​The rumor earlier this year that CBGB, the storied Bowery punk club shuttered a few years back in order to make room for a store hawking overpriced menswear and vinyl, would be returning to the city in some form has apparently come closer to actually becoming true. Bryan Kuntz over at This Ain't The Summer Of Love (found via EV Grieve) visited the bygone venue's still-kicking official site and found an announcement for a festival—with "music, food, conference, [and] drink"—branded with the CBGB logo and scheduled for July 4-8. Other details—lineups, venues, cost, number of conference panels that will look wistfully back on The Good Old Days—are scant, but there is a link to CBGB Facebook page and another where interested bands can apply for consideration via the talent broker Sonicbids. That link elaborates a bit more on the festival's aims:

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Billy V/Flickr

​So the big punks-not-dead news, that is actually a rumor, of the past 24 hours comes from a post on Gothamist claiming that the people who have access to a bunch of CBGB's old things (although not the awning) are planning to reopen the iconic punk club "somewhere in Manhattan," though not at the club's old space on 315 Bowery because it's currently being used to hawk expensive menswear and way-marked-up vinyl. So serious are these unnamed folks' apparent intentions, in fact, that they have set up a Twitter account. Yesterday its timeline was studded with missives asking Courtney Love and Duff McKagan if they'd play a big festival happening this summer; there was also a Shepard Fairey-ish rejected poster for the fest. Those tweets have been deleted, but the image of the poster—as well as musings about Guns N' Roses and Sid Vicious—remain.

Also remaining: Questions about this whole enterprise. Namely, is breathing new life into the dessicated husk of CBGB really a necessary thing at this point? And is the club that results from this revival going to be any good—by which I mean "fun to go to, with decent bookings and not too many tourist trappings"—at all?

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​Via SOTC pal Will Hermes—whose new book about New York's music scene from 1973 to 1977, Love Goes To Buildings On Fire, comes out next week—here's a clip of the Ramones playing at CBGB sometime during the summer of 1974. (Hermes' blog has a ton of other archival footage from the period covered by his book.) In the grainy video they play "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue," "I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement," and "Judy Is A Punk"; note, also, the glam-inspired moves Joey throws into his performance here and there. Clip below.

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These riches could be yours.

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1. The CBGB brand is up for auction.
Not all that surprising a development given the financial woes suffered by the company that used to hold the trademark had. But still a little sad? Especially because of the high odds that Forever 21 or Urban Outfitters wins out?

2. Nouvelle Vague's loungey cover of the Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk To Fuck" used in an alcohol-awareness campaign has been yanked from an ad campaign because of concerns that it actually encourages people to binge drink.
"Heineken's aim was to link the idea of 'relaxed consumption' of beer with music that had been 'uncharacteristically slowed down' from the original track." Maybe someone should re-record the track as "Too Drunk To Figure Out A Coherent Advertising Campaign"? Jeez.

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​The conversion of CBGB into a fancy boot emporium is ancient news at this point, and as evil or wrongheaded as John Varvatos has often seemed on the Bowery--a sliver of the old wall, behind glass! Guns N' Roses!--putting CBGB out of its misery in 2006 was a mercy killing. It hadn't been good for a long, long time. At the same time, attempts to leverage the club's considerable legacy into commercial credibility on what nowadays is called "Bowery 2.0" have never seemed less than cynical, or worse--DBGB, anyone? So though at this point we're not surprised when people call on the memory of Hilly Kristal to help up-sell commercial real estate, it's sad to see a tenant as respected as the New Museum getting in on the act. The image above is part of a brochure the museum's real estate goons put together to help advertise commercial space in a building the New Museum owns adjacent to their own, at 231 Bowery. There are more where that came from:

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A work of art

Artist Justin Lowe is recreating CBGB's storied--and legendarily foul--bathroom as a full-scale installation at the Wadsworth Atheneum. If you've never heard of this particular venue, it's probably because it is located in our bad-ass neighbor to the Northeast, the punk-rock hotbed of Hartford, Connecticut. Why Connecticut, you ask? Lowe tells the Wall Street Journal that he chose the Atheneum because he felt the piece was tied to the museum's surrealist history (Dali used to hang out there).

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Take that, CBGB! Were you booking shows with Axl Rose and his rental band back before John Varvatos graced you with some leather jackets and used audio equipment? No you were not. Fashion week would come and go and you'd just book 17 more Subhumans shows. Not like the new regime over at 315 Bowery, who will pack everyone from Sebastian Bach to Kevin Bacon in to see Alberta Cross and then surprise what remains of the audience four hours later when Guns N' Fucking Roses takes the stage and plays 17, count 'em, 17 songs, including an encore. It is 2010 and we are experiencing things we could only dream about the grubby grasp of the last three decades. Look at this setlist:

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​Three years ago yesterday CBGB hosted its final performance. The memory of its terrifying bathroom and indifferent bookings lives on, as does some ersatz version of its stage, upon which are now heaped piles and piles of John Varvatos shoes. Even the garbage-strewn alley behind the venue has since been spruced up: Extra Place has been given not just its own street sign but its own special dead-end retail huddle, where Bespoke Chocolates and Montana Knox Apparel now shill in the same spot the Ramones once leaned fetchingly against dumpsters and the like. Happy death anniversary!

​Did you know that the Bowery is "resurgent"? EV Grieve tracks down the real estate listing for the now vacant Morrison Hotel gallery--in turn, the former site of the CBGB Gallery, back when CBGB still existed--which is now for lease. Evidently the flickering memory of the decrepit old punk club is still good for something:

With 25 feet of frontage and up to 8,800 square feet of retail space available, 313-315 Bowery offers a unique opportunity to be a part of the resurgent development in the Bowery neighborhood. The hotel, residential and retail developments surrounding the old CBGB space provide extraordinary exposure for this opportunity in one of the city's distinctive cultural landmarks.

Features
- 25 feet of frontage on Bowery
- 2 blocks away from Manhattan's largest Whole Foods Market
- Former location of the world renowned CBGB
- Adjacent to over 700 new luxury rental units in AvalonBay Development
- Next to highly successful John Varvatos 315 Bowery boutique, opened Spring 2008

CBGB--now a proud realtor's selling point, just ahead of John Varvatos, and just behind Whole Foods. Sounds about right.

Who will be the next tenant for the former CBGB Gallery? [EV Grieve]

The now departed rock club CBGB has come in for some abuse around these quarters, it being mostly a repository for evermore decrepit punk nostalgia and incredible family/scene infighting of a remarkably bitter nature--plus the fact that half the club's bookings after like 1988 were battle-of-the-bands shows and interminable high school coffeehouse-type fare--but jeez, how about this video of Virginia grindcore killers Pig Destroyer playing the club in its waning days? It's hard to overstate the volume vocalist J. R. Hayes achieves after the CBGB mic cuts out (ahem), and he continues to sing (ahem) at a volume that well surpasses that of the fully-amplified metal band behind him. So you weren't all bad, CBGB. Also: 50 Reasons to Love Pig Destroyer. (#26: The fact that the band apparently still practices in a band member's parent's basement.) [Video courtesy of Metal Sucks, via The Daily Swarm]