First Sea Lord Directs All Honors Be Rendered

CBGBs dies.

Ms. Smith was ignoring one of Mr. Kristal's early conditions for CBGB bands--that they only perform their own songs--but forgivably...

"Kids, they'll find some other club," Ms. (Patti) Smith insisted during her set. "You just got a place, just some crappy place, that nobody wants, and you got one guy who believes in you, and you just do your thing. And anybody can do that, anywhere in the world, any time."

These are critical principles of creativity: the availability of benign neglect, a place to work, total freedom of practice and the necessary crash and burn of failure, and a simple rule or two that doesn't constrain you, but nudges you off the beaten path of the obvious.

That is, by the way, why excessive institutionalization tends to kill living art. And why it was probably time for CBGBS to go. And for the love of Joey, don't rebuild it's corpse in Vegas.

A brief reminder- why punk rock was necessary.