Friday Videos: Farewell to CBGB’s
With the news that CBGB’s is closing this Sunday (a tragedy comparable to the closing of The Rat in Boston, or Sunset Park just outside of Philadelphia), I offer today’s Friday videos, beginning with the Bad Brains, Live at CBGB’s in 1979.
CBGB stood for “Country Bluegrass and Blues”; OMFUG, or Other Music From Under Ground, was added later. The club was opened initally with the idea that it would be a folk and country club in the city, but until sometime in 2000 when my old band Jim and Jennie and the Pinetops played there, a bluegrass band had never set foot on the stage that hosted the likes of the Ramones, Blodie, Agnostic Front, War Zone, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and literally thousands of hardcore bands. We were the first bluegrass band the club hosted.
When I was a teenager, my sister and I woud visit our grandmother who lived in Farmingdale, out on Long Island. No visit to Grandma’s was complete without a solo trip into Manhattan on the LIRR. I saw so many good shows back then at CBGB’s, and it is a black mark on New York City that this landmark club is going under. For shame.
Agnostic Front, who I saw twice at CBGB’s:
Warzone, who I saw once at CBGB’s:
And last, but certainly not least, probably the best punk rock band America ever produced, The Motherfuckin’ RAMONES:
God bless you CBGB’s. And a hearty FUCK YOU to New York for letting you go under.
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