I suppose it's appropriate that the fabled New York City club CBGB ended its existence last night with a performance by Patti Smith. She was, of course, one of the performers who flourished at that site, part of an amazing explosion of talent in the mid-to-late seventies who would find their voice at CBGB, a group that included some of the greatest bands of all time, including The Ramones, Suicide, Blondie, Richard Hell And the Voidoids and Television.
A great legacy, undeniably. Suicide's first album officially ranks as one of The Greatest Things In The History Of The World, and The Ramones and Blondie would remain great bands even after punk's heyday had ended. CBGB owner Hilly Kristal gave disaffected (and sometimes only marginally talented) white kids a place where they could discover themselves, and it was happening at pretty much the same time that disaffected black kids first started to set up turntables and create a hip-hop culture of their own.
The punk ethos born at CBGB was a culture, undeniably. The rgulars at that era also included Mink DeVille and Talking Heads, bands that sounded nothing like each other, and absolutely nothing like The Ramones. What they had in common was the fact that they sounded nothing like any music being made then, and these bands made music as a way of life, not as a career optionEven now, hearing The Ramones' first album is like hearing something brand new, the first shot in a revolution that so many others have been reluctant to join.
Still, it's telling that the club closed with a celebration of past glories. CBGB had continued to flourish in the eighties as home to New York's burgeoning hardcore scene, but it had long since ceased being relevant, and existed mostly as a landmark, a place where old vets tried to relive the good old days and young wannabes would come to pay hommage. A past is a good thing to have, but a future would be even better, and that was no longer in the cards for CBGB.
