Time the Turn the Lights Out (Ted Leo + Rx/Brian Jonestown Massacre, CB’s Gallery/CBGB’s)

For CBGB’s doors to stay open, everyone’s heart is going to have to wind up in the right place, right quick.  Because the head clearly ain’t working.

Last night was the first night of more than a month’s worth of planned “benefit” shows for the endangered New York rock club, and despite a really amazing show I’m of mixed feelings about its possible extinction.  The story – Google it, wouldja, I’m too tired to look for links – isn’t a cut-and-dry case of Big Evil LES Landlord v. wee innocent leaseholder.  The landlord’s a fucking Homeless Shelter, and club owner Hilly Kristal’s hardly a saint:  You always hear about bands who’ve had problems with him, and the way he’s managed to turn his hallowed hole-in-the-wall into little more than a T-Shirt logo makes you want to throw the man out on his Bowery bum.

It worries me, the talk of making the club a historical landmark.  We live in a time, and a city, where everything has been corrupted by either money or nostalgia; rock itself may not need the protection – its roots are a lot deeper than any one building’s foundation, and any well-swung axe can shred stronger stuff than paper debt – but words like “institution” corrupt like crazy talk.  The music that was born here was anti-establishment, and it would seem disingenuous to beg official recognition.

Perhaps the best possible outcome would involve taking the club away from Kristal and letting the Bowery Residents’ Committee turn it into the respectable little bluegrass joint it was always meant to be.

Gabba gabba, hey hey, my my.  Let it go.  Rock and roll gets ugly when it gets old.  Look at the Rolling Stones.  Living Colour, who are playing a benefit show here on the 19th, have this maudlin song they’ll probably pull out, then, one that groans, “You can tear a building down, but you can’t erase a memory.”

The last time I saw Living Colour was at CBGB’s.  It was late ’92 or early ’93, they’d just gotten a new bassist and were testing material that’d wind up on their third full-length, Stain.  It’s tough to see now, perhaps – lead singer Corey Glover became a VJ on VH1, for fuck’s sake – but they felt like a really important band, back then.  There were no African-American rock bands making waves at the time, and though their audience might have been largely lily-white (and more interested in chanting along with JFK and FDR than Glover’s lyrics), LC’s success was color-blind.  They weren’t The Black Band, they were a good band that happened to be black.

What I remember most about that show was the energy, and the immediacy.  The new material wasn’t so hot, but it was sludgier and harder than their previous stuff.  “Mind Your Own Business” is a great mosh song, and I remember the look of terror on the face of some bespectacled kid with a huge backpack when the whole front of the club turned into a pit.  Hilarious.  Stage divers bumped up against the band... That’s one of the great things about CB’s, that there’s really nothing between you and the performers.  You have to walk past the stage, past their dressing rooms, to pee.

I was no regular, and I certainly wasn’t there anywhere near the beginning.  When the Ramones, and Blondie, and Television, and the Talking Heads, and... when all that happened – let’s call it 1975 – I was four years old.  By the time I got to New York it was 1989 and the club had become more or less what it is today.  Obsolete, living on legend.  Most of the good shows I remember attending during college were at the old New Ritz; that’s where I finally saw the Ramones.

Most of my nights spent at CB’s were... Mondays?  Audition nights.  Like most people, I was there to see friends’ bands.    Cap’n Crunch was the big one, and they played there all the time.  They actually didn’t suck.  Did a great punk version of Neil Diamond’s  “America” (“Today!”); occasionally their guitarist played trumpet.  I think they might have broken up because they realized they had to change their name to move forward, and couldn’t agree on a new one.

It was a different band – friends of friends, I think – who opened for the Afghan Whigs, there.  I didn’t think much of them – the opener, I never stayed for the Whigs, even though everyone seemed hot for their new album Gentlemen; I was a little disappointed in myself for having compromised my taste, telling Whoevertheywuz that they “really rocked,” when they didn’t... and I was already getting very good at getting drunk, and wanted to get home to do so in an environment where I wouldn’t be embarrassing myself.

And –just one more, though there are others – the only time (before last night) that I’d been to a show at CB’s Gallery, the art/performance space next to the club proper:  I was there to see some f-o-f’s whiteboy blues band, and because I knew everything there was to know about the blues (sure, that) the singer/harpist had me write down versions of “Key to the Highway” he should listen to, because I insisted they learn it.  Anthony Kiedis – who was sharply dressed (no tube sock, at least), just hanging out, there, with some incredibly hot woman – was awful nice when all of us went up to him and told him how much we loved the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  I was lying, I only thought they were okay, and was sure he could sense my indifference.

I can’t remember whether that was before or after I passed on their Roseland show (with opening acts Nirvana and Pearl Jam).  But that has nothing to do with CBGBs and everything to do with the inner packed house I call Club Regret.  None of that, right now.

I’m not going to be the one deciding the club’s fate, and I suppose that’s a good thing:  I wouldn’t know whether to stand in front of the wrecking ball, or give it a push.  But the cry has gone out, Save Our Shithole, and a vast harmonic convergence is set for the next six weeks.  In an effort to scrape off some of the grayed chewing gum stuck to the seat of the club’s mystique, a number of decent bands have volunteered their services.

But judging by last night’s concert they might just be swinging by to pay their last respects.

Little Steven van Zandt put together the first night’s gig, and it was a mess:  Headliner Ted Leo and the Pharmacists recently sold out Irving Plaza, and would have had no trouble doing same to this smaller club... but the show wasn’t announced anywhere until Sunday... and even then, barely announced.  Furthermore, two simultaneous shows were listed on Leo’s site, but CBGB’s site only mentioned one.  $10 advanced tickets were available for a show at CB’s Gallery featuring Leo and five no-name acts.  Leo’s group was scheduled to go onstage at 11:45PM, on a Monday night, and these things never run on schedule.

It seemed perfectly appropriate that Sopranos star/Springsteen guitarist van Zandt curate, and it seemed worthwhile to check out whomever he’d lined up.  His Underground Garage radio program provides a valuable service to the world, and though the music he plays is a lot less hardcore than the stuff that sees the club’s stage these days, it shares the same competent, faceless quality.  Its heart is in the right place, but these are the children of Eli Whitney and Henry Ford as much as the subjects of Stax and Volt.  They are replaceable parts, one group after another whose only desire in the world is to be a lot like the Kinks (or a lot like some other band who wanted to be a lot like the Kinks) and get laid a little.  It’s the way the world should be:  A loaf of bread on every table, a poet in every basement, a band in every garage.

The six bands playing at the Gallery were scheduled to go on, starting at 9:15P, in half-hour increments.  This is the same insane scheduling van Zandt used for his festival at Randall’s Island, last year, and this time there wasn’t even the pretense of a rotating stage to facilitate matters.  All the bands used the same drum set and amps... but even with the rushed soundcheck it only left each group with enough time for four or five songs...

...which is fine, actually.  This kind of music can get monotonous pretty quickly, and a change of face helps.  I got there at 9:45, when the first act, Anaheim’s The Willowz, was finally taking the stage.  Their standard-issue stuff was highlighted by the lead singer’s desire to sing like Jack White.  One song nicely broke form and launched into an intense bit of trippery; a later song (with a guest trumpet player) unwisely saw the band stagger through a sloppy, overextended jam session.

Boston’s The Charms were tighter and better, with a solid female lead (van Zandt spent a good amount of time during the band’s mini-soundcheck flirting with her).  The real oomph in the group came from the teensy Hammond organ player – who doesn’t seem to be the same one pictured on the band’s site; she seemed all of four-foot-eleven in heels, pounded her keys and howled into her mic.  Rock and roll.

As the next band, the Star Spangles (This is what garage bands are really good for... using up all the ridiculous names this side of Clap Your Hands Say Hi to Your Mom...), set up, I started hearing rumblings that “Blondie was next door.”  Oh, right, that other show.

I go next door, passing by some local news reporter doing a live feed from outside the club, and ask who was playing.  Oh, the Brian Jonestown Massacre (who had just played two nights at the Bowery Ballroom) were coming up, then “a couple other bands.”

Debbie Harry, it turns out, had played what was listed as a “solo acoustic” performance at 8PM.  8PM, more than an hour before the start time listed on the CB’s site.  I’d checked Ted Leo’s site, which had listed two shows, before leaving, and someone had taken the CBGB’s one off; turns out Ted Leo and his Pharmacists had played a set right before BJM.

While generous, I’d wondered about the $10 price:  If it’s a benefit show, isn’t there the understanding that you’re going to be paying more?  Turns out that at the CBGBs door, they were selling $20 wristbands that could get you into both shows – the CB’s gallery one and the concurrent CBGB concert.  No one at the Gallery door – the only show mentioned on the club’s site, the only show for which you could buy advance tix – bothered to mentioned this.

The guys at the CBGB door wanted $20 for the wristband, even though I’d already paid $10 (+service charges) to get into the Gallery show.  I was not feeling charitable, and grumbled and fussed and haggled away a wristband for ten bucks.

Sounds more like a fire sale than a benefit show, don’t it?

CBGB’s was very sparsely populated.  Little Steven – who had been over at the Gallery, earlier – was on a stool at the bar, and people milled around in front of the stage while Anton Newcombe’s band set up.

If you’ve seen the documentary DiG!, you know that the draw at a Brian Jones Massacre show isn’t necessarily the music:  One of their best songs is the abusive between-song banter, and the drums aren’t the only thing that get smacked around.  True to form, Newcombe took the stage babbling drunkenly about Canadians and bands from Finland and doing some sort of “Foghat dance.”  He had a glass mug filled with what I assume was a screwdriver – it couldn’t have just been orange juice – and poured half of it on the floor in mock tribute to something-or-other.  He also sincerely praised the equipment – on this side, too, everyone was sharing drums and amps – before finally getting into a song.

They were very, very good.

I’m no fan of the BJM’s music; one of the reasons Dig! rang hollow for me was that while everyone praised Newcombe as some great innovator and the film painted him as a sort of tragic genius, his songs sound little more than regurgitated psychedelia.  But his outfit is a tight one and, especially contrasted with the bar bands in the other room, the sound was superb.  Though his vocals were weak, Anton was clearly able to get whatever he wanted out of his electric twelve-string.  Tunes tended to drone on and threatened to bore, but there was something rich and genuine there; while I’m not sure I’d want to hear a whole headlining set from these guys, both the songs they played last night impressed.

That’s right:  Both.  They only played two.  They got rushed off the stage... so that the fucking Charms could play another ‘round.  What the hell was the club thinking?

It was a pretty lengthy two-song set, though, because Newcombe spent a good while talking before, in-between, and after the music.  “What?  Four minutes left?” he cried, after they’d finished their first number.  “Four minutes left for the greatest song ever written?  Well, guess what?  I’m going to talk for two of those minutes.”

When the inevitable, baiting cry of “Shut up and play!” came, he slurred into:  “Do I come to where you work and tell... Where do you work?  Where do you work?”  A blonde photographer slinked by, conveniently, and Newcombe said, “I’ll tell you where she works:  At the cocksucking factory.  You know how much cock she’s sucked?  You know the Twin Towers, before they came down?”  Tasteful.

He suggested we take a collection and invest it and get some sort of alternative to the club we were supposedly there to save.  “This,” he said as he was being shooed off the stage, “is why this place is shutting down.”  And there was more than a little something to that.

The fucking Charms?

The guys at the Gallery door had no idea how many more bands would be going on before Ted Leo.  Two, or three, maybe?  A bunch of guys that might have been The Swingin’ Neckbreakers ended their set with “Blitzkrieg Bop” – I thought there’d be a lot more of that kind of thing, really.   Capitol City group The Five Maseratis (“Everything in Washington D.C. doesn’t suck!” was the intro van Zandt gave them) dabbled in some okay harmonics, doing better when they stuck to pre-Revolver Beatlestuff; they plowed through their tunes, cramming six or seven into their short set.  Over in the bar proper, the Charms had wrapped, and The Rattlers – I think this is Joey Ramone’s (real) brother’s punk-era band? (the AMG lists several different bands with that name) – were playing an intriguing cover of “Ring of Fire”... but it was already after midnight and I was actually here to see Ted Leo, right?

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists should be a symbol at the start of this run of shows for everything that has gone wrong – and everything that could go right – with CBGB’s.  While Jersey-boy Leo mentioned having played the club before, I would be surprised if the Pharmacists were ever on a bill*.  Before they got any kind of sizable following, maybe... but I’m thinking it more likely he’d been there with Chisel or one of his other, earlier outfits.  The Pharmacists’ stuff is pure power trio pop, Leo’s lovely alto warbling over bouncy tunes that, while infused with smart-punk politics, wander freely through reggae backbeats and the odd honk and tonk.  But everything he does drips with passion, and you get the feeling he’d happily play places like CB’s for the rest of his life.

The club, though, never made itself a house of indie rock.  To its credit, it refused to become some trendy hipster-friendly douche hatchery (thanks), but its musical vision has always seemed curtailed less by integrity than ignorance.

Leo’s set, his second of the night, was short and intense.  He broke his guitar strap on the first or second song, toyed with playing the whole show seated, got a replacement strap from someone.  “Me and Mia” was sublime.  He rapped his way through “Ballad of the Sin Eater.”  He claimed that it was apropos of nothing that he followed a brief shout out to the history of the club with “The High Party,” but the song seemed too appropriate.

I’m wondering how many of the people that were there, last night – and there weren’t that many, at all – were at CBGB’s for the first time.  With the loose gathering of indie kids over in the gallery and the old-timers grinding it out in the bar, it felt a little like everyone was stopping by to either check off a list or get some sort of closure.  It didn’t feel like the beginning of anything.

In fact, there were a pair of perfect endings. 

Leo came out for a solo, electric encore, firmly saying “No” when someone called out for “Since U Been Gone.”  He said, “This is for all the Jersey in the house,” and launched into a cover of “Dancing in the Dark.”  And while there was a lack of oh-way-ohing from the room, a couple guys jumped out of the crowd and up on stage, recreating the Boss-Courtney Cox dance from the old video, inches from the singer.  It was a perfect, unplanned moment.

See you at the benefit to save the Stone Pony, man.

But next door, they weren’t done.  A group of your elders were kicking the shit out of “Gloria.”  I don’t know if this was the promised end-of-the-night “Ramones Jam” featured on the bill, or if these were the also-promised Waldos with some sit-in female vocalist, but hot damn they wanted this.  In the middle of the song, Patti Smith’s guitarist Lenny Kaye jumped on stage and grabbed a mic; while the band jammed, he reminisced. 

“I’ve been coming to this club for 32 years,” he said, “and what strikes me about tonight is that... it’s just like every other night I’ve ever been here.  People are hanging out on the sidewalk out front, smoking and talking.  And up here...” He gestured to the band behind him, a bunch of old people playing an old song on an old stage – but playing it like there’s never been any time but NOW and there was no other song that could possibly be played – and he tossed his silver mane back and wailed “G-L-O-R-I-A...”

“It’s a fabulous night for rock,” someone had said, earlier, outside.  They said it cooly, druggily, seriously, and they were right.  I do not know if CBGBs will survive, and I still do not know if it should.  But I do know that, for the next six weeks, no matter what the show, whether it’s a rescue mission or a fond farewell, this place should be electric.  Stop by, hang out.  Gormandize.  Make yourself some new memories.

*Check it, me being wrong again.  Leo and the Rx played CGBG's in October of 2003, and you can watch that performance here.

tags: ted leo  cbgbs  cbgbs  brian jonestown massacre  music  concert reviews  

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