However you will know the legendary music club that he started that has been called the birthplace of punk, I am of course talking about CBGB’s.
CBGB’s was one of those clubs that put bands on the map and became a place you dreamed of playing. It wasn’t the best club in fact it was a run down dive that was covered with graffiti and had the sweet aroma of urine. However, its history more than made up for it and many would say you haven’t made it until you played a show there. Bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads began their careers at CBGB’s and were instrumental in putting the club into the history books.
“I am very sorry that Hilly is gone,” Debbie Harry better known as Blondie said after hearing of Kristal’s passing. “He was a big help to Blondie and to the New York music scene for many years. His club CBGB’s has become a part of New York lore and Rock n’ Roll history.”
Hilly Kristal opened the club in December of 1973 with a different idea of musical style in mind. The full name of the club is CBGB & OMFUG which stands for "Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers".* So punk rock was the farthest thing in his mind as the ideal genre but the style quickly changed when CBGB’s became one of the few locations that unsigned bands could come and play their own music.
2005 was the beginning of the end for the legendary club when a dispute over back rent from the Bowery Residents’ Committee (an agency the housed the homeless) was demanded with a price tag said to be as much as $91,000. In October of last year, the club finally closed after Kristal’s attempts at landmark status failed and his lease expired.
That last week CBGB’s glowed much like it did in it’s heyday with featured performances by Bad Brains and even an acoustic set by Blondie. The final concert was a special night of Patti Smith with guests that included Flea of the RHCP’s and Television’s Richard Lloyd.
Even with the closing of CBGB’s the legacy was still very much alive. CBGB Fashions store moved and opened a month later in November; keeping the name out there and selling the famous logo on shirts that can be seen around the world. There were also talks of resurrecting the club in of all places, Las Vegas. "We're going to take the urinals," Kristal said. "I'll take whatever I can.” Time will tell if his dreams of Vegas will come true but much like Chicago’s own Lounge Ax, the memories and the history will live on forever.
Hilly Kristal is survived by his son Mark Dana, daughter Lisa Kristal Burgman "and the thousands of artists and musicians who played the club," the family proclaimed in a statement.
* Gormandizer means a “ravenous eater of food” but Kristal has often been quoted as saying his interpretation was "a voracious eater of, in this case, MUSIC.”
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