CBGB OMFUG Stories

[garytelecastor]

I was never able to hit this club in New York but I heard about it for years. Anybody here ever get there and have a tale or two to tell?
Let's remember to keep it PG, but I would like to read some first person narratives.
This was the equivalent of the Cavern and the Beatles for punk.

[mchet]

Originally Posted by garytelecastor

I was never able to hit this club in New York but I heard about it for years. Anybody here ever get there and have a tale or two to tell?
Let's remember to keep it PG, but I would like to read some first person narratives.
This was the equivalent of the Cavern and the Beatles for punk.

Went there in 1990 to watch a local band from my home town do a showcase, Nothing special happened, but met the sound guy that was filling in at that time (cool guy just off tour from Japan killing time). Can't recall his name now, but I went to Athens, GA to visit with old high school buddy and attended a b-day party for a friend of his at my friends bar. So I am sitting there talking to the b-day boy watching a powerpoint of his pictures and a shot of CBGB's comes up with guess who standing in the back ground? That would be me! Same guy I met all those years ago... Small world...

By the way, had to be the dirtiest hole in the wall bar I EVER paid to get into! Might have been safer going in the ally outside then using the bathroom... Wish it was still around so I could go again!!!!

[EddieN]

Sorry, I only went a few times & no exciting tales to tell. About the most odd thing was I & some friends, all up there from Florida on a vacation, stopped in for a show & ran into another friend from Florida who just happened to be there. Wow!

The bathrooms were as absolutely as bad as you've heard or worse.

[lunchbox]

My experience's are from the early 90's when I stayed in Jersey for while. I saw Suicidal Tendencies and got cracked rib's because the show was completely out of hand. I saw Ice-T w/Body Count, Living Colour, Rollins Band and few others. The place was an absolute dive but it had a killer vibe.

[BritishBluesBoy]

Yup, went there a bunch of times, never played there though. Saw David Byrne there once. That's about it. I'm too young to have been there in it's heyday though... A terrible shame it's gone...

[Bob Mc]

Three distinct memories, not especailly great stories:
1) Trying to 'hold it' rather then use the bathroom (was it ON stage?)
2) How some of us looked; that being long haired, concert T shirt wearing dirtbags from NJ. I've seen footage and it seems like everyone was hip to the punk or hardcore fashions and it just wasn't like that in 77-78.
3) How fast the Ramones played, a set was about 20 minutes I think (I saw two, possibly three shows).
The lens of history, cracked by brain abuse makes it all a funny blur, but I think I had a great great time there.

[JayFreddy]

Having heard so much about CBGB's over the years, I finally made it there on a slow night around '89 or '90. The whole place smelled like a combination of vomit, urine, and pine-sol, in that order. I ordered a shot of whiskey at the bar. As the bartender put the shot glass down, a giant cockroach ran across the bar, about 3 inches from the glass. The bartender acted like nothing happened, and just poured the shot. I drank it.

I know bands who used to play there for free, because they thought it was going to lead to their big break. I don't know any bands that ever got their big break by playing CBGB's for free...

[tomkatf]

Originally Posted by mchet

By the way, had to be the dirtiest hole in the wall bar I EVER paid to get into! Might have been safer going in the ally outside then using the bathroom... Wish it was still around so I could go again!!!!

Your wish is my command!! This is c. 11/78



Of course I can't recreate the smell...



Enjoy!

Best,
Tom

[lunchbox]

Originally Posted by tomkatf

Your wish is my command!! This is c. 11/78



Of course I can't recreate the smell...



Enjoy!

Best,
Tom

I can almost smell it

[Radspin]

I played there twice, in the late 1970s, and yes, the place was, shall we say, not quite as clean and fresh as a McDonalds. I remember being quite apprehensive, thinking something bad might happen to me or my equipment, but it was actually a lot of fun to play in, and a good place to see bands. I found the patrons and staff to be friendlier than a lot of places I played in back in the day, rather than being nasty, copping an attitude and so on as I thought they would be from reading magazine articles and so on-- before I ever actually walked into the place.

In those days the neighborhood was pretty scary--I remember being so paranoid walking from my car to the club that I picked up a broken bottle in case anyone attacked me from the shadows!

One night my friends and I went to see the New York-based band DNA. They played in an extremely loud and dissonant style. However, I managed to nod off and plop my head on the bar during their set (from being tired late at night, not from drinking too much). Later, one of my friends said that none of the bartenders or waitresses tried to wake me--I guess they figured that I added to the atmosphere in the state I was in.

In the late 70's and early '80s I played at a lot of NYC clubs and bars, and CBGB was definitely the funkiest in appearance, not to mention aroma. And yes, the bathroom was something you had to see for yourself to truly believe.

[NEPATelecaster]

Originally Posted by mchet

Went there in 1990 to watch a local band from my home town do a showcase, Nothing special happened, but met the sound guy that was filling in at that time (cool guy just off tour from Japan killing time). Can't recall his name now, but I went to Athens, GA to visit with old high school buddy and attended a b-day party for a friend of his at my friends bar. So I am sitting there talking to the b-day boy watching a powerpoint of his pictures and a shot of CBGB's comes up with guess who standing in the back ground? That would be me! Same guy I met all those years ago... Small world...

By the way, had to be the dirtiest hole in the wall bar I EVER paid to get into! Might have been safer going in the ally outside then using the bathroom... Wish it was still around so I could go again!!!!

Curious...Who/what was the local band? Scranton Area?

[tazzboy]

It went from this



To this sadly

[bo]

Played there twice in the late '80s. Both times we had to leave someone in the van as about every twenty minutes someone tried to break in (well...tried the door handles). It was pretty obvious it was a band van from out of state parked out front. I remember reading a Rolling Stone article about the Ramones from the late '70s and they mentioned the hotel beside CBGBs as being a shooting gallery. You'd think that such a mention might get the city to try and clean that up, but it was still the same situation when I played there.

[MandyMarie]

Bo, literally just hit the nail on the head! My old punk rocker husband could have written that exact post!

When he and his friends talk about CB's it's never in the mystical dreamy sense I once hoped for.

I'd only been there once. I love New York City. St. Mark’s Place. Bowery. Oh how I wanna go!

[insombob]

eh... the Lower East Side ain't what it used to be. Bowery is now home to a bunch of luxury condo buildings. Fratboy investment banker types took over (no offense to those of you that may fall into that category). CBs is now a clothing store... John Varvatos or something? CBs was always a rathole, but the sound was usually really good. Especially onstage, as I recall. Last several years, they were obviously just resting on past laurels, it was rare that anyone all that great would come through there. The last couple weeks before it closed, though, they hosted tons of cool bands, many of whom gave 'em their original notoriety. I still regret not playing Little Steven's "Save CBGBs" show. a last minute invite on a Tuesday. Sounded like the recipe for a bad time. That show, however, was quite cool. Only bands I remember that night were Blondie, The Chesterfield Kings and Ted Leo/Pharmacists.

[bluesfordan]

I went there once, back in 2001. My friend and his wife and I rented an apartment for the Memorial day weekend. Let me tell you, that is the way to stay in NYC if you can do it. way cheaper than a hotel as nice as that place would have cost.

Although we were there to attend the NCAA Mens National Championship LAX games being held in NJ, we did some sightseeing in NYC at night. CBGBs was one of the places we went. Saw three bands there. The 'headliner' was actually pretty decent, the rest were bands that probably had a shelf life of a week or so. I still have a promotional prophylactic package that the headliner put on the tables.

The bathrooms were about what I would have expected for a famous punk club.

[BillyG]

I played there several times in the early 90s and saw Living Colour there when they were opening up for the Rolling Stones at the Meadowlands.

Living Color was at the height of their popularity and the show was unannounced (word of mouth only). I have a few great memories of the place plus, I've got the ubiquitous CBGB T shirt!

[charlie chitlin]

CBGB was a toilet.
I used to go to see friends on nights when something like 6 bands would play.
The funniest thing, though, was in about 1978(79?), a camaraman friend (I think he may have had one of the first/only really good video cameras in NYC) was hired to shoot a performance at CBGB.
He came back ranting and raving about these arrogant, art school, 2 chord, no-talent @$$holes that would never amount to anything.
Of course we laughed and poked fun at them for hours!
Yup...Talking Heads.
We were still all about Jimi, BB, Muddy...it's easy to forget how weird Talking Heads, Devo...even the Pretenders, Cars and Blondie sounded!

[Oster]

I played there in '98. Huge Patti Smith & Television fans we were so it was a thrill to touch the stage that Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell built. Going from Toronto to NYC back then was like going from Kansas to Babylon...maybe it still is. I turned 28 the night we played. That was cool.

We rented a rehearsal space in the warehouse district and I went out for a pop and coming back in held the door open for David Byrne. Fred Schneider of the B52s was upstairs talking to front desk. Velvets reunion poster on the wall.

Had I been 16 or 17 I would've completely flipped out on that tour but by my late 20s I was able to - somewhat - take it all in my stride. I love New York.

[getbent]

Went there several times in 79/80. I was dating an italian girl (from Rome) who would look up at me (she was teensy) and say in her heavy "I would very much like to go to the CBGB's.) and we'd go.. it always smelled really bad (urine, vomit, stale--rotten beer, rotten lettuce smell) but, a little perspective... this was the absolute rock bottom (or close) for NYC at the time... it was a dirty, funky city, depressed and worn out... as were the people... 42nd st area was PORN and the village and chelsea and all that area were just ghettoes and full of drugs. If you went through Washington Square Park you could not only buy any drug or any sexual experience (Hunter's Point... puhlease!) it was just a gritty time there... so the club was a pretty good reflection of what was going on back then...

and for those of you who would sit on the roof of the Ferry and drink shaeffers beer and stale slices of pizza and listen to the shoeshine guy "SHINE, SHINE.... SHINE" I salute you... CBGB's was just one part of a funky scene... there were some great underground parties (kinda house parties but in boarded theaters or lofts and industrial areas like down by the fish market) I knew guys that played in punk bands that played there, but also played in the club in Brooklyn that featured sat night fever... playing SOUTHERN ROCK!

As with all things... the place was the people... without the ramones, richard hell, david byrne etc etc etc.. the place wouldn't matter...

I walked by where it once was today... nostalgia only for the little sing songy voice "I would very much like to go to the CBGB."

[zombywoof]

Caught Patti Smith and the Ramones down there. And, yeah, I always remembered to go before I left home.

Anybody else have the 2 LP set of live stuff recorded down there. Robert Gordon with the Tuff Darts, the Shirts, Manster and other stuff.

[jhundt]

Let's remember to keep it PG

does than mean Parental Guidance? OK, mine is probably PG-17:

I remember going there in '78. I was roadie for a group that was opening on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces tour. Somehow Elvis managed to book three shows at three different clubs on the same night (it was actually an off-night in NYC, but I guess he and his boys wanted to have a little fun), all winding up at CBGBs. We roadies helped his crew out (his git tech was the legendary Fast Eddie who later played w/ the Plimsouls), I remember it was a pretty hectic night.

I met a nice fellow at the bar who understood that roadie work can be very demanding, so he let me have a bag full of some kind of non-prescription caffeine tablets (for a nominal fee); I also met two young ladies who needed someone to walk them home since the club was in a pretty dodgy neighborhood. On the way we stopped at Max's Kansas City... back at the hotel (apparently I forgot I was supposed to walk those nice girls to their home) I had a nice shower and so to bed...

In the morning I was on the floor still soaked, my caffeine tablets were mysteriously missing and so were my new friends and my per-diem cash, I had some Mayflower carpet-burns on my knees and a few hazy memories of NYC for my older years.