CBGBs is closing its doors October 15 after 33 years.

The Bowery bar had been home to punk since 1975. The Ramones were the house band in those early days. 24 songs in 30 minutes. Blondie starred as the sex attraction. Talking Heads brought in the college crowd and the heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders appealed to the ‘live fast and die young’ crowd. I entered the scene in late-76.

I stood at the front for the Contortions, Damned, and the Voidoids. Afterwards I’d drink beer and play pinball at the back of the club. I was never friends with the big names. The bartenders were my friends, the doorman with the yellow construction helmet let me in for me, college co-eds thought I looked like David Johansson from the New York Dolls and by the time they discovered I was simply a poet, it was too late to try for someone else. I was lucky and CBGBs became my home away from home.

Ann Magnuson, the actress/performance artist became my girlfriend. She was ingénue beautiful and funny with her declaration that the poetry police were coming to take us away. I caught her flirting with the band SHRAPNEL in the back alley. She was drunk and I was angry. It was the start of the end for us.

Legs McNeil the editor of the legendary PUNK magazine was their manager. He later immortalized the club in his PLEASE KILL ME, an oral history of punk.

CBGBs was punk’s La Scala.

Hilly Kristal took a chance in 1975 and let unknown bands play on his stage.

Sex, drugs, and rock n roll.

I had sex in the disgusting toilets with Brenda Bergman, a redheaded singer from WOMEN BEHIND BARS. Cocaine, heroin, and pot ran in everyone’s veins. The Police, Television, X-Ray Specs, B-52s, Jayne Country, the Dictators, the Ghosts, Plasmatics, Dead Boys, X, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, and thousands of famed and notorious bands played on the stage.

But not that Mickey Mouse fake, April Laveinge.

The Whorelords performed a tremendous set with naked teenage tramps as go-go girls. The girls were the highlight of a distorted show. Whorelords played one night and one night only.

The memory remains and will that after last call the waitresses played on the jukebox was either Frank Sinatra’s MY WAY or Elvis Costello’s ALLISON.

The CBGBs on the white awning stood for country-bluegrass-blues.

I can’t remember what OMFUG meant.

Hilly Kristal the owner survived the long run, although many of the punks did not; Stiv Bators of the Dead Boys was struck by a car in Paris, Johnny Thunders died of an OD, the Ramones fell one by one, but some are still around like Patti Smith who is supposed to play the final show.

“Gloria.”

Hilly is planning a CBGBs West in Las Vegas. Workers are set to strip the club to the bare walls.

“We’re going to take the urinals. Anything we can.”

Leg’s McNeil approves the plan. “Girls with augmented breasts playing Joey Ramone slot machines. It would become an institution.”

Gabba-Gabba-Hey

For a taste of punk’s early days read MAYBE TOMORROW in the fiction section.

https://www.mangozeen.com/maybe-tomorrow-a-novel-by-peter-nolan-smith.htm