But CBGB’s was not for the faint of heart, fights and substance-fueled violence were a regular occurrence, including Dee-Dee Ramone who reportedly had frequent jealous battles with his groupie girlfriend (picture broken beer bottle threats and smashed windshields). Patti Smith, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, and dozens of other avant-garde, head-smashing and crowd-punching punk acts made this club - which closed in the mid-aughts after giving The Strokes one of their biggest boosts. The brick Bowery building where the neat and orderly John Varvatos store currently resides, used to be CBGB, the grimy, smelly, sweaty, occasionally puke-covered epicenter of underground rock.
