Inside the current CBGB, a John Varvatos store
The keynote address of the Second Annual CBGB Music & Film Festival will be given this Thursday from inside a recreation of the original CBGB club inside the Landmark Sunshine Theater on East Houston, reports EV Grieve. The festival runs this week, October 8th to 12th. The speakers at the keynote include former MTV Vice President Van Toffler and Duff McKagan, ex-guitarist from the band Guns N’ Roses. The late founder of CBGB Hilly Kristal and talent booker Louise Stalley made sure that the interior of the club would be preserved when it shut down in 2006, as Stalley said in a press release: “[Hilly] saved them for exactly this type of occasion.” The tear-down process was meticulous, as Chris Harris reported for MTV, “The process is something between a crime-scene investigation and an archeological dig.”
CBGB, which stands for Country BlueGrass Blues, was a prominent venue in the New York City punk scene from 1973 to 2006 when it closed its doors at the 315 Bowery location. (Sidebar: One of the urinals pictured above is featured in the NYC Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.) With the 2013 CBGB Music & Film Festival, they mark their second installment of their revival in the NYC music/arts scene. The festival is comprised of several events held throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn in 175 different venues, highlighting more than 500 artists for a myriad of performances in a range of genres from punk to electro. They will also host more than 125 speakers and 100 films. Tuesday night is the premiere of CBGB: The Movie at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema which documents the story of the US punk movement, and the creation of this music landmark.
Tickets for all the events of the music festival are available on CBGB’s website.