Post by dagtoking1 on Aug 30, 2007 8:08:48 GMT -5
www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/Music/08/29/obit.hillykristal.ap/index.h
NEW YORK (AP) -- Hilly Kristal, whose dank Bowery rock club CBGB served
as the birthplace of the punk rock movement and a launching pad for
bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, has died. He was
75.
Hilly Kristal founded CBGB in 1973.
Kristal, who lost a bitter fight last year to stop the club's eviction
from its home of 33 years, died Tuesday at Cabrini Hospital after a
battle with lung cancer, his son Mark Dana Kristal said Wednesday.
Last October, as the club headed toward its final show with Patti Smith,
Kristal was using a cane to get around and showing the effects of his
cancer treatment. He was hoping to open a Las Vegas incarnation of the
infamous venue that opened in 1973.
"He created a club that started on a small, out-of-the-way skid row, and
saw it go around the world," said Lenny Kaye, a longtime member of the
Patti Smith Group. "Everywhere you travel around the world, you saw
somebody wearing a CBGB T-shirt."
While the club's glory days were long past when it shut down, its name
transcended the venue and become synonymous with the three-chord trash
of punk and its influence on generations of musicians worldwide.
The club also became a brand name for a line of clothing and
accessories, even guitar straps; its store, CBGB Fashions, was moved a
few blocks away from the original club, but remained open.
"I'm thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and
going on to do more with CBGB's," Kristal told The Associated Press last
October.
Kristal started the club in 1973 with the hope of making it a mecca of
country, bluegrass and blues -- called CBGB & OMFUG, for "Other Music
For Uplifting Gourmandisers" -- but found few bands to book. It instead
became the epicenter of the mid-1970s punk movement.
"There was never gourmet food, and there was never country bluegrass,"
his son said Wednesday.
Besides the Ramones and the Talking Heads, many of the other sonically
defiant bands that found frenzied crowds at CBGB during those years
became legendary -- including Smith, Blondie and Television.
Smith said at the venue's last show that Kristal "was our champion and
in those days, there were very few."
Throughout the years, CBGB had rented its space from the building's
owner, the Bowery Residents' Committee, an agency that houses homeless
people.
In the early 2000s, a feud broke out when the committee went to court to
collect more than $300,000 in back rent from the club, then later
successfully sought to evict it. By the time it closed, CBGB had become
part museum and part barroom.
At the club's boarded-up storefront Wednesday morning, fans left a dozen
candles, two bunches of flowers and a foam rubber baseball bat -- an
apparent tribute to the Ramones' classic "Beat on the Brat." A
spray-painted message read: "RIP Hilly, we'll miss you, thank you."
Other survivors include his wife, Karen, and daughter, Lisa.
NEW YORK (AP) -- Hilly Kristal, whose dank Bowery rock club CBGB served
as the birthplace of the punk rock movement and a launching pad for
bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, has died. He was
75.
Hilly Kristal founded CBGB in 1973.
Kristal, who lost a bitter fight last year to stop the club's eviction
from its home of 33 years, died Tuesday at Cabrini Hospital after a
battle with lung cancer, his son Mark Dana Kristal said Wednesday.
Last October, as the club headed toward its final show with Patti Smith,
Kristal was using a cane to get around and showing the effects of his
cancer treatment. He was hoping to open a Las Vegas incarnation of the
infamous venue that opened in 1973.
"He created a club that started on a small, out-of-the-way skid row, and
saw it go around the world," said Lenny Kaye, a longtime member of the
Patti Smith Group. "Everywhere you travel around the world, you saw
somebody wearing a CBGB T-shirt."
While the club's glory days were long past when it shut down, its name
transcended the venue and become synonymous with the three-chord trash
of punk and its influence on generations of musicians worldwide.
The club also became a brand name for a line of clothing and
accessories, even guitar straps; its store, CBGB Fashions, was moved a
few blocks away from the original club, but remained open.
"I'm thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and
going on to do more with CBGB's," Kristal told The Associated Press last
October.
Kristal started the club in 1973 with the hope of making it a mecca of
country, bluegrass and blues -- called CBGB & OMFUG, for "Other Music
For Uplifting Gourmandisers" -- but found few bands to book. It instead
became the epicenter of the mid-1970s punk movement.
"There was never gourmet food, and there was never country bluegrass,"
his son said Wednesday.
Besides the Ramones and the Talking Heads, many of the other sonically
defiant bands that found frenzied crowds at CBGB during those years
became legendary -- including Smith, Blondie and Television.
Smith said at the venue's last show that Kristal "was our champion and
in those days, there were very few."
Throughout the years, CBGB had rented its space from the building's
owner, the Bowery Residents' Committee, an agency that houses homeless
people.
In the early 2000s, a feud broke out when the committee went to court to
collect more than $300,000 in back rent from the club, then later
successfully sought to evict it. By the time it closed, CBGB had become
part museum and part barroom.
At the club's boarded-up storefront Wednesday morning, fans left a dozen
candles, two bunches of flowers and a foam rubber baseball bat -- an
apparent tribute to the Ramones' classic "Beat on the Brat." A
spray-painted message read: "RIP Hilly, we'll miss you, thank you."
Other survivors include his wife, Karen, and daughter, Lisa.