CBGB

New York City’s proto-punk new wave was a downtown thing, crawling out of the damp stonework in yet-to-be-gentrified Soho and the Lower East Side well before the trendy clothing stores and art galleries arrived. The first generation of musicians emerged from the rubble left by…

…York punk clubs such as CBGB alongside contemporaries such as Talking Heads, Television, and Patti Smith and released its self-titled debut album on Private Stock Records in 1976. Major label Chrysalis Records released Plastic Letters the following year, earning the group a following in the United Kingdom. Parallel Lines

…downtown New York punk club CBGB, which incubated a number of punk and new wave bands.

…notably at New York City’s CBGB club. Their tour of England in 1976 proved a major inspiration for the punk movement in Britain, where they enjoyed greater commercial success than at home. Influenced by the rebelliousness of their contemporaries the New York Dolls and by 1960s pop music (especially bubblegum…

…as Television they helped establish CBGB-OMFUG, a club in New York City’s Bowery, as the epicenter of a burgeoning punk scene. Principal songwriter Verlaine delivered his surreal lyrics with an elasticity that stretched from somber declarations to unearthly squeals, but what set Television apart from other punk–new-wave groups was the…