When Did Playing At CBGB Become A Symbolic Gesture?

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...when the Police played there in 1978!

― lovebug starski, Friday, 25 June 2004 10:36 (nineteen years ago) link

.. coz as soon as you have to 'qualify' as punk, and when punk becomes unfashionable again, venue dies.

― mark grout (mark grout), Friday, 25 June 2004 10:37 (nineteen years ago) link

I hate agreeing with Chris Ott, but 1985 is on the money.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 25 June 2004 10:49 (nineteen years ago) link

...and regardless of its status as "Punk Ground Zero," it was certainly never conceived with that in mind (the letters famously stand for Country Blue Grass Blues), and I believe it's always hosted the odd absolutely-not-Punk-in-the-slightest act.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 25 June 2004 10:53 (nineteen years ago) link

http://raptor.slc.edu/~tmintz/girl_sith_cbgb_shirt.jpg

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Friday, 25 June 2004 17:01 (nineteen years ago) link

Seems the CBGB's t-shirt has gone the same way as the Motorhead t-shirt.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 25 June 2004 17:25 (nineteen years ago) link

and the Ramones shirt.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 25 June 2004 17:27 (nineteen years ago) link

:::sigh::::

So OTM, Stence, so OTM.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 25 June 2004 17:29 (nineteen years ago) link

Why 1985? (Just curious. There wasn't some particular scene centered around the place that died around that time, was there?)

― Tim Ellison, Friday, 25 June 2004 17:43 (nineteen years ago) link

Well, there was the whole Sunday Hardcore Matinee scene. That was pretty huge at the time.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 25 June 2004 17:54 (nineteen years ago) link

I think sometime after the mid-80's, it went from being a "cool place to play" to becoming some sort've "rite of passage" place. By `89 or so, it was definetely settling into its "institution" phase (people coming from miles around just to see the squalor of the bathroom, etc.)

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 25 June 2004 17:56 (nineteen years ago) link

I believe it's always hosted the odd absolutely-not-Punk-in-the-slightest act.

talking heads to thread.

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 25 June 2004 18:01 (nineteen years ago) link

like any normal club, especially any club that insists on booking 700 bands a week, for most of their existence they had some good shows and they had some bad shows, with no particular rhyme or reason.

good shows i saw at cbgb in the mid '90s, none of them remotely punk: magnetic fields, the frogs, guided by voices

crappy shows by bands trying to capitalize on the name that i (and, as often as not, matt dillon) saw in the mid '90s: j mascis, x, meat puppets (all of whom probably played there when they were younger and weren't doing crappy shows)

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 25 June 2004 18:07 (nineteen years ago) link

I remember seeing Gavin Friday perform at CB's in `89, and he spent half the show incredulously lamenting his theretofore fascination with the place. "This dump is CBGB's???" etc.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 25 June 2004 20:01 (nineteen years ago) link

one year passes...

Everyone but Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre was feeling the "Save CBGB" vibe. An inebriated Newcombe instead feebly attempted to rally the crowd to "leave this place" and "let it die." Managing to eke out just two songs during his set, Newcombe successfully insulted Handsome Dick Manitoba, the entire audience, his fellow band members and all of Canada.

thank god someone said something

― slojas, Friday, 5 August 2005 01:54 (eighteen years ago) link

did you know the letters CBGB originally stood for "country, blue grass, blues"?

― broseph, Friday, 5 August 2005 02:50 (eighteen years ago) link

"CBGB is the last rock'n'roll club left," said Van Zandt as he held court over the press conference on the stage, sporting his signature bandana and loud purple shirt. "There's nothing like it left in the world, [a place] where people have come not being famous and left being found by record companies."

i guess, then, that no band has been found by a record company since 1977. no wonder it's been so quiet around here the past few decades!

even Newcombe's annoying antics could be included in the slew of reasons to keep CBGB standing.

i suppose this has something to do with "irony," but what on earth does this sentence mean?

― fact checking cuz (fcc), Friday, 5 August 2005 03:29 (eighteen years ago) link

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