BLOOD AND MUSCLES @ CBGBs - 1978

1978
The Hell’s Angels frequented CBGBs.
A rough Bowery bar.
No one challenged their claim
To the punk rock venue.
The Angels scared off other asshole bikers
Although not every night.
The Cramps first played to a packed house
Garage rock fans and some Jersey bikers.
The Cramps
Rocking,
As if the world was diving into the sun tomorrow.
I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Strychnine, The Way I Walk.
My hillbilly girlfriend hip-shimmying
Head banging
Dear Alice
A hillbilly Alice she was
Baptized by moonshine
At a West Virginia home
Not far from the coal-mining hollows.
She as hillbilly
As it gets in New York
She loved the Cramps.
During the encore
two Jersey biker chicks jumped the stage
Obviously go-go dancers
Tramps in the best sense of the word.
James Chance, a man of danger
Joined them biker sluts
Fondling their stripper breasts.
Their boyfriends in the front row.
The saxist stuck out his tongue.
The girls thought him funny.
Not so the bikers.
They jumped onto the stage.
Chance's skin and bones versus the bikers’ motorcycle muscle.
A solid right cracked Chance's nose.
Blood spurt onto a dirty white shirt
A b-movie actor scrambled on the stage
To rescue his skinny friend.
Eric Mitchell.
The half-Cherokee stepped between the biker and Chance.
The band played another chorus of Surfing Bird.
This was CBGBs.
Alice grabbed my arm.
"Not your fight."
The biker looped a slow overhead right.
His fist loudly impacted on the actor’s nose.
A crack louder than the Surfing Bird
Blood splattered everywhere.
Merv the bouncer threw out the bikers.
They left without a struggle.
The 6-6 doorman
A punk version of the Addams Family’s Lurch.
Even the Angels feared Merv.
The next night Eric entered the bar
A black eye.
Chance sported a double badge of honor.
That night the two
Everyone’s darlings,
Because at CBGBS
There was never any shame in losing.

Foto by Andrey Armyagov