Tom Dunne: CBGB's, Tom Verlaine, and the big impact of small venues

From the famed New York bar to the likes of the Arcadia in Cork and Dublin's Underground, so much talent seems to emerge from certain small venues

The famed CBGB's bar in New York in 2003.(Picture: Teresa Lee/Getty)

Thu, 02 Feb, 2023 - 21:00

Tom Dunne

Tom Dunne is a music-lover extraordinaire who, as well as presenting radio and TV shows, can also be seen in the wild as the lead singer with Something Happens.

Imagine the scene: Patti Smith opens with ‘Because the Night’, The Ramones take over with a raucous ‘Rockaway Beach’, Blondie lets rip with ‘Hanging on the Telephone’, before Talking Heads hit ‘Psycho Killer’. As you conclude that “this night can’t get better”, Television start into ‘Marquee Moon’.

No such night ever happened, but it could have. All these bands, in varying stages of development, graced the stage of New York’s CBGBs from early 1974 on. They sometimes hung out together, sometimes dated, sometimes supported each other. As music scenes go, it was a spectacular.