Eat, Drink, and Be Merry

This place is a blast. It’s sleazy and filled with tons of wacky characters with bizarre soap operas going on. It costs a buck to sing a song (or a few extra if you want your song on next) and on any given night the singing is just terrible enough to be car wreck fascinating, plus being Chinatown there’s always a healthy mix of Asian pop songs thrown in.

Maybe it’s not such a bad thing that this place is closing down. As my associate Max put it, “Punk rock is dead when the bartender at CBGB is wearing earplugs.”

It might not be fair to judge the main stage by the condition of the lounge, but anyplace where it costs $10 to see a crappy ska/pop-punk band and $6 (!) for a bottle of beer (to be fair Bud bottles were $5) is definitely NOT punk rock in my book. I don’t care how many $30 t-shirts they have for sale on the wall. Maybe it’s just my disillusionment talking, but I probably would have had more fun at House of Blues.