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savecbgb.org

The trouble with CBGB

Yesterday, CBGB was served with its eviction papers. It seems that neither love nor money will save this place. So what's “Save CBGB" about, other than legendary reunions, celebrity endorsements, public outcry, and big ticket prices? Ultimately, it's the need to preserve counterculture, which is systematically being erased in pursuit of the almighty dollar. While CBGB is not eligible for “landmark status" in the esteem of well-heeled historical societies, it was a haven for culture generators since the mid-seventies. Warhol factory and even Max's Kansas City refugees flocked to this unlikely venue in the vagrant-ridden Bowery, as no other venue would give them a home. Though Hilly Krystal's dream of cultivating a blues bar was not fully realized, what he created with his implied consent was the birthplace of punk rock.

Now that saving CBGB has become a cause celebre in the zero hour, and even past it, so it seems, Why should we care? Locals complain that CBGB's bookings are erratic and it seldom hosts good shows until now. Tourists come to look at the place and gawk at the remarkably rustic interior and fetid toilets, and then buy a t-shirt. Everyone wants their photographs taken under the awning, but will that sustain the business? CBGB is more than a business and a tenant. It's a cultural symbol. It represents the soul of rock and roll. While these place that once symbolized everything that was cool, different and a little bit dangerous disappear one by one, I sound like an octogenarian tour guide as I tell people, “This deli used to be Max's Kansas City. Dee Dee used to pimp himself outside this office building, this door with the padlock used to be where Dylan played, this NYU building used to be the Fillmore East..."

Who is selling the soul of rock and roll? The Bowery Residents' Committee, which seems to hide behind the facade of portraying CBGB as the ogre that keeps roofs from being erected over the heads of the homeless. This is an organization that also receives support from the government and private parties. The $20,000 a month in rent CBGB has been paying up until now has seemed to do just fine in the meantime. Their eye is on the promised $40,000 in rent they could collect from a corporate franchise like Starbucks or a celebrity vanity-project restaurant. I don't know if Muzzy Rosenblatt, the BRC's director, has looked around lately, but even the smattering of yuppie restaurants and bars that have spring up on the Bowery in very recent years are struggling, and the overall neighborhood is just as seedy as it was when I walked into CBGB in thigh-high leather boots to play my first audition showcase in 1982.

Another reason why CBGB should be allowed to remain, not only for the careers that it launched, is that it is a globally unifying symbol of the rock and roll spirit. Bands from all over fight to play the humiliating audition showcase, and save the strip ad in the Village voice under the CBGB and OMFUG moniker as evidence that they have arrived. Every band wants to say, “I played CBGB's. It's a right of passage. The reality is that this is not enough to fund $40,000 a month in rent, let alone CBGB barely scraping by paying half that. It has been widely reported that CBGB owner Krystal makes $2 million dollars in t-shirt sales, the ubiquitous rock and roll uniform. Some say he should fund the club with that, but even given that, the man is not running a charity and $2 million a year may not even subsidize it fully, once you add in taxes, licensing fees, insurance, payroll, and all the other daunting expenses you are on the hook to pay for putting on punk rock shows.

So what is Save CBGB all about? Is it salvageable? I attended the press conference MC'd by “Little" Steven Van Zandt on August 1st and learned a lot about the situation. Just let me say, Little Steven has become one of my personal heroes over the last few years, because of his dedication to preserving rock and roll, as “The Sopranos" music supervisor, Underground Garage host on Sirius and the internet, and the driver of last year's International Garage Rock Festival, even though commercial music has obliterated and semblance of the art form. Up until this press conference, the general story was that it was a fight about back rent and increases. CBGB lawyers said the back rent was not the issue. Indeed, a short time later a judge ruled that CBGB was not responsible for the back rent. These were unbilled charges the BRC tried to collect, another item on the list for them to get CBGB out. What was Save CBGB about? The bottom line, says lawyers and politicians flanking Hilly, along with rock and roll legends who would be unknown if Hilly hadn't provided a haven for them in the mid-Seventies, is to put political pressure on the Mayor of New York City to ask the BRC to renegotiate the lease under more reasonable terms. Anyone who knows Mayor Bloomberg realizes that he'd stick his neck out for a punk rock club like CBGB as much as Bush would for poor people stranded at the New Orleans Convention Center.

Panelists also included Tommy Ramone, and Lenny Kaye of Patti Smith Group. Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators, Jean Bouvoir of The Plasmatics and John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil of Punk Magazine, who soberly lined the back of the stage like personal henchmen. There were questions from the audience and shouts of support from East Village fixtures, like Jimmy of Trash and Vaudeville, and even a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, who gladly posed for pictures afterward with star-struck punkers (me included!).

The press conference was followed by a short set by Debbie Harry with her guitar player and keyboards, as she played a few songs even from the beginning of her career, like “X Offender". Jesse Malin also played a set there, and I've known Jesse from shortly after the first time I first played CBGB, and have seen him in about at least 5 different line-ups over the years on that same stage. The night ended in an all-star jam with The Waldos with Walter Lure, Lenny Kaye, Sami Yaffa, now of the New York Dolls, and Karmen Guy of Mad Juana.

The rally in Washington Square Park marked the last day CBGB was legally allowed to occupy its current space. Concerts continue after the clock has struck twelve. Today on mtv.com Hilly vows to stay even after they have locked him out. All this love, media attention,“benefit" concerts, what can be done? The landlord wants them out full stop. CBGB is trying to re-open lease negotiations. You wonder why the BRC has such a hard on for CBGB. Is it just the lure of more rent? They say they are looking for a new tenant. What will the new tenant do, rip out 35 years of flyers, rickety floorboards, spray paint, stickers, spilled beer, and scuff-marks from black boots? These are badges and scars that cannot be moved. They are layers of history and labor and blood, sweat and piss. It can't exist in Las Vegas. That's not where the Ramones first played. It can't even exist down the street. It's like burning an original Mozart manuscript. It cannot be replicated. There is no formula. There is no substitute for experience, just as you can not re-construct history, even if you put on the uniform and stand on the same battlefield.

What can be done? This is what I think: Hilly allowed punk rock to flourish in his club, and allowed his business to get into this situation because he’s not one of these businessmen with the killer instict. How can he make money and meet the new rent, assuming that the BRC will let him stay even if he can pay it? Just think about why most people come there--just to see it. Turn it into a rock and roll museum. All those artists that are donating their time and energy to saving it can donate their memorabilia. Even as it stands now, CBGB is a million times cooler than the Hard Rock Cafe, or a hundred thousand times cooler than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. When my club, Coney Island High was shut down, the former manager of Max's Kansas City, Peter Crowley, told me, “You can't make money from the music! We made out money selling food!" The advice came too late for me, but it's somewhat applicable to CBGB. People would pay $15 to see CBGB as a museum, but won't pay $7 to go see bands. Shows have high overhead. So, you lower your overhead by having exhibits, charge more for admission, and keep the stage for shows for special occasions. You can't have great shows every week. You can't even have them every month. Take them as they come, and charge more. And have food, sell t-shirts and let people hang out and just absorb the feel and the vibe that cannot exist anywhere else at any other time. Then CBGB will make it's rent and retain it's foothold on the cultural landscape.

Will my plan Save CBGB? Maybe not. It makes good business sense, and it seems the landlord is looking for a viable business, which CBGB is not in its current form. You can't have benefits ad infinitum. But it does need to be preserved and saved as once it's gone, it will be another place I will walk by and say, “That Red Lobster used to be..." I feel I have abandoned my city and my scene in its darkest hour of need. If I come back and CBGB is gone, I will feel like I lost a bit of my heart, and the city will have lost a bit of its soul.