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Hannah Mount Mike Russo COR 364 03 8 December 2016 Unexpected Roots Loud, fast-moving, and aggressive, punk music is the product of a group of outsiders with nervous energy to burn. New York was and is an “island of immigrants” and outsiders, so of course punk placed its roots here. Punk all started with the Jews, which is quite often forgotten but also incredibly obvious as “it reeks of humor and irony and preoccupations with Nazism.” (Beeber xi) It began with the generation after the Holocaust, the Jewish Americans who were angry, hurt and looking to make a statement. This “Blank Generation” found their home on the Bowery at the world famous club CBGB. CBGB & OMFUG was originally intended as a club for the genres that it took its name from: Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers; ‘gormandizers’ being a term for a ravenous eater of food but was intended to mean a ravenous eater of music. The club obviously did not adhere strictly to the genres addressed in its name, as today it is well known for fostering bands such as the Ramones, Misfits, Sum 41, and Green Day. The space itself was a storefront on the ground floor with the space next door serving as a record shop and café, “CBGB Record Shop Canteen”. The club was

founded by Hilly Kristal on the site of his previous bar, Hilly’s on the Bowery, which was in operation from 1969-1972. Later on in the 80’s the record shop space was closed down and converted into a secondary performance space and art gallery, “CB’s 313 Gallery”. The club was officially closed in October of 2006 with CBGB Fashions (the wholesale department and online store) continuing its success till the end of that month. Today CBGB exists as the largest music festival in New York City, which showcases hundreds of bands and premieres dozens of rock-and-roll films. 2013 marked the addition of the original location of CBGB to the National of Historic Places as a part of the Bowery Historic District. The National Park Service’s explanation behind the addition being: "CBGB was founded in 1973 on the Bowery, in a former nineteenth-century saloon on the first floor of the Palace Lodging House. The legendary music venue fostered new genres of American music, including punk and art rock, that defined the culture of downtown Manhattan in the 1970s, and that still resonate today.” (“The Unique History of CBGB”) This honor was not bestowed unnecessarily and CBGB still lives on immortalized in numerous films, books, and television shows: Californication, Bandslam, The Simpsons, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Sex and the City 2, just to name a few of its multitude of cameos. Now punk didn’t just appear the minute CBGB opened, it was

born alongside a foul-mouthed comedian named Lenny Bruce. “Born in 1925 as Leonard Alfred Schneider to a stage mother who was a smalltime performer, Bruce epitomizes showbiz tradition in American Jewish culture, particularly New York Jewish culture.” (Beeber 2) Jews were the pioneers of Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and every other creative medium during the early to mid 20th century; Bruce was the smartass of that century. He was a comic that performed between acts at strip clubs and burlesques to keep the audiences attention while the women would take breaks. Then around 1950 Bruce worked his way up the ladder to places like Carnegie Hall but that didn’t curtail his crass style, he stuck to who he was providing the perfect role model for the early punk rockers who came of age when Bruce was at his peak of popularity. Bruce was “a tough outsider who not only mixed with strippers, junkies, and hepcats, Bruce also functioned as a social critic while openly referring to his Jewishness.” (Beeber 5) From Bruce, it’s simply a matter of connecting the dots to the army of the socially aware consisting of Bob Dylan, Tuli Kupferberg, and Lou Reed, among others. These artists and observers set the stage and musical/lyrical model for the punk rock movement. Aside from the specific artists who serve as the patron saints of punk instigating this movement, “the emergence of Israel as a national power and an awareness of the Holocaust were of supreme importance to it.” (Beeber 7) Jewish Americans felt outside the norm after the

events of World War II, so the small, unconventional and ive community that punk provided was a perfect haven for them. Within their cynical corner of the world they could express themselves freely and call attention to the issues plaguing society like immigration and civil rights. Jews began to celebrate “the degenerate (as Hitler termed Jewish art), the sick (as critics described Lenny Bruce), and the alienated (as Jewish writer Franz Kafka called himself).” (Beeber 8) The quintessential punk band, The Ramones, is at least half Jewish and “is credited with laying down the foundation of the punk sound.” (Bergeron) Arguably the most famous product of CBGB, The Ramones inspired every musical anarchist in the city of New York to grab a guitar and start a band with their idea that anyone could be a rock star. The Ramones self-titled debut album, Ramones, was a whirlwind of 14 songs in less than 30 minutes; it was short, sweet, and cut straight to the point. Village Voice’s Robert Christgau characterized the band as “authentic American primitives whose work has to be heard to be understood.” (qtd. in Bessman 55) And indeed, one can only truly understand what The Ramones were trying to say through the way the music makes them feel. It was with the birth of punk that it soon spread and gave birth to every genre that fits under the umbrella of ‘alternative’. And back in the Golden Age of Punk, the Bowery was a far cry from the gentrified area seen today. In her introduction to the book No Wave: Post Punk.

Underground, Lydia Lunch describes, "New York City during the '70s was a beautiful ravaged slag—impoverished and neglected after suffering decades of abuse. She stunk of sewage, sex, rotting fish and day old diapers." It was dirty, dismal, disruptive and the perfect place to start a revolution against the elite few, the disappointment comes when one looks around and can see the revolution hasn’t been incredibly successful but that by no means discredits the influence punk had over the city. The punk movement drew crowds from all over the country and even all over the world. Today people still flock to birthplace of punk that was CBGB to pay homage to their heroes. In the musical Rooms: A Rock Romance, Monica and Ian form a spur of the moment punk band in Glasgow, travel to London and at the height of their popularity they get their biggest gig at CBGB’s in New York City. This musical premiered in 2009, it is plain to see that the punk movement is romanticized even to this day and will always have a hand in the music world. It’s such a fascinating idea that a bunch of Jewish anarchists in denim and safety pins changed the world so dramatically and continues to influence it almost 40 years later.

“It’s an avalanche of faces, the people of all races The trash cans and the music and the unexpected flowers The twinkle of the twin towers, the walking with a walk-man

Everybody’s telling me lately Everything is gonna be fine NYC Forever This September, ‘77” - NYC Forever! Rooms: A Rock Romance

Works Cited Beeber, Steven Lee. The Heebie-jeebies at CBGB's: A Secret History of Jewish Punk. Chicago: Chicago Review, 2006. Print.

Bergeron, Ryan. "Punk Shocks the World." CNN. Cable News Network, 17 Aug. 2015. Web. 08 Dec. 2016. .

Bessman, Jim. Ramones: An American Band. New York: St. Martin's, 1993. Print. CBGB & OMFUG. "About." CBGB & OMFUG. Epic Rights, n.d. Web. 08 Dec. 2016. .

Goodman, Paul Scott, Leslie Kritzer, Doug Kreeger, Miriam Gordon, Robert Sher, and Jesse Vargas. Rooms: A Rock Romance. 2009. MP3.

Moore, Thurston, Byron Coley, and Lydia Lunch. No Wave: Post-punk, Underground, New York, 1976-1980. New York: Abrams Image, 2008. Print.