CD Review: CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986 (2026)

A ratty, dank, dark dive of a bar, CBGB in New York City has nevertheless earned its own chapter in rock ‘n’ roll history. A biker bar originally known as “Hilly’s On the Bowery,” owner Hilly Kristal changed the club’s name to CBGB + OMFUG (i.e. “Country, Bluegrass, Blues & Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandizers”) and began booking rock bands to try and attract beer-drinking crowds. Less than a year and a half later, the first and arguably finest generation of punk rock innovators debuted on the CBGB stage with Television, the Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, and the Talking Heads all establishing massive local followings before going on to various levels of worldwide fame and fortune.

With the ‘Pandora’s box’ of punk rock blown wide open by these most famous of CBGB bands, a plethora of sounds and styles would follow in their wake and onto the stage: the city’s infamous “no wave” bands like Sonic Youth, DNA, and Bush Tetras; post-punk outfits like Ritual Tension and Suicide; oddball funksters James Chance & the Distortions; rhythm & blues crooners Mink DeVille; power-pop bands like Sorrows, the dB’s, the Shirts, and the Paley Brothers and, finally, the hardcore punk regiments of Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Agnostic Front, and Murphy’s Law, among hundreds of other bands. Everybody who was anybody in the late 1970s and early ‘80s (The Damned, The Police, Elvis Costello, The Beastie Boys, et al) played CBGB.

The club eventually became a brand, spinning off a record store (CBGB Record Canteen) and combination art gallery/performance space (CB’s 314 Gallery) and continued to book cutting-edge bands until its closure in 2006. Two decades later, “CBGB” t-shirts remain ubiquitous among punk rock fans. The club inspired numerous live recordings and several books, the best of which – Roman Kozak’s highly-recommended 1988 tome This Ain’t No Disco – was recently reissued by Trouser Press Books, as well as lofty pop culture references (including an homage by The Simpsons TV show, the ‘Holy Grail’ of cultural gatekeeping) and even a tawdry 2013 biopic by filmmaker Randall Miller. 

CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986

Patti Smith

CBGB also spawned a number of various compilation albums, beginning with 1976’s Live At CBGB’s - The Home of Underground Rock, which was curated by Kristal; as well as the 1990 Japanese import CBGB “Off the Board” and 2001’s scant UK import 25 Years of CBGB’s: 1976-2001, both of which are totally and ignorantly unrepresentative of the club and the overall NYC punk scene in the 1970s and ‘80s. One of my least favorite of these comps is Ocho Records’ 2002 CD CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk. Featuring 18 tracks selected by British rock critic Johnny Chandler, the tracklist resembles an academic essay rather than a true documentary, featuring bands like the Velvet Underground, the Sonics, the 13th Floor Elevators, and the Seeds that never actually played at the club, but rather “influenced” those that did. Bollocks!

So, when I saw that archival experts Cherry Red Records in the U.K. was releasing a massive four-CD box set, CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986, I hoped for the best. I needn’t have worried, as the 91-track box set is every bit as detailed and entertaining as the label’s recent Motor City Is Burning: A Michigan Anthology 1965-1972 and Steppin’ Out: The Roots of Garage Rock 1963-1965 box sets. Sure, you’ll find the same ol’ familiar faces that defined the “CBGB’s sound” (insomuch as there was one…) that pop up on every single damn punk rock anthology, although some aren’t singing the same old song: The Ramones (“Beat On the Brat”), Patti Smith (“Free Money”), Television (“See No Evil”), the Heartbreakers (“Born To Lose”), the Dead Boys (“Ain’t Nothing To Do”), and Blondie (“Picture This”), et al. But these four CDs offer so much more!

The realities of booking several nights of live entertainment several nights at any club – even in New York City – are challenging, at best. Out of necessity, CBGB had to book a diverse lot of rock ‘n’ roll outlaws, and this perspective shows itself on CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack. Aside from the aforementioned bands that are most strongly identified with the club, you have such frequent performers as Mink DeVille (“A Train Lady”), Tuff Darts (“Fun City”), James Chance & the Contortions (a raucous live cover of “Jailhouse Rock”), Bad Brains (“Banned In D.C.”), The Cramps (“Garbage Man”), Wayne Country & the Electric Chairs (“Fuck Off”), Cherry Vanilla (“Hard As A Rock”), and Richard Hell & the Voidoids (“The Kid With the Replaceable Head”) all represented across the box’s four CDs. It’s the lesser-known and truly obscure artists that really tickle my fancy, however, and the box has those guys ‘n’ gals in spades.

Kenny Gordon & Pure Hell

The CBGB’s Sound

A lot of artists who brought their individual muse to the CBGB’s stage never got a chance to make a record, or only released a single seven-incher or underpromoted LP for posterity but, in my estimation, quite a few of these talents deserved a shot at the brass ring. The Magic Tramps (“S&M Leather Queen”) were one of these, as unique a band to hit the Bowery stage as you’d find back in the day, with a sound that welded punkish intensity to the endless musical possibilities of prog-rock with a blowtorch. Stuart’s Hammer’s name sounds like a prog band, but they’re were really a rowdy bunch of rockers with wiry guitarplay and a sly sense of humor. Sonny Vincent’s Testors are a late discovery of mine, and Sonny has recently released a great compilation LP of the band’s high-octane brand of punk as displayed here by the livewire “You Don’t Break My Heart.”

Helen Wheels

Largely because of Kenny Gordon’s (no relation) endless advocacy, Pure Hell are beginning to get their due as the “World’s Only Black Punk Rock Band,” and they deserve every accolade tossed their way. The band’s “I Feel Bad” is an unrelenting curb-stomp of powering guitars and crashing rhythms, and their 2006 Noise Addiction compilation is highly recommended for old-school punk fans. Milk ‘n’ Cookies is another outfit getting a chance to shine as collectors have picked up on their ahead-of-their-time glammy punk vibe as evidenced by the joyful “Not Enough Girls (In the World”). Helen Wheels (née Robbins) was a NYC scene mainstay during the ‘70s, and her “Roon To Rage” shows the heart of punk with raging vox, a mean melodic hook, slicing fretwork and thundering drumbeats. Shrapnel, fronted by Dave Wyndorf (who would later form stoner rock outfit Monster Magnet) and guitarist Daniel Rey (famed Ramones producer) deliver the goods with “Combat Love,” a rollicking power-pop tinged rocker heartily endorsed by no less an authority than Joey Ramone. 

The dB’s would go onto a modicum of fame as one of the ‘80s finest college rock outfits, and their “Black and White” offers a glimpse of where the band’s punk-influences pop/rock sound would land while New Jersey natives the Bongos’ “Telephoto Lens” strides across similar sonic power-pop turf but with a quirkier adventuresome style. The Raybeats’ instrumental “Tight Turn” mixed surf-rock with Memphis soul (think Booker T. and the M.G.’s) for an entirely unique vibe while the Beastie Boys’ “Egg Raid On Mojo” is their pre-rap hardcore mosh classic. Singer/songwriter Jesse Malin is better known these days for his lyrical rock ‘n’ roll fare but his hardcore band Heart Attack’s “English Cunts” is more closely aligned with British bands like Crass or Discharge than with Springsteen. 

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

With four CDs comprised of over five hours of music, I’ve only scratched the surface of the CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986 box’s depths. There’s still plenty of cool, and sometimes great music here from unmentioned bands like Sonic Youth, Minor Threat, the Dictators, Talking Heads (a rare live take of “A Clean Break”), Genya Ravan (with Lou Reed), the Paley Brothers, Non Hendryx, the Laughing Dogs, Material, Richard Lloyd, Sorrows, Reagan Youth, and James Blood Ulmer that roars out of your speakers. Offering a wealth of largely out-of-the-mainstream music and detailed track-by-track liner notes, CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack is the only compilation of the legendary rock scene that you’ll ever need to buy. (Cherry Red Records, released January 30th, 2026)

Buy the CD box set from Amazon: CBGB: A New York City Soundtrack 1975-1986

Book Review: Roman Kozak's This Ain't No Disco: The Story of CBGB (2024)

During my first trip from Nashville to ‘The Big Apple’ circa 1983 or ‘84, there was just one thing that I wanted to – visit the world-renown CBGB club in the NYC Bowery. A dive bar in a seedy neighborhood, the club launched the American punk scene with bands like Television, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, and Talking Heads, among many others from 1975-78. It was ‘ground zero’ for enthusiastic young punk-rock fanboys like myself. My buddy Thom, who was paying for the trip (we were ostensibly attending a trade show on business) was lukewarm on CBGB, but instead wanted to visit the Cedar Tavern in Greenwich Village where painter Jackson Pollock used to drink (and was later barred from for tearing up the joint…).

I begrudgingly went along to the Cedar (free beer being free beer, after all!) and after a few pitchers of the establishment’s finest lager, Thom was easily convinced to go catch a show at CBGB. Long Island NY’s Dancing Hoods were headlining that weeknight, with a long-forgotten band featuring actress Laura Dean (from the movie Fame) on the microphone opening. Recognizing Dean from the film, Thom was psyched to talk to her after the show, and the club’s dank atmosphere and blaring sound system lived up to my expectations. That was my only visit to the infamous venue, but it still lives large in my memory, especially since I drunkenly left behind an umbrella I’d paid a Korean shopkeeper three bucks for earlier that day.

For rock ‘n’ roll fans of an accruing age, CBGB was the stuff of legend – opened in 1973, the club hit its stride by 1975 when owner Hilly Kristal allowed an unknown band by the name of Television play regularly on a weeknight. Others soon followed, and although the implications of the scene weren’t apparent at the time, the CBGB’s cohort forever changed the direction of rock music in the U.S. and abroad, and while only a handful of ‘original’ CBGB bands went on to fame and fortune, the best of the lot still managed to leave behind an enduring legacy that is forever tied to the club. The roster of bands who performed at CBGB reads like a literal ‘who’s who’ of rock music; aside from the aforementioned hall of famers, among those gracing the Bowery stage were Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Madonna, The Police, The Fleshtones, Misfits, The Cramps, Bad Brains, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, and The Beastie Boys.

Billboard magazine editor Roman Kozak was there from the launching of CBGB & OMFUG (Kristal’s acronym for “Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandizers), and his 1988 book This Ain’t No Disco: The Story of CBGB documents much of the club’s first decade or so with an oral history provided by the artists who performed, club employees and hangers-on, and Kristal himself. Out-of-print for decades, the book was recently (and deservedly) republished by Ira Robbins’ Trouser Press Books with permission from Kozak’s family. Chris Frantz of Talking Heads provides a new foreword and Robbins’ coverage on the 2006 closing of the club from Spin magazine and New York Newsday provides a coda to Kozak’s book. Photos by NYC scenester Ebet Roberts capture the charms of CBGB with B&W portraits of bands like Blondie, The Ramones, The Jam, and Television as well as the club itself.

It’s a damn shame that Kozak passed away shortly after the publication of This Ain’t No Disco, his only book (he also co-wrote a screenplay titled The Bomb) because he’s quite a good writer. Although approaching the book from a journalist’s perspective, Kozak’s light, conversationalist prose style weaves a solid narrative from the disparate interviews used to tell the story, which makes for an easy and fascinating read. As a fan who experienced CBGB in its prime, Kozak offers a keen eye in describing the club and its environs, as well as the people involved, who almost all have stories to tell. Kozak describes the lead-up to the club’s ascendancy as a ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Mecca’, writing of the club’s difficulties and mishaps as well as its small triumphs.

Although Kozak goes into some depth on the all-important 1975-78 period that launched several bands into the stratosphere, he digs into the aftermath as well, digging into the CBGB’s tenure of bands like the loco Dead Boys, the equally-crazed Plasmatics, and a ‘80s NYC hardcore scene that yielded H/C leading lights like Agnostic Front, Murphy’s Law, and the Cro-Mags. Although most of those interviewed for the book waxed positive about the club and its owner – folks like Annie Golden (The Shirts), Lenny Kaye (of Patti Smith’s band), Handsome Dick Manitoba (The Dictators), and Jim Carroll among them, as well as members of several CBGB-associated bands – Kozak wasn’t afraid to include the voices of some less infatuated speakers; the late, great Willy DeVille didn’t seem to be much of a Hilly Kristal fan.

After a lengthy and ultimately-futile fight with its landlord, CBGB closed after 33 years in October 2006, with club owner Kristal passing away the following year. Some of the grime-encrusted décor of the club was preserved by the high-end John Varatos retail store that opened at the location, and the club’s intellectual properties were reported sold to a group of unknown investors (to hawk t-shirts and such…). Kozak’s This Ain’t No Disco cements the club’s history, warts and all, preserving its legacy for rock ‘n’ rollers too young to have ever visited the East Village. Well-written and insightful, This Ain’t No Disco was penned by somebody that was ‘on location’ rather than a well-meaning historian looking backwards. I’d heartily recommend the book to any music fan curious about the legendary New York City venue. (Trouser Press Books, published October 15th, 2024)

Buy the book direct from the publisher: Roman Kozak’s This Ain’t No Disco

Also on That Devil Music:
CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk CD review
Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious book review

Archive Review: Various Artists - CBGB’s and the Birth of Punk (2002)

A fleabit Bowery dive every bit as filthy as its reputation makes it out to be, CBGB’s has earned its place in history as the nursery school of punk rock. The Reverend made his pilgrimage to this rock ‘n’ roll mecca back in ‘82, hitting the club with some friends after a long night drinking pitchers of Rolling Rock at the Village’s Rooftop Tavern with the ghost of Jackson Pollock. The bands were largely unknown (tho’ the Dancin’ Hoods did subsequently make a couple good albums), the beer was warm and CBGB’s bathroom was worse than any Southern truckstop I’d ever thrown up in.

To top it all off, I left behind the umbrella I had bought on the street from a Korean grocer earlier that day. ‘Course, by 1982, Joey, Stiv, Debbie and Richard had shuffled off to greener pastures and even Lester had left this mortal coil. CBGB’s was still the coolest place on the planet to be at that moment and if we experienced even a little of the club’s famed vibe, it was worth the sojourn.   
   

CBGB’s and the Birth of Punk

The club’s legend, of course, is not based on its ambiance (dark and smelly) or even its shithole bathrooms (proudly pictured on a CBGB’s T-shirt available on the club’s web site). The many talented bands that graced the stage at CBGB’s in the early-to-late seventies is what earned the club and its proprietor Hilly Krystal a place in rock ‘n’ roll history. As outlined in British music journalist Johnny Chandler’s liner notes for CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk, Krystal originally opened the club in 1973 in New York’s run-down Bowery district as a venue for “Country, Bluegrass and Blues” (CBGB). Crowds weren’t exactly queuing up to buy tickets for the club so when Television’s Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell approached Krystal in early ‘74 about becoming a sort of house band, playing the same night every week, he agreed. Soon folks like the Ramones, Debbie Harry, and Patti Smith were hanging out, performing, and creating a music scene that would have worldwide impact. Krystal was never afraid to book unsigned bands, thus opening the club up to the best and the brightest talents from across the country.

Compiled by Chandler, the U.K. CD release of CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk offers up a dozen and a half tracks, ranging from important punk antecedents like the Velvet Underground and the Stooges to 1960s-era garage bands like the Seeds and the Sonics. A fair representation of homegrown N.Y.C. talent is included, such as the New York Dolls (who frequently performed at the Mercer rather than CBGB), Suicide, Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers, and the Ramones. Some of the big names associated with the club are included, such as Blondie, the Dead Boys, and Television, represented here by an unreleased live version of “Friction” actually recorded in New Jersey.

Licensing difficulties obviously influenced the track selection, since there’s nothing here from the Talking Heads or Patti Smith, both important CBGB’s attractions back in the day. Cleveland’s Electric Eels and Pere Ubu merit inclusion, both bands having made an important trek to New York to perform at the club. Chandler’s odd choice of a Dead Kennedys’ song – certainly better suited to a West Coast punk rock compilation – stands out quite starkly. CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk is meant to provide an audio history of both the NYC scene and its impact on what would later become known as “punk rock.” Chandler has done a fairly admirable job in assembling the compilation, tracing the evolution of punk’s first generation from its ‘60s roots to its inevitable early 1980s conclusion as it crashed-and-burned under the weight of its own ambitions.

Touchstones In Rock ‘n’ Roll History

However, do we really a document such as this? Of the artists included on the CD that actually haunted the CBGB’s stage at some time, only a handful of them made it into the 1980s intact, and only the Ramones and Pere Ubu stretched a career into the ‘90s. Although nearly every band featured here had some small degree of influence on modern music, most are merely the favorites of aging and overwrought critics and record collectors with too much time on their hands. Likewise, the dubious influence of bands such as the Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls, the 13th Floor Elevators, and Television is overstated – none experienced a significant enough commercial presence to influence listeners beyond their inner circle. They are touchstones in rock ‘n’ roll history – more people are familiar with their names than with their music.   

Ask the average fan of, say, Down By Law or Pennywise about CBGB’s and they might mumble something about the Ramones and not much else. Although still offering live bands seven days a week, I’d bet the farm that Krystal makes more money hawking CBGB’s T-shirts online than he does from the club’s take at the door. CBGB is a symbol of a long-passed era, an aberration in time rather than a thriving creative venue. The legendary Cantrell’s club in Nashville provides as much the same sort of looking glass into the past for Music City scenesters. The club featured national acts like the Replacements alongside local talents like Jason & the Scorchers and the White Animals during the 1980s. In both cases, the long-term influence of either CBGB or Cantrell’s on their city’s local music scenes is inconsequential beyond their status as brief historical curiosities.  

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The British fascination with the roots of punk (or sixties garage rock, for that matter) is admirable, especially considering American fast-food culture that ignores the past in favor of a bright, shining present. There comes a time, however, when we have to stop obsessing with the past. I like the New York Dolls, the Stooges, Television, and the Ramones every bit as much as the next fellow, but it is unlikely that yet another compilation featuring these artists is going to change the world, much less attract many new listeners.

CBGB’s, the club, and the punk rock era that it ushered in has been documented to death. Being the consummate record geek, the Reverend bought a copy of CBGB’s and the Birth of U.S. Punk just like many of you. However, from my seat, the compilation smells like a rotting corpse, Chandler’s erstwhile efforts akin to necrophilia. Your money is better spent on a White Stripes CD or perhaps a Ramones reissue. (Ocho Records, released April 8th, 2002)

Review originally published by Alt.Culture.Guide™