Back in the Punk Days, When CBGB Was the Place to Be

When David Godlis was shooting off-kilter, kinetic photos of bands like Television, Talking Heads and Blondie, he had a sense that the scene unfolding in the Bowery club CBGB was important. But no less vital than the sound being made was the punk aesthetic — urgent and gritty — that Mr. Godlis was helping define.

The images from those raucous nights in the late 1970s have proved to be just as enduring as the records that came out of the scene. Possibly to the horror of anyone there at the birth of punk, many of these pictures have become part of rock ’n’ roll’s iconography.

But beyond those familiar pictures are less codified moments that capture the era.

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The band Television pose on a street corner, their disinterest at being photographed hinting that they would be more influential than popular. John Lydon (also known as Johnny Rotten) somehow seems to be vibrating with disdain while simply sitting on a sofa. Even Keith Richards, slumming it with Jim Carroll (poet, musician and author of “The Basketball Diaries”), manages to look like just a guy with a guitar onstage.

These and other images are collected in Mr. Godlis’s new book, “History Is Made at Night.” On June 25, he will be signing the book at the Queens Museum, where five of his photographs are included in an exhibition about the Ramones and the birth of punk.

Punk now is a style statement, and many of its pioneers — Joey Ramone, Hilly Kristal, Mr. Carroll — have died. Mr. Godlis, 64, is proud of his part in the past, but he has no intention of living there.

CBGB was replaced by a John Varvatos store, and the club itself survives only in name, as a branded restaurant at the Newark airport. But Mr. Godlis still sees people from the punk days, like Patti Smith or the filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (who wrote the book’s introduction), although he shoots them with a digital camera now.

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