[tesla69]

I have tears in my eyes fer chrissakes!

http://gothamist.com/2007/08/29/chec...t.php#comments

and from WINS.com

Hilly Kristal, Founder of Iconic Punk Rock Club CBGB, Dies

NEW YORK (AP) -- Hilly Kristal, whose dank Bowery rock club CBGB served as the birthplace of the punk rock movement and a launching pad for bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, has died after a battle with lung cancer, his son said Wednesday. He was 75.

Kristal, who lost a bitter fight last year to stop the club's eviction from its New York home of 33 years, died Tuesday at Cabrini Hospita, said his son, Mark Dana Kristal.

Last October, as the club headed toward its final show with Patti Smith, Kristal was using a cane to get around and showing the effects of his cancer treatment. He was hoping to open a Las Vegas incarnation of the infamous venue that opened in 1973.

[Danny Himself]

Holy wowza! I didn't even know he was sick!

RIP. Will we never know what OMFUG means?

[MellySingsDoom]

OMFUG - Other Music For Upstanding Gentlemen.

[tesla69]

Originally Posted by Danny Himself

RIP. Will we never know what OMFUG means?

see below

Aug 29, 12:04 PM (ET)
By CRISTIAN SALAZAR
(AP) Hilly Kristal, left, founder and owner of the New York rock club CBGB, whose initials stand for...
NEW YORK (AP) - Hilly Kristal, whose dank Bowery rock club CBGB served as the birthplace of the punk rock movement and a launching pad for bands like the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads, has died. He was 75.
Kristal, who lost a bitter fight last year to stop the club's eviction from its home of 33 years, died Tuesday at Cabrini Hospital after a battle with lung cancer, his son Mark Dana Kristal said Wednesday.
Last October, as the club headed toward its final show with Patti Smith, Kristal was using a cane to get around and showing the effects of his cancer treatment. He was hoping to open a Las Vegas incarnation of the infamous venue that opened in 1973.
"He created a club that started on a small, out-of-the-way skid row, and saw it go around the world," said Lenny Kaye, a longtime member of the Patti Smith Group. "Everywhere you travel around the world, you saw somebody wearing a CBGB T-shirt."
While the club's glory days were long past when it shut down, its name transcended the venue and become synonymous with the three-chord thrash of punk and its influence on generations of musicians worldwide.
The club also became a brand name for a line of clothing and accessories, even guitar straps; its store, CBGB Fashions, was moved a few blocks away from the original club, but remained open.
"I'm thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day, and going on to do more with CBGB's," Kristal told The Associated Press last October.
Kristal started the club in 1973 with the hope of making it a mecca of country, bluegrass and blues - called CBGB & OMFUG, for "Other Music For Uplifting Gourmandisers" - but found few bands to book. It instead became the epicenter of the mid-1970s punk movement.
"There was never gourmet food, and there was never country bluegrass," his son said Wednesday.
Besides the Ramones and the Talking Heads, many of the other sonically defiant bands that found frenzied crowds at CBGB during those years became legendary - including Smith, Blondie and Television.
Smith said at the venue's last show that Kristal "was our champion and in those days, there were very few."
Throughout the years, CBGB had rented its space from the building's owner, the Bowery Residents' Committee, an agency that houses homeless people.
In the early 2000s, a feud broke out when the committee went to court to collect more than $300,000 in back rent from the club, then later successfully sought to evict it. By the time it closed, CBGB had become part museum and part barroom.
At the club's boarded-up storefront Wednesday morning, fans left a dozen candles, two bunches of flowers and a foam rubber baseball bat - an apparent tribute to the Ramones' classic "Beat on the Brat." A spray-painted message read: "RIP Hilly, we'll miss you, thank you."
Other survivors include his wife, Karen, and daughter, Lisa.

[nicfit]

edited out for stupidty--


pretty sad news .

[Everyneurotic]

holy fuck!

you have to give him credit but it's not like music died.

[nicfit]

well, it's still a bit sad when someone who did something "nice" for music in general dies... isn't it?

[Everyneurotic]

yes, i won't argue about him in his memorial thread.

[jico.]

thank you hilly kristal, rckip.

[Pax Americana]

Just heard about this. Too bad, really.

[Georgekrz]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/arts/music/30kristal.html?ex=1346212800&en=8f258984a4fac1cf&e i=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

[Cantankerous]

wow. that sucks. first he had to close down CB's and now this..i didn't know he was that old.

[demonrail666]

That's fucked. Another one bites the dust. And to think, Bill O'Reilly still breaths. Can someone gimme a little justice around here, puleeez.