The Legacy of CBGB: 5 Bands That Helped Define Punk Rock

CBGB opened in 1973. When Hilly Kristal founded the club, he’d envisioned a country bar. (The initialism stands for Country, Bluegrass, Blues.) The landmark Bowery club used to be a dive bar and kept that vestige, including the infamously disgusting bathroom with doorless stalls. Doors used to be there, but one can imagine them having been kicked in by a combat boot or a worn-out Converse sneaker with sticky soles.

There was an underground rock movement in the 1970s, and the Mercer Arts Center was the nucleus. Bands like the New York Dolls played there. When Mercer Arts Center closed, the bands needed somewhere to go. They found their new venue in Lower Manhattan: CBGB.

Kristal begrudgingly relented on his idea for a country bar and let the bands in. Less than a year later, a completely new and exciting scene emerged. The address, 315 Bowery, had become a magnet for the underground.

The bands onstage were living the punk rock dream. But the reality of that dream was that most of the musicians were living in poverty. It’s difficult to achieve that kind of angsty sound, sonic grit, and rebellious attitude when living in comfort. Discomfort is not the bug, it’s the feature. Torn jeans had more to do with New York being a walking city and having only a single pair in your closet. The jeans were rubbed and worn from living; they certainly weren’t purchased, distressed, and packaged from a suburban mall.

CBGB is more than just a logo on a shirt. Before it concluded its last show in 2006, it was a punk rock dungeon. The stage was angled off to the side with ceiling monitors. The monitors hung so low that if you weren’t careful you’d knock your head against them. And the bathrooms were a special kind of filth only humans are capable of producing.

But would you want a punk rock club any other way? CBGB is responsible for some of the most important bands and one of the most important musical movements of the 20th century.

1. Television

Television unwittingly sparked New York’s punk scene after convincing Kristal to let them play at CBGB. A mixture of Velvet Underground art-rock and garage rock, the band was led by Tom Verlaine. His Fender Jazzmaster guitar sounded tense and angular. Verlaine sang in a pinched manner with poetic lyrics that didn’t fit neatly into “punk rock” (which is in itself punk). His guitar playing was exploratory and beautiful, like a jazz musician. “Marquee Moon,” in all its Mixolydian, nearly 11-minute glory, is peak Verlaine. Richard Hell, the band’s bassist, and co-singer, looked like what we now recognize as punk rock. Television may be the most influential band to come out of the city’s nascent punk scene.

[RELATED: Television’s Tom Verlaine Dies at 73]

2. Patti Smith Group

Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye attended one of Television’s first gigs at CBGB. Soon they’d be playing their own gigs at the bar. Smith, being both a woman and a poet, contrasted the machismo associated with punk rock. She was a part of two New York worlds: those of both music and literature. Smith is a romantic rebel, a National Book Award winner, and a New York punk rock legend. She appeared at CBGB’s final show in 2006.

3. Blondie

Debbie Harry and Chris Stein formed Blondie in New York City in 1974. They’d already played CBGB in other bands, but Blondie would bridge the gap between punk and New Wave. The band also bridged the gap from the New York underground to mainstream success as Harry became nothing less than a pop culture icon.

4. Talking Heads

The first Talking Heads gig saw them opening for the Ramones. The early minimalism of David Byrne’s group would grow to include more instruments and more sounds from around the world.

Stabbing guitars and Afrobeat defined the band’s influential art punk. And not for nothing: a Talking Heads song is the reason a British band originally called On a Friday now calls themselves Radiohead.

5. Ramones

The Ramones are considered the first punk rock group. Legend says the Ramones’ first gig at CBGB lasted only 12 minutes. The band is analogous to both punk rock and CBGB. The punk family tree simply doesn’t exist without one or the other. These four guys in leather jackets, led by Joey Ramone (all band members took on the “Ramone” surname), played two-minute songs to limited commercial success. But history is a long game, and the Ramones are cultural icons who wound up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Photo: Robert Mapplethorpe