Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music and musicians from the 60’s to today. Enjoy the trip!

This week Vinyl Lair celebrates the historical night club CBGB & OMFUG and the bands that played there. The club’s full name was actually CBGB-OMFUG which stands for “Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers.” It quickly evolved from a roots music venue to the home base for many bands.

Shortly after CBGB’s opened in 1973, the music club known the world over as CBGB OMFUG became a New York City icon. Widely regarded as the place where punk rock was born, the club hosted some of music’s most iconic bands who all used the club’s stage to forge their game-changing sounds.

Originally known as Frankenstein, The Dead Boys were a punk rock band formed in Cleveland, Ohio in 1976 after the breakup of Rocket From The Tombs. They adopted the name The Dead Boys when they relocated to New York City in July 1976 where they were active until 1979. They briefly reunited in 1986 and again in 2004 and 2005 without Stiv Bators who passed away in 1990.

At the invitation of Joey Ramone, the Dead Boys moved from Cleveland to New York City to join the thriving punk scene. Almost instantly, Stiv Bators, Cheetah Chrome and the boys became part of the CBGB gang, and took the mantle as one of the most exciting and violent bands to regularly play the club. Hilly Kristal even became their manager. Although Sire gave them a record contract — and released two of the group’s albums — the label put increasing pressure on the Dead Boys to soften their sound and image. What had worked for Blondie, Talking Heads and (to an extent) the Ramones broke up the Boys. Lucky for us, we still have classics like ‘Sonic Reducer’ to remind us of their uncompromising rage.