Farewell CBGB's - We Barely Knew Ya

This is it. This weekend. The long-awaited punctuation mark. The admission. An era has come to a close. An era that ended long ago. But now we have a date that we can mark its passing.

CBGB's closes this weekend CBGB's & OMFUG - Country, Bluegrass, Blues & OMFUG.

I won't be there for the final auld lang syne. But that's okay, I never made it there when it meant something to be there. 1976-1979, American Punk Rock created itself on the Bowery (where else could it happen?) - Blondie, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, Ramones, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, Television and more - bands that influenced generations and will continue to influence generations - all started in this marvelous little dark, dingy cellar-like hole in the wall.

1976-79 I was in college in Western New York - a good five hour drive from CBGB's. By the time I arrived in New York City in 1982, the scene was already over. Everyone knew about it by then. Everyone that mattered. The A&R people had caught on, the progressive radio stations (WLIR, WPLR to name two), college radio most of all.

But I went all the same. My friends played there. Friends of my friends played there. There was always the dream that lightning would strike twice - that CBGB's would lead in the next new musical wave. Perhaps it didn't happen per se, but I don't think there is a band in New York that can claim it got started without playing CBGB's. And hardly a band that didn't call Hilly looking for a gig.

I remember sitting backstage at CBGB's - my first visit there. Sitting on a ratty reddish couch and thinking to myself "Wow, Debbie Harry probably shot up right here." Yes, I'm a Blondie fan. But more than that, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of history. History was a palpable thing there.

I may not have spent much time at CBGB's, but there was a hardly a week went by I didn't check out the Village Voice to see who was playing there.

A good friend of mine played CBGB's a few weeks ago. I'm glad they made it . There will never again be a band that can say. "We played at CB's"

It's a little piece of New York City history, gone forever. A victim of avarice and changing times. I hear that it is going to be rebuilt as a museum in California.

But for me a little piece of what made New York, New York is gone forever. Another little piece of rock & roll history and culture is gone forever. New York is an island and CBGB's was a part of the whole, a piece of the main. The close of CBGB's leaves New York the lesser for it. And me.