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

Book Review: Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious (2024)

On the Mount Olympus of rock ‘n’ roll, Lou Reed may be Apollo, the Greek god of music and poetry…or maybe he was the Oracle of Delphi, Pythia, whose prophecies are said to have come from divine possession. More likely, though, Reed was Hermes, the messenger god, who was also known as a bit of a trickster along the line of Loki of Norse mythology, for what else could Metal Machine Music be considered other than a terribly cheeky prank?

Perhaps Reed was an amalgam of all of these mythological figures. Over the course of a lengthy career that spanned six decades, Reed released nearly three-dozen studio and live albums – both solo and with his influential group the Velvet Underground – with more than a few clunkers in the mix, but enough solid efforts to build an impressive legacy. More importantly, he spread the message of rock ‘n’ roll, a particular gospel fueled by Reed’s unique and unparalleled creative vision.

Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious

There is an entire shelf of books available that deconstruct Reed’s life and career, some obviously written by fans like Will Hermes and Anthony DeCurtis, which present the artist in an honest light, warts and all, while others (Howard Sounes, I’m looking at you…) seem to be purposely salacious, designed to denigrate Reed’s reputation without the good sense to realize that you can’t really tarnish a god’s image. Have these scribes ever read the story of Leda & the Swan? An entirely different bookshelf covers the lightning bolt-brief albeit influential existence of the Velvet Underground.

Yes, Lou was a prickly, contentious, misanthropic figure who particularly disliked the music media, and his feuds with critics like Lester Bangs are legendary in and of themselves. Reed could sometimes be hateful in words and actions, but looking at the artist from an arm’s length, it seems that most of the damage caused by Lou was targeted at himself. What few of the aforementioned books do, however, is really cover the man’s music in depth. For that, we have Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious.

Higgins is a former pop music and jazz critic for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper – back in the day when arts coverage was valued by the mainstream press – and Sweet, Wild and Vicious is an invaluable listener’s guide to Reed’s largish catalog of music. Published by Ira Robbins’ Trouser Press Books, a commercial imprint with a fan’s perspective and plenty of rock ‘n’ roll history behind it, unlike most of these currently trendy “album-by-album” books, Sweet, Wild and Vicious doesn’t lapse into the “song-by-song” orthodoxy that tends to hamstring acute criticism in favor of word count (and, as author of one of these books – Sonicbond’s Spirit…On Track – I have some familiarity with the form). 

Lou Reed, Montauk Studio 2002, photo by Julian Schnabel, courtesy Light In The Attic Records

Lou Reed Album-by Album

Instead, Higgins treats each recording individually and organically in its entirety, providing context and history while calling out the best (and sometimes worst) of the songs. Sweet, Wild and Vicious begins, logically, with the four Velvet Underground albums circa 1967-1970 and, after a quick and insightful aside into the song “Sweet Jame,” dives into Reed’s solo career with his self-titled 1972 debut album, which I hold in higher esteem than does Higgins. Over the course of 246 pages, Higgins smartly and concisely tackles each album in the Reed milieu, including late-period VU live discs, up through Reed’s mischievous swansong, Lulu, his 2011 collaboration with heavy metal legends Metallica.

Higgins’ appreciation for even Reed’s minor works is obvious, but never fawning, and he seems to be able to pluck a gem or two out of even lackluster albums like Mistrial or Rock and Roll Heart. Higgins’ enthusiasm is contagious, his insight as thought-provoking as the artist’s work he’s writing about. The last few chapters of Sweet, Wild and Vicious go beyond Reed to discuss legendary critic Robert Christgau’s estimation of the artist’s body of work and “Children of the Velvet Underground,” i.e. musicians influenced by Reed’s work including some of the usual suspects – folks like David Bowie, Dream Syndicate, and Jonathan Richman – as well as some you may not have thought of like Yo La Tengo, Joy Division, and the Feelies.

The final two chapters feature “Orphans and Rarities,” significant performances that Reed contributed to various tribute albums or movie soundtracks, and “Remake, remodel,” tackling covers of Reed’s songs by other artists. As Higgins writes, “many people can claim to be better singers than Lou Reed, with a greater range or more technical skill. But that doesn’t mean they can improve on or even credibly deliver a Reed song.” His criticisms of the performances he describes are a perfect illustration of Reed’s unique ability to infuse a song with magic that is impossible for even more talented other artists to capture.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious is a quick read (no pun intended!), well-written and intelligent and providing even the casual Lou Reed fan with motivation to track down some of those albums you may have overlooked or forgotten about. I’d highly recommend it for anybody with any interest in the artist, the book a welcome addition to the rapidly-growing Trouser Press catalog, which also includes Mitch Cohen’s Looking For the Magic, a fascinating account of his tenure with Arista Records, several collections of Robbins’ wonderful writing on music, and the essential Zip It Up! The Best of Trouser Press Magazine 1974-1984, all of which deserve space on your bookshelf. (Trouser Press Books, published April 19th, 2024)

Buy the book from Trouser Press: Jim Higgins’ Sweet, Wild and Vicious