By Michael Cobb

Change is an inevitable fact of life, especially in New York where whole neighborhoods can be transformed within a matter of months. The East Village, once a haven for artists, musicians, freaks and drug addicts is now a yuppie paradise. Its edge replaced by cute boutiques and chains like Starbucks and McDonald’s. There is no doubt there has been some improvement, but with this has come a loss of character.

Similarly, rock may never explode again the way it did with punk in ’70s New York. Now, with the impending departure of CBGB’s,  one has to wonder about the state of rock music and artist culture in the city known for its counterculture musical heroes. Who will provide a venue where up-and-coming bands can take a risk and try out new material? What is the future of rock music in this day and age of increasingly popular, soulless corporate entertainment where the focus is on profit margins instead of creativity, originality or quality?

With CBGB’s facing certain closure, come Sept. 30th, one has to wonder what the hell’s happening to New York City as it smoothly adapts to the rapid and steady process of gentrification, bringing positive change, progress and profit to some, while forcing others to leave. Sure, the neighborhoods are safer to walk in at night and you can take the subway at any hour, but New York City is no longer what it was. 

Despite being pushed farther out of the city, deeper in to places like Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx or even New Jersey, artists and musicians continue to flock to the New York area hoping to capture a New York long past. There is an undeniable energy that keeps drawing people to a place where anyone can be—or at least try to be—what they really want to be. But lately, those dreams are increasingly uncertain. 

On the verge of its final departure from the Lower East Side, CBGB’s contribution to rock music and American culture becomes clearer and more distinct. Bands like Patti Smith, Television, Blondie, The Talking Heads and The Ramones all owe a major part of their success to the institution. I found Hilly Kristal, the owner and proprietor of CBGB’s, the birthplace of U.S. Punk, seated at his humble desk in the entranceway—the same place where patrons line up to get stamped to enter the club. Well into his sixties, he still comes in early many mornings to see to the business of running a club. 

NYP—I know originally the club started out meaning Country Blue Grass Blues. How did it start to become something else?

Hilly Kristal—Well, back in the ’70s there were a lot of musicians who didn’t have a place to play their own music and there seemed to be a need. Clubs didn’t let you play your own songs, unless you had a recording contract so, um, I made a policy: The only way they could play here is that they had to write their own music. I was interested in finding new bands, undiscovered bands and there were quite a few of them around. In the ’70s a lot of people were tired of the formalized music, disco, the same old-same old, and also some of the rock got very complex. I think many people felt it was losing the essence of what they felt rock ’n’ roll was and why they wanted to do it.

There was a world wide recession in the ’70s, it was a pretty deep recession, but it was one of these recessions where people had enough money to sleep, eat—they had food stamps, etc. So in this country it wasn’t traumatic except that nobody had any money. They didn’t need much. 

And I think that after the ’60s  and all the “rights” movements (civil rights, women’s rights, the end of the Vietnam War) I think the average musician who came around here was looking more for their own identity, not to be part of a big whole conglomeration of people. This is what we found and that’s the basis for opening. As I went on in the first year, we did this kind of music.

Did you notice an immediate response to the club? How long did it take for people to start really coming in here? 

HK—Well musicians came in not instantaneously, but pretty quickly—not only when they heard that they could play their own music, but they had to. I think it kind of turned them on. As far as profitability and customers, it took a while. There were different facets and stages. It was something we had to work on. 

In ’74 it was tough but rents were cheap then. I supported the place doing other things. By ’75 Pattti Smith was looking for a place to form her band. Jane Friedman, her manager ... I guess [she] impressed upon [Smith] that CB’s was down here and was a good place. So, she did one night and she liked it and it went over very well. She played here seven weeks and Clive Davis from Arista signed her. She did seven weeks in a row, four nights a week, two sets a night, the group Television opened for them. We had other bands on other nights. She was a known quantity; very well respected in the underground poetic, artistic world. She brought somewhat of a following and celebrities, other poets and artists, people in the arts, which helped. She got signed, and it helped the club. We started to get recognition, I think through Patti and the group. 

What do you miss most about the old days?

HK—Well, I don’t miss the way the Bowery was. The Bowery was terrible, drunks everywhere … there was kind of a war between the hawks and the doves, i.e. those who preyed on the weak, the old, the people who lived in the flop houses, etc.

But what I miss is the bands. I was much more intimate with the bands in the first years since I booked them all. I was very involved in their careers. When I look back, in a sense they were my favorite years. It was difficult but rewarding. Managing was not always easy, but it was the most interesting. It was a big challenge to make it work. The challenge was to find new bands that were playing their own music and to get them accepted. There were so many and not all of them made it. Some never got recognition but were even more talented than the ones we know today. But aside from talent, you have to have a strong will to succeed and a lot of luck. 

Isn’t it true that you had to kick Sid Vicious out of here?

HK—Yes. Several times. He threw a beer mug at Cheetah [The Dead Boys]. He wasn’t nice. Vicious was a good name for him. Y’know, there’s an album of him playing here, but he never actually played here.

How about in the ’80s with the hardcore punk scene?

HK—In the late ’80s it got to be bigger and bigger. Hardcore became world wide. Then you had the skinhead thing. They were like gangs. You couldn’t tell who was who. There were different groups from different cities. Some of them started to pick on people. We had to get security and people to make sure that people didn’t kill themselves from stage diving.

At first, a couple of the bigger bands had good control, but some of them didn’t care too much. At another point, I did stop it for another year because people were hurting people. We were able to weed out the bad apples. Then people started writing about it, and it started to settle down. 

In New York, there were all kinds of skinheads: Puerto Rican, Black, Jewish. You’d better not speak out against anybody; if anybody came and it was white supremacy, forget it, you’d be shoved off stage. So racism didn’t work here, people were pretty protective, and they had a profound respect for CB’s. 

How about the ’90s?

HK—We had some good bands that mixed rap and rock. There were some successes. That was interesting. By the time the mid-’90s came, alternative rock bands were big. There wasn’t much left to remaster on CD from the older catalogs, so record companies began to rely solely on new music and for companies. They felt that the costs in promoting and marketing got to be prohibitive. They felt they weren’t making profit. It cost too much to market a band. With rap or hip-hop, initially they called it black radio, you could tell within a week or two if a band was going to make it. If it started to move, they put money into it, if it didn’t, they dropped it. And I think they stopped nurturing rock bands. No one will admit to it, but they just stopped cold, no more rock bands. 

Is this going to kill rock ’n’ roll?

HK—No, rock has come back. In most of the world it dominates hip-hop.

How have increased costs in rent and insurance, combined with the smoking ban, affected the club?

HK—The main hurt is that people have to smoke outside and can’t drink. What does it cut? Five-10 percent? I think it’s worth the loss. I used to smoke a lot and I think it’s better not to. The employees and customers here don’t complain.  

How about the issue of rents?

HK—When I started this, the rents were very low. Now they want to triple the current rent. (Up to nearly $40,000 per month!) It goes in cycles; In the last two years the rents have gone up very quickly. If your lease happens to be up, then, no good, even in places like Brooklyn. Rents have gone sky high all over New York. 

So moving somewhere else in New York is not going to help?

HK—I don’t think moving anywhere else in New York will make a difference.

You know the mayor of New York didn’t really help. He bought a T-shirt and offered me another building for $5 million. I don’t know where they get off calling him a great mayor. I think he’s ineffectual. He knows how to spend his money to promote himself. He’s not a bad guy, I hear he’s a nice guy but … You hear a lot about me, but there are many others around me who have to close also. There are about four stores around me that are going under because the landlords have doubled the rent. My only complaint is that this landlord is a not-for-profit organization who gets $32 million from the City and State and they get an extra $300-$400,000 a year from me, and all that money given to them is wrong. 

I think we’ve done a good thing for this city and for rock ’n’ roll. I haven’t tried to make a lot of money. I’ve tried to make things work that I thought would be good and it has. And the city even uses us in their advertisements: They use us, and then they throw us away. The homeless shelter, the building next door and the landlord’s of CBGB’s are putting us out of our home. I’m from New York and I’m proud to be here and I think CB’s should be here.

But I think I’ve found some very good people who are going to fund it and help move it somewhere else. I’ve had offers from people all over the world to relocate to their cities, but the two cities that—if I could keep the integrity and make CBGB’s even better, more meaningful—would be New York and Las Vegas. Twenty or 30 years ago I wouldn’t have thought so, but there are two million people living in Las Vegas now, and there are a lot of bands, a lot of tourists coming through and these are rock tourists. That’s not bad, and if we can build on those things, then that’s fine.

But you’d prefer to be here?

HK—I have mixed emotions because I do want to be here, but I don’t like this administration. I feel they didn’t help at all.

Why aren’t they trying to help you stay here?

HK—The mayor has gotten letters from all over the world, from top executives in the record industry but he doesn’t care. He’s got $5 billion dollars in his pocket. Billion NOT million. He doesn’t care. I’m a little bitter because I think it should be here. It’s a landmark, but I can’t even let it be.

Why not?

HK—It takes a while, that’s the trouble. A lot of people tried to help make it a landmark, people like David Byrne. We couldn’t do it before because in order for something to be a landmark it has to be around for 30 years.

So, I understand a businessman who owns a building for over thirty years not wanting something landmarked because, when a building is landmarked, you have to keep it pretty much the same. Who the hell’s going to rent it looking like this? And personally, I don’t want anybody to have it looking like this and rent it. CBGB’s looks like it does thanks to all the bands and all the fans who have been here and decorated it. It’s theirs, it’s ours. That’s one of the reasons I wouldn’t mind getting out of New York. And so I have mixed emotions. A lot of the buildings around here are going condo. If the city is kicking people like us out, I don’t know … They’re making this a rich man’s haven. 

There are other cities in other parts of the world where things are happening. Berlin’s a nice city in that way. It’s a melting pot. The Netherlands is the most liberal country in the world. Their social structure has helped out the rest of of Europe. England too. Different countries have different forces that are good.

How were the UK bands received in NY? Why did the Sex Pistols never play CB’s?

HK—McClaren had an idea for the Pistols that they shouldn’t play any clubs, just lofts and stuff like that. I don’t think it worked. They wanted to be different and be outrageous. I’m not a fan of the Sex Pistols. I think The Clash was technically the best band and the most powerful band of that type. But there were many other bands, The Adverts, etc. The Damned were actually the least at the beginning, but then they got it together more. They were all kind of garagey at first, except The Clash.

Can you tell me about your time as the Village Vanguard manager? I know you worked close to people like Miles Davis, Monk, etc.

HK—That was wonderful. I just talked to the guy who got me the job there. Originally we were gonna start a coffeehouse together but that fell through, And then he got me the job at the Vanguard. He recommended me and Max [the former owner] hired me. It was wonderful. I liked jazz. I had heard it, but not like I was about to hear it. Miles Davis was the first artist I heard. I had a good relationship with Miles, I really miss Miles. I liked the group then. And then when he got Herbie Hancock and those guys, I thought his music was really great. Oh, we had Stan Getz, Mulligan, Mingus, Monk, Bill Evans … I mean just everybody. 

How long were you there?

HK—I was there from June 1959 to 1962. It was great knowing Miles. He was kind of shy. If he wanted to box with you it meant he liked you. I hung out with him. One time he even put a guitar in my hand. I didn’t play it, he just gave it to me. He was also a fine painter. We also had comedians like Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen. Max had unusually good taste. He was the model for owning or running something. He got into Jazz in the mid-‘50s. I think it was his wife (current owner Lorraine Gordon) who got him into it. I think she’s still there. She’s in her mid-’80s and runs the place with an iron hand. 

What’s the latest word on the closing of CBGB’s?

HK—The latest is that I’m negotiating with one major group that wants to invest in the brand. Of course if they put a lot of money into it, they’ll have controlling interest. We’d like to make more use of the Internet. We have 5,000 Internet visitors per day. We want to have more streaming, have something going 24 hours-live music-start a little station.

Is there any idea as to who might be in this location after CB’s closes?

HK—I heard that it might become a chic, high-class restaurant for wealthy people.