Text © Robert Barry Francos /
FFanzeen, 2014
Images from the Internet
Watching CBGB’s: The Movie (yeah, I’m just getting’ to it now, you wanna make somethin’ of it?), and here are some comments that I’m sure most of which have already been logged elsewhere before, but I’m just riffing.
While I believe they should have used Please Kill Me as a reference, as it is the source of information of the period.
Using the Punk mag framework is
interesting. The ‘zine came out, however, after the scene had already started,
so… how can they posit that they originated the music revolution after the
Ramones were already playing over a year?
Johnny Galecki does a decent Terry
Ork, but I remember Ork being a lot more twitchy, quirky and effervescent. We (I
and Bernie Kugel) used to stop by Cinemabilia, the film memorabilia store he
worked, and buy his singles directly from him.
The stage is on the wrong side of the
club, as it wasn’t moved to the right side until a couple of years later (the first
band I saw play on the new stage was Blondie). Early on, the pool table was on
the right, where the stage ended up.
The sound system started out as crap,
until Hilly infamously bought a way-expensive and incredibly sounding one later
in the ‘70s. It was top of the line for it’s time considering how the club
looked so run down.
When we meet Television, the focus
seems to be on Tom Verlaine, and they definitely undercut Richard Hell’s
personality, which was equally as strong. And I remember Hell being twitchier
on stage, jerking around and weaving back and fourth, rather than leaning
forward aggressively.
The soundtrack is the best thing so
far, but they’re too ambitious, just playing the opening notes of Lou Reed’s
“Heroin” and the Flamin’ Groovies’ “Slow Death,” for example. As much as I love
the song, the placement of the Count IV’s “Psychotic Reaction” confused me. Much
of the music in the film is, of course, out of sequence chronologically, but
I’ve heard that complaint before…anyway back to it.
Oh, and Jonathan, the dog, was way-way
uglier. He was a friendly pooch who mostly left you alone, though he really did
shit all over the place. I always kept away from the pinball machine near the
door because underneath was a favorite place of his to release the hounds of
bowels.
Talking Heads first show as in June
1975, opening for the Ramones (first show I saw there). Blondie opened for the
Ramones a few weeks after that. There were maybe twelve people in the audience.
I never saw a full house until a couple of years after that. The first time I needed
to make a reservation was early ’77 when the Dead Boys were opening for the
Damned. The actor who plays Debbie Harry is mangling her New Jersey (not New
York) accent. When Talking Heads played, bassist Tina Weymouth was focused on
Byrne with big, staring eyes, not unfocused off in the opposite direction.
Byrne waved his head back and forth when he sang, though in the first show I
saw he moved the front of his head instead of the back, so his voice had a
Doppler effect.
I never ever saw Patti Smith booed for
doing poetry on stage. She usually read until the band was plugged in, tuned,
and ready to play. Of course, “Because the Night” wasn’t performed until much,
much later, as it was co-written with Springsteen, and she would not have ad
access to that large an A-list talent at the beginning. By 1975, when Patti
played the Bottom Line (the first time I saw her play, but hardly the last),
she rarely was at CBs anymore, though infamously – and it’s mentioned at the
end of the film – she was the last to play on its stage.
The best part of the Punk interview with Lou Reed was when
they mentioned how Handsome Dick Manitoba of the Dictators called him a creep
in the song "Two Tub Man," though
the line was actually written by Adny/Andy Shernoff, and they never
mentioned that it was a lyric), and he became irate. I never saw Johnny Ramone
rush off the stage in anger, but did see DeeDee do it a couple of times after
getting electrical shocks.
Much as I love Wayne/Jayne County, and
give her props for helping the scene in its most nascent stages, I think of her
more as a Max`s person, probably because she wrote (and performed) the
definitive theme song for the other club, and DJ'd there often.
The Dead Boys' portrayal seems pretty
decent to how I remember, though it would have been cool to show how Stiv
climbed inside the bass drum, as he did sometimes. However, this scene is
definitely based on a 1977 film clip of the band that is available on YouTube.
Ron Weasley's Cheetah Chrome is quite good, though; it was the first thing that
made me smile in the film. Check out Cheetah`s version of the events in his
autobiography (reviewed HERE).
As for song-time being accurate, it is
correct that they had Blondie doing "X-Offender" in that period. While I know
Debbie and Iggy had a bond through both being ex-users, and were friendly, I
never heard of them playing together on stage at CBs; in fact, I don`t remember
Iggy ever on stage there at all, although I could be wrong about this. I wasn`t
there every night, after all.
Joey Ramone reading a contract? He was
way smarter than most people gave him credit for, but he also had incredibly
bad eyesight, and received most of his news from television (as opposed to
Television).
Oh, and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks
were also mostly a Max`' band (though they may have played CBs, too). They were
one of the worst interviews I ever did; total assholes.
And what about the Live at CBGB's double LPs No mention of
that at all. I have a distinct memory of driving there on my way to somewhere
else in the rain, just to pick up the copies directly from the club. Yes, I
still have them.
The Police were as boring live in real
life as they were in this film. Saw them play the Diplomat Hotel basement for
about 100 people around the time of "Roxanne" and thought they were absolutely
terrible (The Vapors, who I also saw there, were so much better). My good
friend`s future ex-wife never forgave me for hating them and wanted me banned
from being Best Man at their wedding. Nice.
It was nice to see Genya Ravan
portrayed. Her rightful distaste of the Dead Boys' use of Nazi imagery is well
documented, and the actor playing her, Stana Katic, did a decent job, despite
the poor New York accent, but where was Castle? Check out Genya's excellent
autobio, Lollipop Lounge (2004).
The Dictators' music is represented
and there is a little Dictators sticker at the beginning, but they were the
first CBGBs band singed, despite the nada physical depiction on film. Johnny
Thunders and Walter Lure, while being mostly (again) related to Max`s, rarely
played CBGBs in their various forms, such as the Heartbreakers, the Heroes, the
Waldos, etc.
Thee were also many strange acts to
play there, that one would not normally thing of, such as Peter Tork and Tom
Petty and the Heartbreakers (I had some words with him about that name: HERE).
Overall, yes, it was important for me
to watch this, but mostly, yeah, it was a bad film.
Postscript
by Phyllis Stein:
I
don`t remember Iggy ever playing with Blondie at CBGBs. Although Iggy did hang
out one night in the summer of 1977 with Thunders, Sable [Starr], and me. The
Blitz stabbing was fiction in the film. The rest of the Dead Boys were not even
with Johnny Blitz when he was stabbed. Blitz was with his girlfriend, Michael
Sticca, and Marcia Leone, Billy Rath`s girlfriend. The soundtrack is a joke.
The New York Dolls never played there ever! And the Talking Heads song they
included was much later from 1978. Jonathan was a Saluki. In the film, they
cast Jonathan as an Afghan hound. I could go on and on, but I`m sure you get my
point.
RBF: Please feel free to add your own
corrections below in the comment section. Note that what you write will not
show up until I approve it, to fight SPAM.
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