Originally published in 1988 and out of print for decades, This Ain't No Disco tells the real story of CBGB, the birthplace and incubator of American punk and new wave music. The Ramones, Blondie, Television, Talking Heads and many other rock greats all got their starts there.
Written by a club regular well before the legend overtook the reality (while CBGB was still open and most of its principals alive), this is an honest, opinionated, outrageous, hilarious document of 15 years of late, loud nights at CBGB, with memories, stories and gossip from dozens of people who played, worked or just hung out in the long, dark club on the Bowery in New York City.
This new edition adds a new foreword by Chris Frantz of Talking Heads, a new selection of photographs by the acclaimed Ebet Roberts and archival reporting by Ira Robbins about the club's closing in 2006.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS WITH:
Hilly Kristal (CBGB founder), Joey Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone (Ramones), Clem Burke and Chris Stein (Blondie), David Byrne (Talking Heads), Jim Carroll, Willy DeVille (Mink DeVille), Annie Golden (Shirts), Richard Hell and Richard Lloyd (Television), Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group), Handsome Dick Manitoba (Dictators), Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics) and many others.
Roman Kozak (1948-1988) was born in a camp for displaced persons in Germany. He served as night news editor for The Daily American newspaper in Rome and then moved to New York, where he became an editor at Billboard magazine (1973-1983). He later wrote for The Music Paper and was an associate editor of Old Manhattan News and publisher of Rock Photo magazine. In 1987, he co-wrote a screenplay entitled The Bomb. This is his only book.
Ebet Roberts moved from her native Memphis to New York City to paint but switched to photography in 1977 when she began began documenting the evolving CBGB scene. Since then, she has consistently documented musicians, capturing the essence of the artists she photographs while accumulating a vast archive and respect from her peers.
Her photographs are reproduced in innumerable publications including Rolling Stone, MOJO, Spin, GQ, Playboy, The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, People, USA Today and the Village Voice. They are also featured prominently in Blank Generation Revisited, This Ain't No Disco: The Story of CBGB, Frozen Fire: The Story of the Cars, CBGB'S: 30 Years of Photographs and The Rolling Stone Book of Women in Rock.
Her photographs have been widely exhibited and are in the permanent collection of the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, Seattle's Experience Music Project, the Grammy Museum and the Hard Rock Cafe.
Chris Frantz is a drummer, composer, record producer, author and broadcaster. As a founding member of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club, he performed many times at CBGB. He is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His memoir, Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina, was published in 2020.
"CBGB was to the raw music of punk what the Cavern Club was to the Beatles. At the center of this anecdotal history of the club where the Ramones, Blondie, Television, and Talking Heads got their start is owner Hilly Kristal, ex-Marine and ex-singer. His club took off in 1976, beginning as a dark, seedy joint in New York's Bowery and eventually focusing on the kind of music Debbie Harry of Blondie described as 'the sicker and funnier the better.'" - Daniel J. Lombardo
