Cbgb & Omfug: Thirty Years from the Home of Underground Rock

The history captured in the pictures in great. It was bought as a gift for a music fan. After spending a lot of time looking for a DVD history of the CBGB, I "settled" for this book. While there isn't much narrative on the history of the place, the pictures tell a great story on their own. The baby faced pictures of artists we grew up with makes it a great purchase for music fans.

This is an excellent pictorial book put together by the founder of CBGB's the late Hilly Kystral. CBGB's was supposed to be a "Country-Blue-Grass-Blues Club, instead, it became the birthplace of "punk rock". This book contains excellent pictures of dozens of bands that played there, during the 30 - 40 years of it's existence on Bowery Street, in Manhanten, in New York City. It opened sometimes around the early 1970's. I have been to New York City, and I did get to see CBCB's. The original CBGB's closed during 2006. Hilly Crystal wrote the introduction and David Byrne (of the Talking Heads) wrote the after-thought. CBGB is a part of Rock & Roll history, and this book is excellent documentation of that history. If you like the bands and music from the "glory days" of New York Punk Rock, then you'll treasure this book.

The days of punk are long gone in a haze of AquaNet, black eyeliner and black leather. But thankfully, a handful of artists had the forsight to immoralize the scene in glorious black & white. The photographs are arranged in chronological order and include a who's-who of the punk scene. Some of the in-your-face images bring you to front center stage where you're right there with the usual suspects--Ramones, Television, Blondie. There are lots of surprises too including a great shot of Stiv Bators with Divine, and a shot of Klaus Nomi, Christopher Parker & Jim Jarmusch taken outside at the front of CBGB's. If you ever wanted to know what the punk scene was like in its early days, or if you were there and need a bit of a jolt to jog your memory, you've got to get this book.

Forget the current controversy surrounding CBGBs, this book isn't about that. This book uses pictures to describe the life and times of this Bowery landmark from it's early days in 1973 to the present. The first picture (not counting the inside cover shot of their famous toilets) is of The Ramones, and the last shot is of Handsome Dick of The Dictators. In between lies b & w photo after b & w photo of punk and New Wave in its infancy. If you were there this book will remind you of how it was. If you weren't this book will graphically tell you the story of NYC area kids tired of corporate rock who just wanted to play a few chords as loud as they could so they could feel the rush.