BLITZKRIEG BOP: CBGBS DOCUMENTARY 3 OF 4

BLITZKRIEG BOP - LIVE AT CBGBS DOC. PART 3 OF 4

At the third Television gig on 14 April 1974, Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye from the Patti Smith Group were in the audience; however, the band was not to make its CBGB debut until 14 February 1975. Alongside Television, other early performers included The Stillettoes (featuring future Blondie vocalist Debbie Harry), who supported Television on 5 May, 1974, the newly-formed Blondie (under its original name of Angel & the Snake) and The Ramones, both in August 1974.

Mink DeVille, Talking Heads, The Dinosaurs, The Shirts, Steel Tips, Jackson Main The Heartbreakers, The Fleshtones and many other bands followed in quick succession. The club continued to host many punk and new wave bands over the years. CBGB's had only one rule for a band to follow in order to play at the venue: all original music, no covers.

Though CBGB was utilized as a hot spot for touring bands to hit when they came through New York, the scene that kept the bar alive during the 1980s was New York's underground hardcore scene. Sunday at CBGB was matinee day (also named "thrash day" in a documentary about hardcore skinheads). Every Sunday, a handful of hardcore bands took the stage in the afternoon to dinnertime hours, usually for cheap. Over the years, the CBGB's matinee became an institution, before violence both in and out of the scene caused Kristal to refuse to book hardcore shows. By 1990, CBGB did not book any hardcore punk or punk shows. CBGB's brought hardcore back at various times, and for the last several years of its existence had no rules about what genres could and couldn't be featured.

Bands made famous by matinees include Gorilla Biscuits, the Cro-Mags, Agnostic Front, Sick Of It All, Reagan Youth, Warzone, and Youth Of Today.