Hilly Kristal decided to shell out $35,000 a month in rent for CBGB's Bowery Street space through October 2006, ensuring that we'll be hearing speculation about where the famed punk club will go for many, many more months. Kristal called the agreement with landlord, the Bowery Residents' Committee, "amicable," which is not only kinda unpunk, it totally reverses his pretty recent comments that CBGB's would leaving. Kristal said he was looking at various other properties, including one at Essex and Delancy owned by the city, not to mention still moving out to Las Vegas so it can showcase the Vegas-sanitized punk acts today, like My Chemical Romance. Hey, wouldn't it be punk for CBGB's to move somewhere totally random, like, say, the Bronx? The rents are probably cheap too! Anyway, it's unclear whether or not Kristal will be paying backrent that he owed (wasn't he claiming to not have paid his higher rent for a while?). Or what will happen to the Chocolate Bar's CBGB's chocolate.
We'll see if Little Stevie plans any more benefit concerts for CBGB's, you know, to help out with the current rent or funds for a new place. And our reelection question for Mayor Bloomberg: Did you ever wear that shirt, or throw it to an aide for the freebie bin at City Hall?





The gothamist's commentary on what's punk is where the true humor lies.
delancey, not delancy
the mayor could BUY cbgb's, if he really gave a damn.
Making millions in t-shirt sales is so punk-rock.
The lease should be longer than a year. Hilly should be allowed to stay as long as he likes. The BRC will never get any support from me.
They're so punk they've even got a gift shop!!
I'm sick of the "genuine punk" debate. All the original punks were from the suburbs and fought with their mom and dad, and died their hair just to piss them off, just like kids do now 30 years later. They were too frail to really fight the police, and too pussy to really rock the boat. Go ahead, talk to any "real" punk you see on the street and you'll see it's true. Punks are about as anti-establishment as Gothamist is.