Founded in Manhattan’s East Village in 1973 by American impresario Hilly Kristal, New York bar CBGB (its full name of CBGB & OMFUG stands for Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandizers), was ground zero for the seminal punk rock and new wave movements of the 1970s.
Located at 315 Bowery in a former nineteenth-century saloon on the first floor of the Palace Lodging House, CBGBs served the same function as the theatres and concert halls of the Bowery’s storied past. The site of the former club, now occupied by John Varvatos, a luxury men’s designer clothing store, remains a pilgrimage site for legions of music fans.
Palace Hotel 315 Bowery
In its heyday on the Bowery, the Palace Hotel soon found itself becoming the largest flophouse for homeless men on the street. It contained 105 cubicles and 224 beds with one bathroom on every floor.
CBGB was founded on December 10, 1973, on the site of Kristal’s earlier bar, Hilly’s On The Bowery a rundown long narrow bar beneath the biggest flop house in the Bowery district of Manhattan, which he ran from 1969 to 1972. It was just prior to the opening of Kristal’s new bar that he began to allow two local patrons to book bands for the bar.
In February 1974, CBGB booked local New York band Squeeze (not to be confused with England’s band Squeeze) to a residency, playing Tuesday and Wednesday nights, initiating the club’s shift from country and bluegrass to original rock music.
Squeeze was led by guitarist Mark Suall, later with CBGB’s quasi house band The Revelons, which also included Fred Smith of Television and JD Daugherty of the Patti Smith Group. Although these bands were not playing what later became known as punk rock, they certainly helped pave the way for its eventuality.
At the same time as CBGB began booking local bands, The Mercer Arts Center at the former Broadway Central Hotel in Greenwich Village had also established itself as an important venue for music and theater performance in New York City.
The dilapidated building that housed the Mercer Arts Center collapsed on August 3, 1973, leaving unsigned local acts very few options to play original music in New York. After the accident, bands scheduled to play the center including Suicide, The Fast, Ruby and the Rednecks, Jayne County and the Magic Tramps soon found a welcome home at CBGBs.
CBGB’s two house rules were that bands must move its own equipment and play mostly original songs, with regular acts allowed to play one or two covers in a set. CBGB’s growing reputation drew more and more bands from outside New York City.
On March 12, 1973, the group that came to be known as Television formed with Richard Lloyd as a second guitarist. The band’s name, devised by founding member Richard Hell, was a pun on ‘Tell a vision’ as well as a reference to reclaiming the dominant media of the era.
Television’s first gig was at the Townhouse Theatre, on March 2, 1974. Soon after their manager persuaded Kristal to open on Sundays and give the band that night at CBGBs, where, legend has it, they also built the bar’s very first stage.
Initially Kristal was unimpressed with Television’s lack of paying customers, and would say in a future interview he really didn’t get their “terrible, screechy, ear-splitting guitars and jumble of sounds”.
After playing several gigs at CBGB in early 1974, Television played Max’s Kansas City and other New York clubs, returning to CBGB in January 1975, where they established a significant cult following.
On March 30, 1974, the Ramones played their first gig, officially launching the punk-rock revolution. Five months later, on August 16, these four young men from Forest Hills, Queens, played their first ever show at CBGBs, often incorrectly identified as their first performance.
That gig came exactly five years to the day after hundreds of thousands of rain soaked dirty hippies grooved to the acid drenched psychedelic vibes of Woodstock in upstate New York, while the Ramones, in their ripped jeans, motorcycle jackets and Converse high tops, launched into a two minute sonic attack on everything the 60s stood for five years later.
A short three years afterwards, in April 1977, The Damned played CBGBs, marking the first time a British punk band had ever played in America.
Of this period Kristal would later recall, “Originality was prime and technique was second place. The formula driven disco music and long drawn out solos in much of the rock of the late sixties and early seventies encouraged a lot of disgruntled rock enthusiasts to seek the refreshing rhythms and sounds of simple high energy rock and roll which seemed to take shape at CBGB. We called this music street rock and later punk. Come as you are and do your own thing rock and roll.”
By 1978 Elvis Costello had opened shows for The Voidoids at CBGBs while The Police’s show at CBGBs was their very first American gig. During this period CBGBs helped launch the careers of a generation of bands including The Ramones, Television, The Patti Smith Group, The Misfits, Mink DeVille, The Dead Boys, The Dictators, The Fleshtones, The Voidoids, The Cramps, The B-52s, Blondie, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, The Talking Heads and countless others.
During the 1980s, New York’s hardcore punk underground thrived at CBGB’s. The matinees scheduled for Sundays at CBGBs became an institution, with shows from afternoon until evening by hardcore bands such as Reagan Youth, Bad Brains, Beastie Boys, Agnostic Front, Murphy’s Law, Cro-Mags, Leeway, Warzone, Gorilla Biscuits, Sick Of It All, Sheer Terror, Stillborn and Youth Of Today.
During the 90s CBGBs went on to feature transformative shows from some of the biggest names in grunge and metal in America. In its relatively short 53 year history CBGBs become the most famous, most influential and most talked about rock & roll bar of all time. While the club closed in 2006, it continues to personify the authenticity of music’s edgy underbelly and all that it still stands for.
Recently, on the popular knowledge sharing platform Quora, regular contributor Matt Linden had this to say about what it was like to play at CBGBs in the 90s:
My band played CBGB’s while we were still in high school. While that sounds like an impressive feat it really wasn’t. Let me explain.
CBGB’s was an entry level club and every band that played there started out the same way. First, you sent the club a cassette of a live performance. The bulk of that set had to be original songs. If Hilly or whoever listened to your demo felt your band was appropriate for the club you would be given a Monday night audition: a half hour set. If your band played well or drew well you would be offered a week night gig. As your following grew your band would work its way up to a weekend gig. While established recording artists like Lou Reed and Iggy Pop didn’t have to go through the audition process every band that cut its teeth at CBGB’s did, from The Ramones through Sonic Youth.
While CBGB’s is a historically significant club it was never a prestigious gig. The goal of most bands who played there was to move onto larger or better paying clubs like The Pyramid, Danceteria, The Peppermint Lounge and Max’s Kansas City. CBGB’s along with The Bitter End and Kenny’s Castaways were downtown clubs that just about every band started out playing but the goal always was to move onto better rooms. – Matt Linden 2020 Quora
Now, nearly twenty years after its closure, New York’s historic destination bar, known not only as the birthplace of punk but also for its legendary repugnant bathrooms, is celebrating its legacy with an all day festival.
Previous editions of the CBGB Festival were multi day affairs held across multiple New York locations including Times Square and Central Park. The 2025 incarnation takes place Under the K Bridge in Brooklyn, New York on September 27, with The Sex Pistols and The Damned headlining along with The Melvins, Marky Ramone, Johnny Marr of The Smiths, Jack White and Iggy Pop in his first New York concert in over a decade.
Featuring 20 bands across 3 stages, the festival will also feature new and vintage merch, local food & beverage options as well as expansive CBGB installations including rare artifacts from the original club.
Some of the classic CBGB hardcore regulars will also be on hand, including Gorilla Biscuits, Murphy’s Law and the Cro-Mags, as well as some noisy newbies such as the Linda Lindas, Lambrini Girls, Destroy Boys, Angel Du$t, Scowl, Pinkshift, Teen Mortgage, YHWN Nailgun, Soul Glo and Lip Critic.
Under the K Bridge was chosen for its location in the cultural hub of Brooklyn and for the gritty industrial nature of the site itself. Located directly under the Kosciuszko Bridge, the new park converts a formerly abandoned site into a vibrant seven-acre open space.
The space, designed by Toronto based landscape architecture firm PUBLIC WORK, features expansive multi-purpose sections for recreation, culture, and woodland areas where more than 20,000 trees and native plant species now grow.
Under the soaring Kosciuszko Bridge columns, the park’s “El-space” grows from 40 feet to as much as 100 feet in height. El-spaces are sites beneath and adjacent to elevated transportation hubs such as bridges, highways, or trains. They are often used to reclaim and transform public space with sustainability and versatility in mind.
A limited number of special “young punk” discounted General Admission tickets were made available by organizers to New York residents under 25, in person only, at a box office pop-up at Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday, May 17th. The tickets were specifically priced at $73 in honor of the year the club opened and limited to just 350, an homage to the capacity of the original CBGBs.
For further information regarding CBGB Fest 2025 please contact event organizers at the official website