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Famed Rock Club C.B.G.B.'s Closed in 2006.
John Santanello
Recounts Its - and His -
Glory Days.
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| C.B.G.B.'s Shortly Before Closing |
It was the end of summer recess in 1977. I was 13 years old and going back to 8th grade.
I was always ahead of
popular music, since I was brought up as the youngest of three in Staten Island with an older sister five years my elder,
all the while exposing this pre-teen to the whole world of glam.
I was given a Polaroid camera for Christmas the year
before and took it everywhere. I have a way of seeing life as a picture. I would pose my friends and photograph them. I never
related to kids my own age so I was always the youngest. I was the first one to own a ghetto blaster so I provided the soundtrack
to an otherwise boring scene of hanging out and smoking pot in a public school yard. I would make mixed tapes of Bowie, Kiss,
Queen and Mott the Hoople.
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| The Dead Boys Backstage |
Other kids my age were not grasping this music and wrote me off as weird.
Over the summer of '77 one of the older teenagers (18-19) gave me a cassette of the New York Dolls and shared a bong of hash
and that was it. I was changed! I found this whole new scene that had started up in 1975 at a club called C.B.G.B.'s on the
bowery in Manhattan. The older teenagers liked me because I was a snot nosed kid who would try anything to impress them. I
would do anything they would, which got me in a lot of trouble.
Determined to keep me out of difficulty, my mother purchased my first 35mm camera - a Yashica FR II. The first time I
shot a band was Kiss at Madison Square Garden. I scalped 5th row center seats with phony $20 bills which I purchase for 5
dollars a piece. I didn't own a flash so I had to rely on stage lighting. This is what would become the blueprint to the way
I photograph.
It's now October 1977 and I was invited to go see the Dead Boys at C.B.G.B.'s. I told my mother I was staying at a pal's
house, got a college ID of a friend that I resembled, wore cowboy boots to look taller and had 60 dollars (40 of it counterfeit).
It was 11:30 on a Friday night and we were heading out to the late show which could be anytime from 1am to 3am, depending
on how the band was feeling. We got to the front door and I was so nervous about getting proofed that I didn't even realize
I paid the 5 dollar admission with a fake 20 (sorry Hilly). The club was dimly lit, damp and smelled like stale beer. After
coming through a narrow walkway, which had upper level seating to the left, a bar was exposed to the right with a sticky counter
and adorned by assorted Hell's Angels and junkies. I had purchased The Dead Boy's only album "Young, Loud and Snotty" and
learned every song.
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| Stiv Bators: Grounded |
At that time, the stage being in the right-hand corner with a walkway on the left to the two dressing rooms and a stairwell
to the restroom in the basement, the room was set up with cocktail tables put together in 3 parallel lines resembling the
Last Supper with about two feet between the stage and the heads of the tables. I could see it would be perfect to photograph
because they used colored spotlights, which drenched the stage in hues of reds and blues.
I overheard this drunken
guy who was trying to talk louder than Iggy Pop's "Lust for Life" which was blaring out of the p.a. He was saying that the
early show which was at 11:30 started with a fist fight and ended with the singer Stiv Bators collapsing and being carried
off the stage after throwing the microphone over the lighting rafters and hanging himself.
All I could think of is
how am I going to get up front with all these people? By 2am they were just standing in front of the stage waiting for the
band to come out of the dressing room. I heard that the closing song was a new one they had added to the show which was to
be titled "Son of Sam" on the next release "We Have Come For Your Children". I was hoping he would do it at the second show
but twice in one night would be a lot to ask.
The lights went down and I heard the guitars picking the opening
chords to "Sonic Reducer". After they all tuned up their guitars, the show got started. The cymbals came in brash - and then
the guitars. It was so loud from the stage it almost hurt your eyes but I like loud music.
I didn't own a flash so I had to rely on stage lighting.
This is what would become the blueprint to the way I photograph.
The crowd started moving around swaying like a cornfield. I saw my way up to the front and squeezed in. I was eye
to crotch level with the lead singer Stiv Bators who was spitting every word he said with a vengence. The lighting and the
sound were amazing for such a hole in the wall place. You could really feel the music and the lighting was a great backdrop
to the dirty walls and stage. They played most of the first album - a couple of covers and two new songs "Revenge" which would
become "Won't Look Back" and "Son of Sam". Stiv didn't hang himself that second show but he would make it a trademark for
that song years to come. After the show everyone was hanging around at the bar.
What I didn't realize was, after the
set, the band just came out of the dressing room. Here I am thinking they're these huge rock stars because I was blown away
by the performance. It was sloppy, loud and in your face. It really appealed to me - this was my music (my older sister
hated it). We would later become friends. The band liked me because I was a kid and gave them free pictures. I would never
have to pay again - I was always on their guest list. A dream come true - me, friends with a band I idolized. Only in New
York.
John Santanello is represented by OvoWorks, Inc. and his photography and editorial can be found at:
HM Vol.2/Is.01 March 2007
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