Opening Night At CBGB’s
By: William, Dollar Bill
Tags: Music, Culture, Cbgb, Music Business

Opening Night At CBGB’s

I was there — but by mistake!

Natalie Parham — Unsplash

Having just finished ”ST. MARKS IS DEAD,” a book glorifying the iconic East Village strip, I feel compelled to tell my very own story on a related subject, the first night at CBGB, an event you could probably guess I actually attended. But here’s the rub: I was not a downtown hipster on the cutting edge by any means. So how did I end up in the legendary spot to bear witness for posterity?

Most of the year 1973 I spent on the road with a Holiday/Ramada Inn type show band playing places like Pittsburgh, Terre Haute, Ft. Pierce (Florida), Rochester, Burlington, and Richmond — usually six days at a time. While we were almost fully booked, there were a few weeks we didn’t work — enough that I decided to rent a room for $15/week from a friend who was super of a building under the Brooklyn Bridge. Crashing with mom wasn’t making it on the off weeks and the $60/month was worth the expenditure for peace of mind.

Josh (the super) was a fledgling bass player who’d just purchased a Fender Precision and was getting pretty decent on it. As owner of three different amplifiers, it didn’t make sense for me (nor did I have room in the car) to tote all three around from city to city. So I left one in Josh’s care so he’d have an amp to practice on.

By December, I’d had enough of the band and quit to pursue greener pastures in the big city. And upon returning to my crib under the bridge, I came to discover that Josh had lent my Sears Silvertone to some guy he barely knew…and didn’t know exactly where it was.

Sensing my anger at his irresponsibility (ancient guitar players understand that a Sears Silvertone, though a shitty amp, had a great sound for rock and roll guitar), he chased my property down and within a day or two announced “your amp will be playing a gig at a new club on the Bowery tomorrow night. We’ll go and you can reclaim it.” And that club on the Bowery was CBGB on its opening night!

I’d like to tell y’all that it was an epiphany equaling the occasion that dad took my brother and me to the Apollo to see James Brown when I was 8 years old. Hardly! There were three bands. None impressed me.

The first was a bluegrass group whose guitar player had my amp. I let him play his show and then reclaimed my equipment without too much of a problem. I have no recollection of their sound. We stayed for the next presentation.

Band #2 was TELEVISION, which gained a cult following over the years. Similarly, I remember nothing about them.

I do remember the third act! Three girls (one of whom turned out to be Debby Harry) sang “The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” extremely poorly while a three-piece band (drums, bass, guitar), none of whom knew anything about playing the genre, attempted to back them. The highlight of their show came courtesy of the guitar player whose amp kept cutting out causing him to punt the fucker in frustration. Finally, on the last kick, the amp fell off the stage and caught fire. Best moment of the show by far.

Anyway…there was no way in the world I thought I’d just witnessed a historic moment. And with just a rare exception, the entire punk rock revolution escaped me. (I liked “My Sharona.”) As I said to one of my neighbors about the phenomenon, “punk rockers are trying to make up for lack of expertise on their instruments with ear-crushing volume.”

The problem was that I moved into the neighborhood at age 24…having already spent a year on the road being the only chord instrument in a show band that played a lot of jazz. I was trying to be an all-around player and reader. Going punk rock would have been like turning back the clock on my musical development…and playing with guys who came from another planet — in too many ways.

I’m sure there are many music fans who would say “if only I’d been there! It’s so cool you went to CB’s on the first night it opened!” But Alas, I was never part of the East Village punk rock scene. The entire deal is wasted on me.

I was pissed off and just wanted my shit back. And so I went to reclaim what was rightfully mine. That my shit was at some busted club which turned out to be legendary was simply coincidental — and of little meaning then or now. Go figure.