
I'm a bit late to the table on this, being that it happened on Sunday night, but the final show at CBGB has come and gone. I would've addressed it earlier, but my time has been otherwise under seige by the plumbing in our apartment (we've gone without hot water since Sunday night). Invariably, this is some form of Karmic retribution for
the uncharitable things I said about the Union Square Greenmarket, for which I've summarily been
Gawked. In any case, I sort've gave up the ghost on the whole "let's save CB's" campaign a while back. While I would've liked to have checked out that final Bad Brains show of last week, I harbored no interest in seeing
that ol' harpee, Patti Smith exhort for the final performance. That said,
my colleague Chris H. went and filed this report, which is well worth a read. Another colleague and erstwhile musician,
Ben W. also logged some thoughts on the subject that are also well worth checking out.
As for me, I''ll remember CB's for the times I saw Murphy's Law, the Circle Jerks, Kraut, Gavin Friday, the Volcano Suns, the Wedding Present, Cop Shoot Cop and dozens of other bands within its squalid walls. If truth be told, I don't think I set foot inside CBGB within the last ten years, but I'm still sad to see it go. It may have become a shadow of its former self, catering to nostalgists and cartoony self-parody, but the demolition of CBGB is just one step closer to the Borg-like homogenization of Manhattan. When I'm eventually swept off the island because I can't afford the spiralling maintenance or the tuition to school my kids, I'll have one less reason to miss the place.
New York City is eating itself.
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