Nights of Pure Energy: An Abridged History of CBGB & OMFUG by Alex J. Russell

NIGHTS OF PURE ENERGY An Abridged History of CBGB & OMFUG

Written & Illustrated By

Alex J. Russell

Nights of Pure Energy: An Abridged History of CBGB & OMFUG

Written & Illustrated by Alex J. Russell

Copyright © 2021 Alex J. Russell Disclaimer: Although this book is based on actual events, and includes the names of real people, music groups, and places, certain moments and details have been condensed or omitted due to pacing considerations and/or dramatic purpose.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

To request permissions, contact the author at alexanderjamesrussell@hotmail.com First paperback edition: April 2021 Edited by T. Russell Cover art and layout by Alex J. Russell Printed by Office Depot in the U.S. Prince William Pkwy & Caton Hill Rd 14053 Crossing Place Woodbridge, VA 22192 officedepot.com

Gormandizer: (n.) a voracious eater: a glutton.

(In this case, a glutton for music)

Contents p. 8 - Foreword Part 1: The Brainchild of a Real Gormandizer and the Bands that Rocked the Bowery p. 10 - Chapter 1: Bowery Blues & the Birth of CBGB p. 15 - Chapter 2: Four Punks from Queens End the 60s p. 20 - Chapter 3: Resident Punk-Poet and Undisputed Queen of CBGB p. 24 - Chapter 4: An Interview with the Phantom of Rock n’ Roll p. 29 - Chapter 5: The Most Punk Band You’ve Never Heard Of Part 2: You Don’t Have to Go Home but You Can’t Stay Here p. 36 - Chapter 6: Burroughs, the Bunker, and Life on the American Outside p. 42 - Chapter 7: Visitations, Friends, and Fellow Minstrels p. 46 - Chapter 8: For the Gormandizers p. 50 - Epilogue - End of the Road p. 54 - A Note on the Book p. 55 - Bibliography

ALEX J. RUSSELL

Foreword Why CBGB? CBGB & OMFUG, just the bar itself, is a fascinating little side road in American music history. The story of the bar, its heyday, the people who made it their home, all of that interested me to a great degree. I never got to visit it when it was open because in fact I was fairly young and actually didn’t know about it until I was in high school, but CBGB was an intriguing subject to learn about, and after months of research it’s even more intriguing.

Besides Hilly’s sort of “incubator” for all these great bands, many of which are now music legends, I think just that specific, real-world location of New York City drew me in, as well. I’ve always been a lover of New York, from its art scenes to its culture, and CBGB fits right in.

The bar’s early punk period took place in the late-70s, so that was a giant draw too. The 1970s is actually my favorite period of American history to read and learn about, so there was another alluring aspect of it. Ultimately, though, the thing that got me to do the book was the music.

Essentially, the story of CBGB is the story of an entire genre of music getting born and finding its masters and acolytes. Hilly’s place gave us The Ramones, The Dead Boys, Patti Smith Group, and bands that aren’t punk but have contributed to music just as much, like Talking Heads, Blondie, and Television.

“Nights of Pure Energy” references the bands who performed at CBGB, how they’d tear the place up and create this powerful microcosm of loud sounds and youthful determination; a place for self-expression and, in a lot of ways, for a kind of catharsis. People got to be themselves at CBGB & OMFUG, or find a new self to be.

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Part 1

The Brainchild of a Real Gormandizer and the Bands that Rocked the Bowery “I was a product of Andy Warhol’s Factory. All I did was sit there and observe these incredibly talented and creative people who were continually making art, and it was impossible not to be affected by that.”

Lou Reed

Chapter 1

Bowery Blues & the Birth of CBGB

CBGB & OMFUG (Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers) is now an iconic, storied part of New York City history, punk rock history, and music history in general. They’ve written books about it, they’ve made a movie about it (with Alan Rickman, no less). It’s glued forever now into the subconscious cultural membrane of American music. Perhaps one of the dirtiest, seediest, (smelliest) bars to have ever featured live music. It closed in 2006 over a rent dispute. But the legend is still going.

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CBGB was founded and managed by Hilly Kristal, a native of New Jersey and an avid lover of folk rock. In fact, there were two major plans he had in mind for his club: to feature live folk, like country and blues, and that only original music be performed there. One of those two plans became a reality.

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Preceding pages, left to right: The awning over the entrance to CBGB; Hilly walking his dog Jonathan, who ended up becoming CBGB’s unofficial mascot This page: Hilly sweeps up out front the morning after a show 12

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The bands that have since reached stardom, like Talking Heads, Blondie, the B-52s, the Ramones, Patti Smith Group, and others, are definitely not the kind of music Kristal hoped to have in his bar. But the local punk and rock musicians, the poets, the writers, eventually gave in to their curiosity regarding this new place and steadily, something different, and special, began to take shape. Kristal didn’t always jump for the loud, boisterous, occasionally overwhelming songs some bands would play (the Ramones’ unsteady and disorganized stage manner would sometimes irk him), but sometimes, for something amazing and impactful to happen, you just have to step aside and let things take their course. And that’s what Kristal did. His quiet demeanor, scruffy hair, bushy beard, and flannel shirts didn’t mesh with the leather jackets and sunglasses crowd, but it didn’t need to. He was on the outside looking in. For decades, he was the guy that simply stepped aside and said, go ahead. Just make it interesting.

Kristal’s bar not only helped artists and musicians gain an audience and discover themselves, but he helped nurture a subculture that has since become a prominent rock n’ roll genre in its own right. Up until CBGB, new rock groups who wanted to get loud and experiment just didn’t have too many places available for them to play to a crowd. Up until the Ramones and Patti Smith hit the CBGB stage, and up until a certain local magazine co-founded by John Holmstrom, Eddie “Legs” McNeil, and Mary Harron (whom we’ll see more of later on), the very idea of “Punk” as it’s understood today wasn’t a thing. It wasn’t in the lexicon yet.

Punk rock (and then of course off-shoots like new wave and post-punk) sprung up and blossomed in large part because it had a place to do so, and a burgeoning support system that looked out after its own. This was all because of Hilly Kristal and his little Bowery bar; the bar known as CBGB. Kristal opened the bar in the winter of 1973. Decades later, because of a rent dispute with the owners of the building, CBGB had to close down. The last show there took place in October of 2006, with Patti Smith (one of the original acts from the bar’s first years) giving a final send-off to the place.

Kristal produced various independent bands throughout his career (The Dead Boys being a notable example), and took part in the Bowery scene and in the world of music up until his death in 2007, from complications of lung cancer.

He was 75 years old.

Decades of music history were behind him, and because of his love for music and his faith in creativity and original art, he helped give punk rock a place to grow and develop into something bigger than the sum of its parts.

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ALEX J. RUSSELL

Hilly Kristal inside the messy, graffiti-covered bar of CBGB - his domain; his gift to music history 14

Chapter 2

Four Punks from Queens End the 60s When talking about rock n’ roll history, it’s almost impossible to skip over Woodstock – the massive, free-wheeling, bright and powerful 3-day-long event featuring some of the most iconic and influential acts of the 60s and 70s (people like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Santana, and a host of others played there). It was seen by many as a pinnacle of what the “groovy” 60s were trying to accomplish; peace through music, music in an age of peace.

The sunny air of California and the rock groups that started there had been transplanted to New York State, resulting in Woodstock. It was a triumphant display of people celebrating unity and the art and cultural significance of rock. But the sun doesn’t shine forever, and that goes for everything.

From left to right: Johnny Ramone, Tommy Ramone, Joey Ramone, and Dee Dee Ramone Following page: Johnny Ramone on guitar and Joey on lead vocals 15

Following page: Johnny Ramone in a very thematically-appropriate t-shirt, smoking outside the bar Page after, clockwise: Joey Ramone, the band’s frontman; Johnny Ramone, who played lead guitar; Dee Dee Ramone on bass, and Tommy Ramone on drums. These four were responsible, in many ways, for setting the punk rock precedent for countless bands to follow 16

NIGHTS OF PURE ENERGY

The Vietnam War, a military action that many Americans were against, was in full swing at around this time. The Watergate scandal, surrounding Nixon’s criminal acts during the summer of 1972, would occur just a few years after everybody packed up at Woodstock and went home. Different ideas and fashion trends would end up filling the hole that the march of time had made, once the age of “flower power” had dwindled to a close. A new kind of music, a new kind of rock, had to step up and help reflect the America of the 1970s. This is where the Ramones came in.

“Legs” McNeil, who will show up later on in this book, was there the first night the Ramones played at CBGB. That was August of 1974. The visuals made a statement first: the leather jackets, sunglasses, jeans, and Converse tennis shoes. Then came the sound. A wall of noise; loud and hard and immediate, imminent. A completely deliberate attack on ears and preconceptions. In a lot of ways, the birth of punk rock itself. At the start, the Ramones were four young dudes from Queens: Douglas Colvin, John Cummings, Thomas Erdelyi and Jeffrey Hyman, who would go on to call themselves Dee Dee, Johnny, Tommy and Joey Ramone. They weren’t sure what to call their music, but the magazine that McNeil would help start would give the whole scene a proper, memorable, indelible name: punk.

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CBGB was where they had their first public show, but they soon spread out to other clubs within the realm of Manhattan’s night life, like Max’s Kansas City and Coney Island High. The look, feel, and sound of the Ramones wasn’t just a counterargument to the flower children of the preceding decade; it was a rough-around-the-edges reflection of life on the east coast, of life during Nixon’s America, a life in New York City. Their music was messy and abrasive but that was the point; an authenticity that talked about their present moment, without dressing up their look or their sound with gimmicks and ornaments. Their threechord, two-minute songs attacked the patrons of the little underground Bowery bar and they only wanted more.

It was pure energy hitting ears like a tsunami; it was one of the first statements of the next generation of rock. 60s psychedelic rock, and then subsequent off-shoots like disco and glam rock all worked well and good and on their own represent important, beautiful components of rock history, but this was something else. Something sharp and rude and unapologetic. The Ramones’ songs were simple, but they hit hard. In fact, from across the pond, punk bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols cite the Ramones as a major influence for their own work. Part of the appeal was that you could start your own band, make some noise, and reach an audience that would get you, without really needing to know how to play well…or at all. What would carry you forward was your own genuine energy and a complete, total refusal to compromise.

Side note: the symbiotic link between one of punk’s first, biggest, and most influential bands and CBGB is undeniable. CBGB was the place the Ramones started; the place where CBGB would get marked as a haven for punks. The front cover, featuring the band standing against the wall of a New York City building, all attitude, for their 1977 album “Rocket to Russia,” was actually taken in the alley behind Hilly’s bar.

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Chapter 3

Resident Punk-Poet and Undisputed Queen of CBGB The time period spanning from March to April of 1975 was a special time in CBGB history (and a formative time in one of the most iconic and influential rock groups of the second half of the 20th century).

Over a period of seven weeks (two sets a night, four nights a week), Patti Smith Group learned crucial things about their art and continuously tweaked their technique and showmanship.

This page: Patti Smith singing through her neck injury at CBGB Following page, left to right: Smith’s performances were not only energetic but also wholly focused and intense, especially at CBGB; In addition to being a rock singer, Patti Smith considered herself to be a poet and would weave a literary streak into her songs 20

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Patti Smith Group walked away from their humble beginnings playing bars and dives with a record deal from Arista and ever since, they’ve been an iconic, respected, and storied part of rock music history. Smith, who wrote the songs and fronted the band, would return time and again to CBGB’s. (The band consisted of guitarist Lenny Kaye, bassist Ivan Kral, drummer Jay Dee Daugherty on drums, keyboardist Richard Sohl.)

As a result of all the shows she played at CBGB and the way her act developed at the bar and in the Bowery at large, she’s been called “The Queen of CBGB.” She’s also been called “The Godmother of Punk.” Both titles are highly deserved and reflect greatly the impact that Hilly’s little underground bar, with its sights, smells, and noise, had on Patti and the effect that the Group’s music and performances had on CBGB and on rock history in general.

NIGHTS OF PURE ENERGY

During the early shows, where she would play the same nights as Television or The Ramones, Patti was constantly discovering who she was artistically and on a deeper, more personal level. Her music and writing were partially the product of voracious reading. (Among her major influences are the poet Rimbaud and novelist William Burroughs.) When she performed, she performed. Poetic rawness and grandeur were infused into her lyrics and a frenzied, energetic quality punctuated her live shows which became nothing short of legendary just as her career was really beginning.

All through the years, the decades, CBGB was like a second home. Her slice of the world; not a sanctum sanctorum per se, but a haven for the kind of self-expression she loved and believed in. Her early albums, like “Horses” and “Wave” are crucial parts of any solid rock n’ roll history lesson. Her words and her voice carry through time and space as a testament to the magic inherent in one’s own personal courage. That sense of self-belief is a palpable component of her music, and in a way CBGB played a role in her artistic maturity and evolution—it was the perfect place to make mistakes without feeling like any one slip-up was the end of the world.

While promoting the album “Radio Ethiopia” during the early part of 1977, Patti fell off a stage in Florida and suffered serious injury to her neck—an accident that, although she since recovered, would leave behind shades of discomfort and pain for the rest of her life.

After the Florida performance, and through the physical therapy that she needed to fully rehabilitate, Patti would stubbornly—gloriously—return to CBGB’s again and again to do shows and readings. It was like coming home.

Patti would go through whole sets with her neck brace on—a sort of strange, streamlined silhouette—which impeded her usual twists and motions and her erratic, expressive dances, but at one point during a show she decided she didn’t need the brace anymore and tore it off. Like shedding an old skin. Like turning the page and moving forward.

Always forward. The show must go on.

Opposite: Patti Smith performing with her Group at CBGB upon a cluttered stage, surrounded by amplifiers and mic stands 23

Chapter 4

An Interview with the Phantom of Rock n’ Roll It was the winter of 1975… John Holmstrom, a graphic artist from Connecticut, Eddie “Legs” McNeil, an aspiring music journalist, and Mary Harron, budding writer and filmmaker, started off on a trail they couldn’t really predict or plan out but they felt it in their bones.

By that time, CBGB was a well-known local bar in the Bowery where crazy things happened and people played live music, and the three future co-founders of “Punk Magazine” would go on to spend a lot of time there, either collecting raw material for their work or just soaking up the noisy atmosphere.

NIGHTS OF PURE ENERGY

On one of those nights, there was someone fairly legendary sitting in the back, observing the scene through his sun glasses; staying out of the action.

His name was Lou Reed. He was kind of a big deal then. Especially in New York. Known as the “Phantom of Rock” at the time, which might’ve just been a moniker thought up as part of a record label marketing ploy, but it actually went a long way in summarizing this particular incarnation of Lou Reed.

Formerly the front man of The Velvet Underground, Reed was now between albums and slumming it with the CBGB crowd. (He gave off horribly vivid vibes of misanthropy but actually really enjoyed spending time at the bar, listening to new acts do their thing.) For those not familiar with Lou Reed of the seventies (or with Lou Reed, period), aside from being a rock musician and song writer, he was notorious for his distant, acerbic, cold-blooded persona. He was like that with journalists, with friends, with fellow rock stars.

Opposite page: Lou Reed, the Phantom himself, standing outside CBGB This page, left to right: Eddie “Legs” McNeil in the alley behind CBGB; Mary Harron inside the bar

It was part of his act, but some people were scathed all the same. Initially, Holmstrom, McNeil, and Harron were there to see the main act of the night – the Ramones – but Danny Fields, the Ramones’ manager at the time, told them that Lou Reed was somewhere in the place, and they really couldn’t pass up an opportunity that big.

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The first two albums that The Velvet Underground put out were the stuff of legend. The first album had the distinctive influence of Andy Warhol and his pop art world. The second was full-on anti-music. “Sister Ray,” an 18-minute song about an orgy full of shady characters, illegal drugs, and murder capped off the album with loud, grating, subatomic fury. With that to hang his hat on, Lou Reed was already a fixture of the alleyways and strange places of New York before he set out on a solo career; his voice, his lyrics, already had standing with college kids and rock fans across New York.

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Looking back on the night the three young gormandizers met the Phantom each have a slightly different version of the same story: Holmstrom holds on to the mix of excitement and anxiety he felt talking to Lou... The interview (his first) was hard; a real, savage, and humiliating slog. But when the conversation veered into comic books, things smoothed out a little (art being a favorite of both the interviewer and his subject). The raw material from that conversation was later used for a comic strip drawn by Holmstrom, in which Lou was drawn up in a variety of styles. Lou Reed, as a strange goblin-esque, leather-clad punk creature, graced the cover of the inaugural issue of “Punk.”

Opposite page: Lou Reed, in the back of the bar; unbeknownst to him, he’s about to become the feature story in the first issue of “Punk” This page, left to right: Reed during the interview; John Holmstrom of “Punk Magazine”

McNeil remembers the general ambiance of CBGB; the smells of wood, dog crap, booze. In addition to the fact that Reed maintained a very hard to pin down vibe, it was also difficult to just talk to him.

Harron looks back and her initial fear and discomfort get inverted – she sees Lou Reed’s prickly, reptilian act (and especially his initial willingness to even speak to them) as a blessing because it cemented the tone and feel of punk rock—the genre, the culture—itself. Talking to him was in many ways like trying to swallow shards of glass, but Lou’s image and persona helped elaborate on punk, its existence and vibes, and why it was miles away from other music scenes in the city.

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As Holmstrom and company worked on finishing the first issue, they made it their focus to not just talk about what they saw and what was happening, but to visually and stylistically channel all of that energy. As mentioned earlier, the Lou Reed interview became a comic and that in turn became the cover story. The line work, colors, subject matter, and the self-produced nature of the magazine itself helped carry that across. Besides, what’s more punk than taking the Phantom of Rock out of the grit and mystery of the New York City night and dropping him straight into the flat world of ink art and speech bubbles?

The original magazine ran for 15 issues. The work done by the “Punk” staff helped give the whirlwind they found themselves in a proper (and properly irreverent) forum. Along with the bands they saw live, Holmstrom, McNeil, Harron, and others helped crystallize and spread the textures and attitudes inherent in the genre—as well as the tiny, disgusting bar and magical, intoxicating oasis called CBGB.

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Chapter 5

The Most Punk Band You’ve Never Heard Of

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Going back full circle to the man responsible for opening up and running CBGB in the first place, Hilly Kristal did more than just run the place. His love for music prompted him to take an active role in the whole thing and he’d go on to produce various bands (most of which didn’t really get anywhere). One did, however. They were the Dead Boys – one of the most violent, ugliest, unpleasant punk bands in the history of the genre. When they played CBGB the earth moved, if only right there in the bar.

Previous page, left to right: Cheetah Chrome, Jimmy Zero, Stiv Bators and Johnny Blitz of the Dead Boys This page: Cheetah Chrome, lead guitar 30

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Punk lore often highlights New York and London as the two main birthplaces of American and British punk, respectively, but almost no one talks about Cleveland, Ohio. That’s where the Dead Boys were from. The original lineup, produced by Kristal, ran as follows: vocalist Stiv Bators, lead guitarist Cheetah Chrome, rhythm guitarist Jimmy Zero, bassist Jeff Magnum, and drummer Johnny Blitz. They only ever made two albums and the second one they didn’t even like all that much.

This page: Stiv Bators, Dead Boys frontman Following page, left to right: Jimmy Zero, rhythm guitar; Stiv performing at CBGB with the Dead Boys 31

Punk acts like the Ramones, here in the U.S., and the Sex Pistols in the U.K., more often than not eclipse the Dead Boys in the annals of punk history, and on one hand it makes sense because both the Ramones and the Pistols were just more successful in terms of gaining popularity and a following with their music and with subsequent projects taken up by solo off-shoots (as was the case with the Sex Pistols, who only ever made one whole album). But on the other hand, it’s a real shame that the Dead Boys aren’t cited more often when talking about punk.

You can find videos on YouTube today showcasing the Dead Boys in all their disgusting, chaotic, violent glory, and even a minute of watching is enough to understand why these guys were special.

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In many ways, they not only underlined the ugly, animalistic aspects of the genre (which, frankly, are a big part of punk, or at least a major undercurrent for many bands), but they also made a name for themselves during their short stint playing live shows in New York by taking every ounce of their primal, awful energy and shooting it into the arm of their music. Stiv Bators’ energy as front man was unpredictable, wild, hedonistic and often violent. At one point, he took the mic stand and slashed his own stomach. Out of nowhere and completely shocking, but one can’t deny that this was not only memorable but also all-out and in many ways more authentic than other music of the time period.

Most people who showed up to CBGB probably didn’t want to slash their stomachs or tie the mic cord around their necks but that sentiment – of not caring at all, giving it your all – had a genuine wave of energy and power that the crowd ate right up. Even without the sloppy music (many punk bands of the time were sloppy) and the antagonistic lyrics, the Dead Boys weren’t your granddaddy’s rock band. The kind of the stuff they did live and their overall image kept them off the radio and out of the newspapers – another reason for their limited public exposure.

The Dead Boys, in a lot of ways, were not a band that was destined to last long, or perhaps at all. Kristal managed them for a short while and they had a following in New York, but they were more of a boisterous force of nature and sound than a band that can be controlled, managed, and used to make money for all involved. At their best, they represented (and epitomized) the far end of the punk rock spectrum. Total self-indulgence and hedonistic violence.

But after their break up in 1979, the Dead Boys were essentially no more. The band reformed a number of times during the 80s, and some of the members embarked on solo projects, but that explosion of sound and energy was like atomic lightning in a really brittle glass bottle. It was barely caught once.

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Part 2

You Don’t Have to Go Home But You Can’t Stay Here “In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or die of boredom” William S. Burroughs

Chapter 6

Burroughs, the Bunker, and Life on the American Outside So much has been covered, and yet not enough. This is but a primer; an abridged history. A story winding down the specific events and instances connected to CBGB, happening in and around the bar. Besides the bands talked about earlier, there were countless others that contributed an inordinate amount of energy and music to the growing Punk scene in the Bowery. Just because they haven’t been covered here, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t Google them up on your own.

Bands like Blondie and Talking Heads were major parts of the CBGB crowd for a time; Debbie Harry with her small frame, blonde hair, piercing eyes, and the Talking Heads, who looked like dorks but commanded the stage and their instruments with vigor, skill, and intelligence.

Besides the great talent filling up the bar night after night, and besides Hilly, who of course started the bar and ran it for decades, there’s a spectral cloud of anarchy and individualism that had been floating over the Bowery. Always, to some extent. An influence, if you will. A dark, jagged, youthful determination, something the Ramones displayed in full stride. Something that the Dead Boys took too far at times.

But influence can come from anywhere.

Patti Smith, for instance, found her own individuality partly due to the books she read. Rimbaud and Burroughs were mentioned earlier as some of her major inspirations for writing and even though Rimbaud had been dead a long time, William Burroughs was alive and well and, as fate would have it, had moved into the Bowery in the mid-70s to get away from it all, as it were, and regroup.

Opposite page: William Burroughs on the streets of New York (blending in with the city’s gray visage) This page: Patti Smith hanging out with Burroughs at a book signing in New York City 37

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William Burroughs hanging out with Jimmy Page of the rock band Led Zeppelin

The alleyways and dark corners and shadows of New York (the kind of imagery that was often associated with him and his novels) made a lot of sense; it became his home base for a time. William Burroughs was born at the beginning of the 20th century in St. Louis, Missouri, to a moderately famous, well-to-do family.

His early life was mostly uneventful. The rest of it was the exact opposite, to a major degree.Throughout his college years living in New York, Burroughs would not only develop the ideas that would find their way into his literary work, but he would also end up being an important guiding figure to future-authors Jack Kerouac (writer of “On the Road”) and Allen Ginsberg (writer of “Howl”).

His foothold in literary history, as one of the found members of the “Beat Generation” was established.

Tragedy would rear its head in his life; his first and only wife, Joan Vollmer, was killed in a drunken accident when the two attempted to re-enact “William Tell” where Burroughs was supposed to shoot a glass off of Joan’s head. His bullet tragically missed the glass.

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Left to right: Burroughs in the Bunker, punching away on his typewriter; Burroughs liked collecting strange, weird books like “The Medical Implications of Karate Blows”

This horrible drunken nightmare would hang over him the rest of his life. He himself remarked countless times, in his writing and in interviews, how Joan’s death had impacted him to consciously battle the so-called “Ugly Spirit” within himself. In the following decades, Burroughs’ central vice, and something that would become a major subject of his novels, was his decades’ long addiction to heroin; he went through several attempts at kicking the substance. The death of his son, William Burroughs Jr., was another weight he would have to carry. His homosexuality would leave him feel alienated for a large portion of his life.

His unique “cut up” writing style, which slowly developed over a long period of time and in several places around the world, like Mexico, Paris, and Tangier, would become a staple of his writing career. Books like “Junkie,” “Naked Lunch,” and “The Soft Machine” would get caught up in various scandals and legal issues, but such storms would eventually pass. Burroughs’ popularity and influence as an artist and pop culture icon would only continue to grow as the decades wore on.

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His ideas, focusing on individualism, humanism, anti-authoritarian living, and freedom of expression, filled his books and were expressed in an erratic, sometimes vulgar, often chaotic, and always original style. concepts that greatly appealed to future rock stars, like Patti Smith and even Lou Reed, who often cited Burroughs as a major artistic influence.

His clothes and overall appearance said up-standing gentleman, but his very being was classified as an “evil” by far-right Christian groups and other similar, authoritarian cultures. Because of his childhood, and because of the way America was before, during, and after the Second World War, Burroughs learned to keep his head down. To blend in. In Mexico, the local street urchins nicknamed him “The Invisible Man.” His books, full of violent fiction and incisive social commentary, struck chords with many artists, writers, and musicians, as mentioned before. Patti Smith of course ingested a certain flavor straight from his books into her own songs and poems, as did Lou Reed for a time, with his more experimental stuff from the late 60s and early 70s.

Bands like Television (who only made a couple of albums but were a very popular act at CBGB) and Sonic Youth (who in the late-90s, early-2000s created an entire album using Burroughs’ cut-up method, even using one of his paintings for their cover) but Burroughs himself would venture out from his New York home and visit the world of the Bowery.

There are several anecdotes floating around about him at CBGB, visiting an excited Patti Smith and confusing some of the other patrons, who were generally kids in their 20s. He was in his 70s at the time, and always wore the three-piece suit with fedora and trench coat. This sort of uptight demeanor betrayed an empathetic sensitivity towards all of life and towards other people, especially those who were marginalized, ostracized, and attacked for ridiculous reasons like race or sexuality. His life as an outsider helped craft a soft core, even if it was often hidden down deep.

Burroughs’ home in the Bowery was nicknamed “The Bunker.” He liked that it was secluded, that it had pretty much no windows, and that he could carry on with his life. He often received visitors, though. Old friends, and starry-eyed, 20-year old musicians. In fact, Burroughs, albeit sparsely, injected himself into the world of music. At times he would interview rock stars, like David Bowie and Jimmy Page, and at other times he would do the odd guest-spot performing with musicians like Laurie Anderson or record his own spoken-word albums.

Heart attack-related complications took his life in the summer of 1997. He was 83 years old.

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Burroughs in the late-70s

Even though he passed away more than 20 years ago, his writing, his influence on various artists, and his insight into human nature, American culture, addiction, and life live on. His novels are still in publication and stand as symbols of pure self-expression, sharp wit, and immense creativity. His time in New York during the late-70s, in some small but very meaningful way, managed to add to his own mystique and to the general fabric of the punk scene in and around CBGB & OMFUG.

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Chapter 7

Visitations, Friends, and Fellow Minstrels Musicians digging on other musicians, creating a sort of musical community, for the sharing of ideas, to provide support for one another, is not a new thing by any means. Especially within the realm of rock and roll, there’s a lot of crosspollination among artists, with one producing the work of another, and so on.

CBGB was no exception, with different performers dropping by to scope out the scene; to check out the possible competition, to interact with others of their kind. To support friends who’d be performing that night, to get inspired by the artists playing on the CBGB stage.

This page: Lou Reed and Lisa Robinson at CBGB’s Opposite page: Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine of Television talking to Lou Reed after a show

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Seeing as he was a staple of New York’s underground culture at the time, Lou Reed would stop by CBGB pretty often, and not just to get interviewed for magazines. At one point during the late 70s, the band Television (consisting of Tom Verlaine on guitar and lead vocals, Richard Hell on bass guitar, Richard Lloyd on rhythm guitar, and Billy Ficca on drums) was the main event on the nights they played. During the bar’s formative years, alongside the Ramones, Television was the act to see.

One crystal night, Lisa Robinson, now a prominent rock music journalist, took her friend Lou Reed to see Television at CBGB’s. She wanted Lou to witness Tom Verlaine’s skills on the guitar; she would later liken Verlaine’s playing to John Coltrane’s magnetic musical juxtapositions on the saxophone.

Two very different genres but the inventive beauty was the same. Even though their styles were different, both Verlaine and Reed were very defensive of their own specific, original, inventive sounds.

Reed had taken a tape recorder that night and it made Verlaine uncomfortable; eventually Verlaine persuaded Reed to give him the recorder and told him that he’d get it back after their set. Reed and Robinson shrugged the situation off with a laugh, but it was clear how paranoid (and proud) Verlaine was in regards to his work.

For Lou Reed to have laughed off his tape recorder getting taken away like that underscores the kind of positive energy towards others that Reed usually kept hidden under leather wraps: he admired Verlaine’s work, his creative endeavors, and his determination to safeguard his own sound and style.

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Patti Smith, another CBGB luminary, would go on to play alongside Bruce Springsteen in 1977 (the year Hilly wanted to expand his franchise), and Springsteen would go on to co-write a song with Smith, titled “Because the Night.” Springsteen was not exactly “Punk,” at least his sound wasn’t. His music is a lot softer, more refined in terms of arrangement, more pop and folk as opposed to the “usual” punk sound consisting of experimental, grating, loud, angry work, but his attitude toward self-expression and art was very much punk.

He did his own thing and respected those who did the same. (Interestingly enough, Springsteen and Lou worked together for a brief stretch of time, as well, teaming up for Reed’s “Street Hassle.”)

Another musician who would dip his toes into the CBGB world was a very unexpected visitor whose sound most definitely wouldn’t have worked on the CBGB stage. But he showed up anyway, and more than once, to check out the sound and talk to other artists. His name was Paul Simon and many people probably wouldn’t have thought he’d be interested in the goings on at Hilly’s bar.

Fortunately, they were wrong in their assumption.

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Opposite page: Paul Simon hanging out with Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine backstage This page: Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen performing together at the short-lived CBGB Second Avenue Theater, an unfortunately unsuccessful attempt at expanding the CBGB franchise)

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Chapter 8

For the Gormandizers Since the 70s, punk, for better or worse, has become a part of mainstream culture. It’s been parodied, it’s been exploited, it’s been written about, people make movies and documentaries about it. The same goes for CBGB, and for many of the bands that started out playing there. Many of the bands that played at CBGB, at least for a time, seemed to exist in a parallel world where big money and massive stardom didn’t matter all that much or at all.

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Even “artistry” was often on the back burner. The goal, the driving force for everything, was self-expression and experimentation. Being who you are; the person you can’t be anywhere else. CBGB let people do that. The fact that many of the original CBGB bands are now household names and that CBGB itself is now a high-end fashion store is just how things work. Small things on the outskirts get inevitably drawn in with the rest of it all.

It’s not entirely misguided to think that perhaps that old, original razor-sharp, overpowering, organic, wild-natured punk of the 70s won’t return; that new and special things, no matter how loud or strange, will always get dumbed down, diluted, or sucked up into TV commercials. That may be true; it’s hard to know for sure at this time.

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Preceding two pages: The main entrance to CBGB on a winter morning, circa 1975. The now-famous awning overhead was the main marker, letting you know where you are. The logo on the awning has since appeared on countless t-shirts, posters, and other pieces of merchandies.

The alcove-like doorway was a gate to an underground lair of punk rock; A portrait of Hilly during the bar’s heyday. His work clothes almost always consisted of denim, flannel, sneakers, and he always had some length of beard and that messy, unkempt, iconic hair This page, top to bottom: The stage at CBGB, where dozens of now-legendary bands first started to gain their respective followings and figure out their art and where they wanted to go with it; Hilly in the CBGB doorway, early morning Fun fact: The band Talking Heads, during their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2002, cited Hilly as a major influence on their work and career during their acceptance speech

That part of history is happening right now; we’ll only know for sure later.

Punk might come back. There might be a Dead Boys tribute band showing up somewhere soon; you never really know. But maybe punk itself isn’t the point.

Maybe the point is places like CBGB, where the time and space are given to new people, young people, to just do their thing, to figure out what they are and who they are and what they want to do. Where you can play as loud as you want and how you want. Be the real you or the current you. Just be.

On the surface, the weird allure of CBGB is its dirtiness and dark interior; the chaos inherent in everything. But dig a little deeper, and really it’s about freedom. The bands who convinced Kristal to let them play in his bar listened to their guts and took advantage of this space where they were free to scream, yell, curse, play songs with at most two chords in the composition, and make the place even more disgusting than it was the night before. “…for Uplifting Gormandizers.” That’s the point. Hilly opened up a bar for live music, but he also started a place that would help young musicians on their way to experiment, gain a new confidence in their work, and perhaps hit it big along the road somewhere.

Left to right: Hilly Kristal in the 1980s, with a little gray in his hair but still wearing the flannel shirts; Hilly in the summer of 1975, looking out on the street past his bar 49

Epilogue

End of the Road There’s more to each band than could fit into the first half of this book, but here’s a rundown on where each band ended up after CBGB… The Ramones When The Ramones toured England in 1976, not only did they have a greater amount of commercial success but they also helped to jumpstart the punk revolution in Britain, too. The Clash, an excellent and influential punk band in their own right, are a prime example of this. As their line-up shifted over the years, they continued to record albums and perform live well into the 90s.

Suffering under the stress of in-band rivalries, the Ramones disbanded in 1996.

A few years after the band broke up, Joey Ramone passed away in April of 2001 from a battle with lymphoma, a kind of cancer that affects the lymph nodes. He was 49 years old. In a weird and tragic development, Dee Dee was found dead in his apartment a little over a year later, the victim of a drug overdose. Johnny, after a long battle with cancer, passed away in 2004 and then ten years later, Tommy Ramone, who was the last remaining member of the original line-up, also died of cancer at his home in Queens.

Even though the original four members of the Ramones had passed on, the legacy of their work not only lived on through their music but also through a series of archival projects. In 2016, Rhino Records released a Super Deluxe 40th Anniversary Edition of their debut album and similar, extended versions of their albums “Leave Home” and “Rocket to Russia” were also released. Outside of the album re-releases, the Ramones are forever etched into rock history with their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2011, the band received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement in music.

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Patti Smith After Patti Smith Group released their fourth album “Wave,” Patti disbanded the group and retired to Michigan where she focused on raising her family with Fred “Sonic” Smith of the band MC5. She intermittently worked on her songwriting and music, but it wasn’t until Fred’s sudden death of a heart attack in 1994 when she returned to music in a more focused, consistent way. “Gone Again” was released in 1996 and “Peace and Noise” in a year later. “Gung Ho” was released in 2000. The 21st century saw her continue her music career with the same energy as decades before, with the albums “Banga” and a trilogy of albums created with the sound-art group Soundwalk Collective which is comprised of “The Peyote Dance,” “Mummer Love,” and “Peradam.” “Peradam” was released in 2020.

Outside of music, Smith branched out into literature. Her memoir “Just Kids,” focusing on her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, won the National Book Award for nonfiction. Her other novels, “M Train” and “Year of the Monkey,” came out in 2015 and 2019, respectively.

In 2005, she was named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by France’s Ministry of Culture and in 2007 was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for her pioneering work in the genre of punk rock and her bohemian and literary sensibilities which permeated her work. In 2011, she was awarded the Polar Music Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

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Lou Reed As the 1970s came to a close, Reed’s career kept going and evolving from the more dark, subterranean aspects of his work and life and into the more balanced, mature realm of an artist’s middle-age years. He was more serious in his persona, but just as experimental and literary.

A trilogy of concept albums he released in the late 80s and early 90s, which consisted of “New York” (about the rotting morality of his favorite city), “Songs for Drella” (a collaboration with former Velvet Underground member John Cale focusing on their mentor and friend Andy Warhol who died in 1987), and “Magic and Loss” (which also centered on old friends, death, and healing). Each album came from a real, human place and were much more autobiographical than earlier albums he had recorded.

As the 2000s began, Reed would collaborate with theatrical director Robert Wilson on a musical interpretation of the works of Edgar Allan Poe (the songs for this show were later released on an album called “The Raven”).

“Animal Serenade,” a live album that included songs from Lou’s entire career, was released in 2004. In 2011, Reed teamed up with the heavy metal band Metallica. It was an effort that was panned by critics and ridiculed by fans but it was yet another example of Reed’s dedication to experimentation and his own creative convictions. In 2012, Reed was diagnosed with liver disease and even though he had undergone a transplant at the Cleveland Clinic in April of the following year, he died of end-stage liver disease at his home on Long Island in late October of 2013.

A career spanning five decades, with its share of great successes and plummeting defeats, would be celebrated with Reed’s induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame both as a member of the Velvet Underground and as a solo performer, in 1996 and 2015 respectively. In 2020, Rhino Records released an expanded edition of “New York” with an extensive array of bonus material, like work tapes, alternate versions of songs, and a complete recording of Reed performing the album live in 1989.

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Dead Boys When it came time for the band to record their second album, their record company forced them to “soften” their approach to such an extent that former Cream producer Felix Pappalardi was hired, the title was changed (eventually becoming “We Have Come For Your Children”) and the overall sound was stripped of the band’s earlier ferocity. The difficulties would continue to pile up because around that time, the band was forced off tour after Johnny Blitz was nearly killed in a street fight. This led to a split in 1979.

The split up was not the end of the Dead Boys, however. Ironically, for a band as chaotic and in many ways unreliable as the Dead Boys, they wouldn’t disband in a consistent way either. They reunited a few months after their break up to record a contractually-mandated live album at CBGB (where Stiv Bators purposefully tried to make his vocals unusable for the album). After a second split up, the Boys would reunite here and there throughout the following decade.

Bators would embark on several solo projects until the summer of 1990, when he died as a result of injuries he had sustained after getting hit by a car in Paris.

In a strange turn of events, the band reunited in 2017 when Cheetah Chrome and Johnny Blitz teamed up with a new lineup for a 40th anniversary tour, as well as a new album called “Still Snotty: Young, Loud and Snotty at 40,” which was a re-recorded version of their debut album. The resurrection consisted of vocalist Jake Hout, guitarist Jason Kottwitz and bassist Ricky Rat, as well as Chrome and Blitz.

Their shows at CBGB are the stuff of legend now and set a major precedent for live punk during the 70s and 80s. Bands like Guns N’ Roses and Pearl Jam have cited the Dead Boys as an influence on their own work.

The work of original band members Cheetah Chrome (aka Gene O’Connor), Johnny Blitz (John Madansky), Stiv Bators (Steve Bator), Jimmy Zero (William Wilden) and Jeff Magnum (Jeff Halmagy) continues to live on as a prime example of “loud,” “snotty,” and pioneering punk rock.

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A Note on the Book The chapters in this book were created using published sources, such as newspaper articles and blog sites, for factual information and historical background. A lot of the information within is true, but some things have been left out or compressed for dramatic purposes.

This is by no means an in-depth retelling of CBGB’s entire history; it was a very special, storied place and there are plenty of sources available out there that can help you discover more about CBGB & OMFUG. The illustrations used for the book were created using existing photographs for reference but several little details, like the color of people’s clothes or the details of their surroundings, were changed for stylistic reasons.

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Bibliography Bitette, Nicole. “The Ramones’ New York: A look at the famous punk band’s city spots 40 years after their debut.” New York Daily News, 2016.

Cooper, Sabrina. “Seven People Share Their Memories of Iconic New York Club CBGB.” AnotherMag.com, 2018.

Davis, Christopher. “Gonna Die Young: Stiv Bators & The Dead Boys.”

VaultofThoughts.com, 2018.

Deming, Mark. “Lou Reed: Artist Biography.” AllMusic, Netaktion LLC., 2021.

Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. “Ramones: Artist Biography.” AllMusic, Netaktion LLC., 2021.

Hutton, Belle. “Photographs Capturing the Magic of Patti Smith, On Stage and Off.” Anothermag.com, 2019.

Kot, Greg. “Lou Reed.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021.

Kristal, Hilly. “History by Hilly.” CBGB.com, 1998.

Lipinski, Jeb. “John Holmstrom talks about founding and editing ‘Punk,’ the chronicle of late-70s New York.” Politico, 2012.

“Lisa Robinson Takes Lou Reed to see CBGB’s Best Act.” The Dinner Party Download.org, 2014.

Perry, Kevin EG. “William Burroughs at 100: Thurston Moore on seeing him watch Patti Smith at CBGB, his response to Kurt Cobain’s suicide and ‘cut-up’ songwriting.” The Collected Works of Kevin EG Perry, kevinegperry.com. 2014.

Prato, Greg. “Dead Boys: Artist Biography.” AllMusic, Netaktion LLC., 2021.

“PUNK Magazine Began With Lou Reed Comic.” 13thDimension.com, 2013.

Rockwell, John. “Patti Smith.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021.

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Bibliography, cont.

Rose, Caryn. “Patti Smith’s Most Notable New York City Gigs.” TheVillageVoice. com, 2015.

Rose, Joel. “CBGB’s Hilly Kristal Championed Punk-Rock Spirit.” NPR.org, 2007.

Sisario, Ben. “Hilly Kristal, 75, Catalyst for Punk at CBGB, Dies.” The New York Times, 2007.

Sobel, Lee. “An Interview with John Holmstrom: Watch Out! PUNK is Coming!”

GreasyKidstuffMagazine.com, 2020.

Sullivan, Chris. “Mary Harron: The notorious queen of cool.” The Independent, 2011.

Sullivan, Jim. “Dead Boys Resurrected – The 1970s American Punk Rockers Are On Tour.” WBUR, 2017.

“The Ramones.” The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021.

“The Ramones play their first public gig at CBGB in downtown Manhattan.”

History.com, 2009.

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The very first sketch I made for the book, depicting the front entrance to the bar, mid-winter; there’s snow on the ground and some of that iconic, illegible graffiti on the walls, as well as a poster on one of the doors

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CBGB & OMFUG Stands for Country, Bluegrass, Blues & Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers.

It was open at 315 Bowery, NYC, NY, from 1973 to 2006