973, was the cradle that many of the most important bands of my lifetime got started: Talking Heads, The Ramones, Television, Blondie, Patti Smith and Sonic Youth.

I saw the club in person in 1995. It was closed that day so I couldn't see the famed stage. My friend Peter played their last fall with his Mobile childhood friends Pascal and Lauren Balthrop with their band. Like Birmingham's The Nick, the place didn't look like a lot from outside, but the history behind those doors is legendary. Looking back at film footage has always made me wish I could time travel back to the mid- to late- seventies to see these Debbie Harry and David Byrne before anyone really knew the impact they would make on the world.

Owner Hilly Kristal says he is considering reopening the club in Las Vegas which clearly shows that he is too demented to make sound business judgements. Long live CBGB -- the East Village version of course.

The funniest irony about CBGB is that its intials stand for country, bluegrass and blues, the type of music Kristal was trying to attract when he opened the club. It was known for none of these genres.

At the closing night Patti Smith summed it up well, "This place is not a temple ... CBGB's is a state of mind."

Straight from the source, the New York Times covered the story very nicely.

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