CBGB – Savannah Unplugged http://www.billdawers.com Mon, 04 Nov 2013 21:50:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.2 18778551 “CBGB” the movie – thrilling possibilities but too many missed chances: a review http://www.billdawers.com/2013/10/11/cbgb-the-movie-thrilling-possibilities-but-too-many-missed-chances-a-review/ Fri, 11 Oct 2013 19:11:13 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=6275 Read more →

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At Talking Heads’ 2002 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the band called CBGB owner and founder Hilly Kristal onto the stage.

“We want to start where we began,” Tina Weymouth said.

“He kept us alive,” Weymouth said of the inscrutable club owner. “He fed us and he supported us in every way possible.”

“He told us we needed to expand our sound and get a little more interesting,” she said. “And he taught us a lot about ethics, about how to treat people.”

One of the best moments in CBGB involves Talking Heads. The band takes the stage in the nearly empty dive and launches into “Psycho Killer.” And then Kristal and the handful of listeners catch each others’ eyes, as if it’s just now occurring to them that they’re watching something historic.

The testimonies from Weymouth and David Byrne are shown during the closing credits of CBGB, but — bizarrely — we never see Kristal, (played by Alan Rickman) interact in any way with the band. He doesn’t even talk to them — much less feed them or teach them about ethics.

And that’s sort of the pattern of the entire new film CBGB: fabulously interesting figures from the history of punk and rock pass before us, but we pretty much never see any real human interaction between those musicians and Kristal, the man responsible for so much of their future success.

Sure, there were a lot of major stars who came out of CBGB, and not all of them can be fully realized characters in a feature film.

But only rarely does the script allow any of those musicians to live and breathe, even for a moment — rarely do they become more than just mimics or caricatures.

Later in the movie, as Kristal, now manager of The Dead Boys, tries to respond to the stabbing of Johnny Blitz, he yells at Stiv Bators (Justin Bartha) and Cheetah Chrome (Rupert Grint):  “I’m not your father! I’m just your manager! I can’t do this anymore!”

Huh?

We haven’t seen anything remotely paternal in Kristal’s relationship with the young punk band. The sudden outburst comes from somewhere out beyond left field.

The lack of human contact between Kristal and the musicians is perhaps the most puzzling of all the choices in the script by husband and wife team Jody Savin and Randall Miller (Miller also directs).

The poor character development is especially notable in the brief appearances of Iggy Pop (Taylor Hawkins) and Lou Reed (Kyle Gallner), both of whom come across as self-obsessed buffoons.

Terry Ork (Johnny Galecki) gets even worse treatment. A band manager, label owner, and something of a visionary, Ork was largely responsible for Television and deserves considerable credit for putting both the band and the club at the vanguard of American music. But in CBGB, all we see of Ork is his slightly smarmy attempt to get the band on stage and his offer to give  Iggy Pop a blow job.

So, if we aren’t seeing Kristal interact with the musicians, what takes up all the screen time?

Ashley Greene as Hilly’s daughter Lisa is especially unlikable. We don’t see a single moment of true warmth between father and daughter, and there’s even an embarrassing moment when Greene seems to be channeling Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny.

Twice in the film, characters fall asleep with the water running, flooding the floor below. Really?

We’re treated to several uninteresting scenes with Kristal interacting with a stereotypical cop.

The club might have been legendary for Hilly’s dog Johnathan taking dumps everywhere, but dog shit jokes wear thin pretty fast on screen. Ditto for jokes about rats and roaches.

And do we really need to see a montage sequence of a character buying a pair of boots?

The filmmakers have tried to deal with the episodic nature of the script by using comic book imagery reminiscent of Punk magazine to leap from one scene to another. At first this seems like a clever framing device, but it quickly wears thin, further diminishing the already shallow story.

But the music is at least great, right?

The film uses studio versions of classic songs even when there are existing live recordings from the club — raw renditions that might have given CBGB a much-needed jolt.  (Click here for a post with a number of live videos from CBGB’s early days.)

And, inexplicably, hardly any of the performance scenes in the film continue for more than 30 seconds without being interrupted by distracting dialogue, running jokes about the club’s seediness, or other extraneous elements. Viewers are given only the briefest of chances to immerse themselves in the music; we never have a chance to feel either the innocent wonder or the sordid seediness at the heart of the story.

I could go on and on.

As negative as this sounds, I’ll say that I didn’t find the movie boring — it moves too fast for that.

And there are a few touching moments here and there, and a few stirring musical sequences, and I don’t think I could ever get tired of watching Alan Rickman, who famously made drinking tea a work of art.

But you’ll likely walk out of CBGB feeling like you felt after one particularly mediocre night at some second-rate club.

You’ll feel like you just missed all the good stuff that surely must be going down at some other club down the street — one with better music, better sex, better drugs, and better conversation.

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New York Times previews “CBGB” movie http://www.billdawers.com/2013/10/05/new-york-times-previews-cbgb-movie/ Sat, 05 Oct 2013 15:53:23 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=6263 Read more →

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The New York Times’ Marc Spitz (heh) previews CBGB this weekend: Recalling Blitzkrieg Bop on the Bowery; ‘CBGB’ Dramatizes the Heyday of New York’s Premier Punk Club

It’s definitely worth checking out. (Click here for a less interesting but similar piece in Rolling Stone.)

From the piece:

[…] bit by bit, pieces of the actual former club — the bar, the pay phone, the walls and the notoriously foul toilets — were removed from a Brooklyn storehouse, loaded onto trucks and reassembled on a clean, affluent intersection in Savannah, Ga.

Well that’s wrong.

The pieces of the club were assembled at Meddin Studios, out in the industrial area of Louisville Road.

Only the club exterior was recreated on West Congress Street, a short block that includes The Lady & Sons and Sapphire Grill, but also includes The Jinx, Club 51 Degrees, and one of the city’s most prominent empty and dilapidated buildings. The crew set up on an underutilized parking lot. “Affluent”?

Anyway.

A number of impressions, in no particular order:

The piece is a really fun roundup of movies about punk.

The infighting among punk’s key historical figures is interesting — petty, predictable, even sad in some respects.

The piece suggests the inevitable failure of any movie to reproduce the scene to match the memories of everyone who was part of it, or to bring individual characters to life (many of those portrayed are actually still alive, of course):

And yet for all the hard work, once stills and a teaser trailer hit the Web, the switchblades inevitably came out. People are possessive about punk. The original punks are in their 60s now (those who aren’t dead, anyway), a time of life when legacy becomes more crucial than when you’re young, loud and snotty. Taylor Hawkins of Foo Fighters, cast as a blond Iggy Pop, drew particular ire. “I don’t follow any of that,” Mr. Rickman said. “There will be a huge sense of ownership, and in that sense I guess you can never get it right.”

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New photos from the filming of the movie “CBGB” – pt. 3 (Alan Rickman, vintage cars, crew) http://www.billdawers.com/2013/10/04/new-photos-from-the-filming-of-the-movie-cbgb-pt-3-alan-rickman-vintage-cars-crew/ Fri, 04 Oct 2013 22:06:33 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=6249 Read more →

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Click here and here for other new and re-edited photos from the filming of CBGB in Savannah in July 2012.

I spent part of several days hanging around the public outdoor shoots along Congress Street.

On this particular day, the shoot just moved west over a period of several hours, with exterior filming near a somewhat dilapidated store, on a vacant lot across from Belford’s, and in front of the former location of Universe Trading Company on Ellis Square.

You’ll see the dog playing Johnathan here, plus his handler Renee’ DeRossett. My friend Ian is one of the bums stumbling across the street there at the end.

You’ll note that, as Hilly Kristal, Alan Rickman (yes that’s him with the poofy reddish hair) hardly changes expression in these photos. That’s because the character hardly changes expression in the film. A challenge, to say the least, to have a lead character who emotes so little and so subtly.

So mostly here you can see the crew, the cars, and so forth.

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New and re-edited photos from the filming of the movie “CBGB” – pt. 2 (Alan Rickman, Donal Logue, Johnny Galecki, actors playing Television) http://www.billdawers.com/2013/10/03/new-and-re-edited-photos-from-the-filming-of-the-movie-cbgb-pt-2-alan-rickman-donal-logue-johnny-galecki-actors-playing-television/ Thu, 03 Oct 2013 23:21:19 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=6229 Read more →

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Click here for a previous post featuring shots of Rupert Grint, Justin Bartha, and others.

These shots begin with a couple of evening shots on set, including one of Alan Rickman talking to famed Savannah producer and ice cream man Stratton Leopold, and another of Estelle Harris.

The rest of the pics here were from one of the less exciting days (and, as I recall, one of the hottest) on the CBGB set on West Congress St. last July in Savannah.

You’re seeing Alan Rickman as club founder Hilly Kristal on the ladder talking to Terry Ork (a fabulously interesting music promoter and band manager played by Johnny Galecki), who is with the young members of the great band Television, played by Max Reinhardsen, Evan Alex Cole, and Luke Dressler.

Then Ork is walking out of the club to speak with Kristal and Merv Ferguson (Donal Logue).

This moment — the one when Ork gets Television onto the CBGB stage — could have been one of the most interesting and dramatic in the movie.

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New and re-edited photos from the filming of the movie “CBGB” – part 1 (Rupert Grint, Justin Bartha, Alan Rickman, Donal Logue) http://www.billdawers.com/2013/10/02/new-and-re-edited-photos-from-the-filming-of-the-movie-cbgb-part-1-rupert-grint-justin-bartha-alan-rickman-donal-logue/ http://www.billdawers.com/2013/10/02/new-and-re-edited-photos-from-the-filming-of-the-movie-cbgb-part-1-rupert-grint-justin-bartha-alan-rickman-donal-logue/#comments Thu, 03 Oct 2013 02:04:02 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=6206 Read more →

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The movie CBGB will premiere next week at the CBGB Festival in New York. It’s set for theatrical release on October 11.

I’ll have a review of the film here soon, and the impending release has prompted me to go back and take a look at some of the photos I took here in Savannah during summer of 2012 while CBGB was being filmed.

I obviously didn’t have access to the set at Meddin Studios, nor to any of the interiors where the film was shot.

But there were quite a number of shooting days on West Congress Street and nearby areas when the goings-on were largely visible to the public.

I don’t have the kind of zoom really needed to be shooting actors a block away, but I had fun hanging out.

Versions of some of these photos were already published, but I’ve re-edited in ways that might make some of the images a little sharper (or not). And now I have a better sense of the mania of all you Rupert Grint fans, so I’ve included more of these images.

So here’s mostly just one scene, with Rupert Grint, Justin Bartha, and Bronson Adams as The Dead Boys Cheetah Chrome, Stiv Bators, and Johnny Blitz.

The scene involves the three band members storming out of CBGB and into traffic, with Hilly Kristal — played by the great Alan Rickman — and Merv Ferguson — played by Donal Logue — coming out behind them.

I’m also including one stray photo of a scene that was shot immediately afterward with Cheetah Chrome (Rupert Grint) giving some money (or something) to a bum on the street. Presumably the bum is Idaho, played by Freddy Rodriguez, but I’m not 100 percent certain of that.

I’ll post some more photos take at other times over the next few days.

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http://www.billdawers.com/2013/10/02/new-and-re-edited-photos-from-the-filming-of-the-movie-cbgb-part-1-rupert-grint-justin-bartha-alan-rickman-donal-logue/feed/ 2 6206
MTV posts a new clip from upcoming “CBGB” http://www.billdawers.com/2013/08/26/mtv-posts-a-new-clip-from-upcoming-cbgb/ Mon, 26 Aug 2013 17:20:47 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=6100 Read more →

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I’ll present this with little comment.

From MTV’s Rupert Grint’s Butt Takes Center Stage In Exclusive ‘CBGB’ Clip:

Essentially, “CBGB” was a place with great music where just about anything could happen. Take this exclusive clip for example. In it, Cheetah Chrome is speaking with Genya Ravan (Stana Katic) at the bar. She comments on his red locks and asks if they are the genuine article or just a dye job.

Cheetah Chrome insists that his hair is, in fact, the real deal, but there’s only one way to really convince her. That’s when he drops trou, and we see a whole lot of Rupert Grint. Not exactly what you expected to see from the former Ron Weasley, huh?

CBGB shot most of its scenes last summer in Savannah — the club’s actual interior was reconstructed at Meddin Studios and many of the exterior shots were done along Congress Street.

I published a lot of images from those outdoor shoots (see here and here), but I’ll be going through some of those pics again soon. I have a fair number that have never been posted and some that could likely use re-editing.

Here’s one that I reposted just recently, with Rupert Grint as Cheetah Chrome, Justin Bartha as Stiv Bators, and Bronson Adams as Johnny Blitz — The Dead Boys.

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Anyway, here’s the clip that MTV has posted:

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USA Today gives a sneak peek at “CBGB” and Rupert Grint gone punk — post updated with new trailer http://www.billdawers.com/2013/08/07/usa-today-gives-a-sneak-peek-at-cbgb-and-rupert-grint-gone-punk/ Wed, 07 Aug 2013 23:46:34 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=6043 Read more →

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Yesterday, USA Today did a major piece about CBGB, which filmed in Savannah last summer: Sneak peek at ‘CBGB’: Rupert Grint’s inner punk

I’ve written a lot about CBGB over the past year, most recently about the soon-to-be-released soundtrack. You can see some of my photos from the set at that link as well.

Before the movie’s premiere at the CBGB Festival in October, I’ll repost my best shots of the filming, as well as some photos that I’ve never before published.

The USA Today piece seems to have come out at a bit of an odd time — two months out seems just long enough that it will be hard to sustain whatever anticipation the article creates.

Anyway, from that piece:

The film focuses on the early days, when owner and operator Hilly Kristal gave a stage to a mix of new and veteran underground performers such as Iggy Pop, Blondie, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, The Police and Talking Heads.

“It was this iconic place, and it has this kind of history,” says writer/director Randall Miller, who worked on the film with his writer/producer wife, Jody Savin. “But people don’t know how it all began. And that’s what we wanted to tell, the origin of all of this.”

Kristal (Alan Rickman), a classically trained musician and jazz club manager, had planned to open a forum for country, bluegrass and blues performers, hence the CBGB initials on the now-famous logo.

“But that’s not what came to him in New York’s Bowery in the 1970s,” Savin says. “But he understood music enough to know that maybe these young folks didn’t have musicianship, but a voice and something new. And the notion of giving them a stage was heroic.”

UPDATE: Here’s the new trailer. Thoughts?:

And here’s a fresh edit of one of the shots I took on set, with The Dead Boys — Justin Bartha as Stiv Bators, Rupert Grint as Cheetah Chrome, and Bronson Adams as Johnny Blitz. I haven’t posted one of this size before — click for a larger image.

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“CBGB: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack” will include songs by Talking Heads, New York Dolls, Television, The Velvet Underground, The Stooges, Blondie, more http://www.billdawers.com/2013/08/02/cbgb-original-motion-picture-soundtrack-will-include-songs-by-talking-heads-new-york-dolls-television-the-velvet-underground-the-stooges-blondie-more/ Sat, 03 Aug 2013 02:24:48 +0000 http://www.billdawers.com/?p=6025 Read more →

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I’m not quite sure where this news first appeared, but it appears to be Billboard with Omnivore, Rhino to Release ‘CBGB’ Soundtrack.

But the listing is a little clearer at Spin:

CBGB: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack track list:

1. Talking Heads – “Life During Wartime”
2. MC5 – “Kick Out the Jams (Uncensored Version)”
3. New York Dolls – “Chatterbox”
4. Television – “Careful”
5. Richard Hell and the Voidoids – “Blank Generation”
6. Flamin’ Groovies – “Slow Death”
7. The Velvet Underground – “I Can’t Stand It”
8. Wayne County and the Electric Chairs – “Out of Control”
9. The Count Five – “Psychotic Reaction”
10. Tuff Darts “All For the Love of Rock ‘n’ Roll” (Live)
11. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers – “All By Myself”
12. The Dictators – “California Sun” (Original Demo)
13. Dead Boys – “Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth”
14. Joey Ramone – “I Got Knocked Down (But I’ll Get Up)”
15. The Laughing Dogs – “Get Outta My Way”
16. Blondie – “Sunday Girl” (2013 Version)
17. The Stooges – “I Wanna Be Your Dog”
18. Dead Boys – “Sonic Reducer”
19. The Police – “Roxanne”
20. Hilly Kristal – “Birds and the Bees”

Spin’s article asks, Will the ‘CBGB’ Soundtrack Give ’70s American Punk Its ‘Big Chill’?

God I hope not.

If there’s one era that doesn’t need “Big Chill” sentimentalizing, it’s punk.So who’s missing?

There is one Joey Ramone track, but I don’t see The Ramones anywhere.

I know that The Shirts appear in the movie, but their sound wasn’t so much punk and they’ve largely faded from rock history.

And here again are a few photos that I took in July 2012 during CBGB shooting here in Savannah. These pics include Rupert Grint, Justin Bartha, Alan Rickman, and Donal Logue.

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