Tag Archives: CBGB

Music, Pop Culture

Morrison Hotel Gallery Presents: CBGB — The Age of Punk

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Debbie and Chris
Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie (1980) By Allan Tannenbaum (All Photos of the Photos By Gail)

Do you like Punk Rock? I sure do. The true spirit of Punk really thrived in cities like London (where it was born), Los Angeles and New York back in the mid-70 to early 80s, before it became a commercial product and fashion statement that was appropriated by Midwest mall kids, and completely lost its teeth. Kill me. Fortunately, all of that great music still exits, and we can also travel back in time to the early days of the mosh pit with amazing photographs of the iconic musicians and style-makers who embodied the Punk credo. The place to see and live through those photos is the Morrison Hotel Gallery.

MHG CBGB Invite

As the definitive home of Fine Art Rock Photography, Morrison Hotels Gallery has just launched its latest collection, CBGB: The Age of Punk, and it is pretty sweet. I attended the opening reception here in Manhattan on May 17th, and the place was packed wall-to-wall with many of the legendary photographers who shot these photos, such as Bob Gruen, as well as a New York icons Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie. All of the photos in this post were shot while I maneuvered around a drunken, sweaty horde, so I chose to crop most them and you will just have to guess what they look like all framed and nice. Punk Rock!

New York Dolls
New York Dolls (1974) By Bob Gruen

Here’s the Gallery’s Official Blurb about the Collection:

Rooted in 1960s garage rock, punk rock bands rejected perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock and CB’s became one of the quintessential locations to perform. Bands had the freedom to experiment and bring their own artistry and social commentary, no matter how depraved and raucous, to audiences hungry for new art, music and freedom of speech.

Chris Stein
Chris Stein Being Interviewed at the Opening Reception

Contrary to what the series title would have you believe, not all of the photos were taken at CBGB, or even in New York.

Glenn Danzig
Glenn Danzig of The Misfits, a Band that Got Its Start Playing CBGB

Joan Jett
Joan Jett on Stage with The Runaways By Lynn Goldsmith

Patti Smith
Patti (1978) By Allan Tannenbaum

As you might expect, there a ton of great shots of Patti Smith, both on stage with PSG, and off stage. She was so photogenic.

Patti and Robert
Patti and Robert in NYC (1969) By Norman Seef

Here she is with her boyfriend at the time, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. So hot.

Patti Smith with TV
Patti in NYC (1976) by Frank Stefanko

Patti Smith Portrait
Patti Smith Portrait. Breathtaking.

Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols in Europe (1977) by Bob Gruen

The first wave British punks get their due as well. I got this shot on the wall behind the open gallery door!

Sid Vicious
Sid Vicious (1978) By Ebet Roberts

The Clash
The Clash in NYC (1981) By Bob Gruen

Joe Strummer

Joe Strummer of The Clash (RIP) looking like a Movie Star.

Ramones
The Ramones in NYC (1975) By Bob Gruen

And, of course, the Ramones are well- represented, as they should be.

There’s no telling how long this exhibit will be on public view in the gallery, but you can always view the full collection at This Link should you wish to make a purchase. All orders are filled on-demand up the run limit of that series.

Morrison Hotel Gallery is Located at 116 Prince Street, 2nd Floor in SoHo, NYC.

Arts and Culture

Joey Ramone Memorial Mural in the Bowery

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Joey Ramone Mural
Photo By Gail

This image of the late Joey Ramone wearing a pair of Boxing Gloves was created to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of The Ramones debuting at CBGB. The mural went up on September 3rd, 2015 but it took me a few weeks to get around to seeing it for the first time, in early October, which is when I took this photo while (literally) standing in the middle of the street between idling cars that were waiting for the light to change at the corner of Bleecker and the Bowery — directly across from the former location of the legendary music venue, which is now a John Varvatos Clothing Boutique. The mural was painted by Solus and John CRASH Matos, who you might remember from This Post.

Update: As of August 24th, 2017 The Joey Ramone Mural has been Replaced by a Mural of Blondie’s Debbie Harry.

Arts and Culture

Brett Amory’s This Land is Not for Sale: Forgotten, Past and Foreseeable Futures at Jonathan Levine

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CBGB
CBGB By Brett Amory (All Photos By Gail)

Creating haunting representations of iconic LES storefronts, California-based artist Brett Amory puts a surrealist spin on paintings done in the classic style of Edward Hopper.

Economy Candy
Economy Candy

Jonathan LeVine is currently hosting Amory’s third solo show at the gallery, entitled This Land Is Not For Sale: Forgotten, Past and Foreseeable Futures, and it is pretty sweet.

Economy Candy Detail
Economy Candy, Detail

In This Land is Not For Sale, Amory paints a visually gorgeous protest against the transformation of New York’s famed Lower East Side into a gentrified wasteland — something that you will hear NYC natives and long-time residents moan about on a weekly basis, as one landmark neighborhood treasure after another gets bulldozed to make way for a Starbucks or faceless chain store.

Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery
Yonah Schimmel Knish Bakery

Brett Amory first earned international critical acclaim for his Waiting series: urban settings such as London and San Francisco portrayed as lonely abstracted landscapes of vanishing human assertion.

Cup & Saucer
Cup & Saucer

Pyramid Club
Pyramid Club, Still Located on Avenue A

This new series offers viewers an insider’s historical road map of East Village radical underground sensibility, from ABC NO RIO and The Nuyorican Poets Cafe to the headquarters of The Catholic Worker, The Pyramid Club and even Moshe’s Bakery.

Amory not only captures the breathtaking physical presence of these neighborhood landmarks but also movingly conveys the sense of the artist as witness. By delivering a painterly personal testimony and protest against the disappearance of these businesses, his work is an example of painting as real-time archaeological retrieval.

190 Bowery
Germania Bank at 190 Bowery

The artist’s foremost achievement in paintings, drawings and installations has been to document evolving personal, existential and political credo into masterfully rendered, aesthetically transcendent works of fine art with broad cosmopolitan appeal. In This Land Is Not For Sale he gives his most pointed evidence yet of his urgent need to merge his personal and social consciousness with the unsparing aesthetic demands of his art.

Lucy's
Lucy’s

This one is my absolute favorite.

Katz's Deli
Katz Deli

Old School Flyers

In conjunction with the exhibition, Amory has installed a faux construction site underpass leading to the gallery to parody the constant sledgehammering of gentrification. The show will also include the documentary ‘Captured’, the story of LES legendary photographer Clayton Patterson, as well as a display of LES posters and other neighborhood marginalia.

Mars Bar
Mars Bar

Brett Amory and Fan
Brett Amory chats with a fan at last week’s Opening Reception

Brett Amory’s This Land is Not for Sale: Forgotten, Past and Foreseeable Futures will be on Exhibit Through November 14th, 2015, at Jonathan Levine Gallery, Located at 557C West 23rd Street, in the Chelsea Gallery District.

Brett Amory Signage
Levine Exterior

Block Drugs
Block Drugs

Music, Pop Culture

More Historic Photos of CBGBs Rock Club Interior by Joseph O. Holmes

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CBGB (Mixing Board and Bench)

CBGB music club saw it all – the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth and so many more. The layers of flyers and playbills, graffiti, stickers and spilt beer seemingly coating the club’s every surface were as dense and sticky as the history of the place. Joe Holmes’ photos put the viewer right into the space – looking into the mixing board area, one can’t help but wonder at the cacophony of sounds that bounced off these heavily plastered walls. Purchase or read more about Mixing Board and Bench at This Link.


CBGB (Pipes)

In another view of the infamous rock club, Joe presents the cavernous main room. Resembling sticker-encrusted saguaros, the pipes stand sentry along the perimeter of the room, from which, despite its signage proclaiming otherwise, there appears to be no exit. Somehow, though, the headbangers, thrashers, and mosh-pitters managed to stumble their way out onto the Bowery. And now they are all gone. Purchase or read more about Pipes at This Link.

Jen Bekman’s 20X200 sells affordable art prints priced from just $20! Browse around and see what strikes your fancy at This Link. And don’t forget: Art makes a great gift!

Music, Pop Culture

Historic Photos of The Late CBGB

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CBGB (Stage) by Photographer Joseph O. Holmes

ARTIST STATEMENT:

“In September 2006, I spent 10 days shooting the interior of legendary NYC rock club CBGB. Six weeks later the club closed its doors forever, and the fabled walls and stage were dismantled. A year after that, as former owner Hilly Kristal succumbed to cancer, a high-end clothing store negotiated to take over the space.

The club had been a favorite venue for countless rock and punk acts, but for those few days my experience of the club was the exact opposite of most people’s. I came to look forward to my visits as a time of peaceful solitude. I arrived each morning at 11:00 with my tripod and camera, greeted Hilly at his desk, and then passed into a silent and empty club. During the following three to five hours of shooting, I rarely saw another human. The club was so dark, even during the day, that I had to carry a flashlight. After framing each shot, I took five to seven bracketed exposures, with each exposure lasting as long as 30 seconds, and I ended up with more than 1800 individual frames.

And that’s how I came to spend hour after hour sitting stock still in CBGB, alone in the dark among the empty beer bottles and broken guitar strings and abandoned drum sticks, waiting in the silence for the shutter to close.”

Limited edition prints of the CBGB Stage (Above, click This Link) and the venue’s Cash Register (Below click This Link) are available while supplies last via Jen Bekman’s 20X200. All prints are available framed or unframed, Artist-signed + numbered with a certificate of authenticity included. These prints are very reasonably priced and will sell out fast, so get them while you can!


CBGB (Register)