I finally made it to CBGBs. For those interested the music club opened in 1973 and the front canopy had the letters CBGB & OMFUG which stands for “Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandizers”. The club was opened and run by Hilly Kristal in Manhatten’s East Village in the Bowery.
Band such as The Ramones, The Police, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, The Beastie Boys, The Dead Boys, The Misfits, Blondie, Iggy Pop and The B52’s, later bands such as Korn, Green Day and Guns n Roses played and head their breaks there. I read roughly some 50,000 bands played their from it’s opening until it closed on On October 15, 2006 with Patti Smith, The Godmother of Punk being the last to play their on its farewell night.
In the 2013 film called CBGB starring Alan Rickman as Hilly Kristal, there is text that appears on screen saying “Hilly gave a stage to some 50,000 bands during CBGB’s 33 year tenure.” I sadly never got a chance to go until now but I have been.
The shop that now fills the space is a luxury menswear shop owned by designer John Varvartos. They have gone to great lengths to preserve an essence of what was and were very welcoming for me to have a look around the place with my focus on the history not the current offerings.
I knew from seeing online that they sold vinyl so had every intention of adding to the collection from here and chose The Pretenders, Get Close as a purchase fitting with the history, they did play there so relevance achieved.
