"In 1976, three quarters of the way through the 20th century, New York City, once a thriving metropolis, was destitute. 'Ford to City: Drop Dead' was the headline of the day. The music scene, like New York, was also sorely in need of repair. But in the most unlikely of all places — in the slumping New York City’s infamous Bowery, among the skid row bums on loser’s lane, far away from the Upper East Side and Upper West Side of Manhattan — a group of like-minded musicians and artists had their sights set on the future. In a small, dingy club, they would rewrite the past and set a template for the last quarter century in music, fashion, art, literature and film.

"CBGB is where I landed when I arrived in New York in the winter of 1976. I was curious about these bands with odd sounding names like Blondie, the Ramones, Talking Heads, Richard Hell and Television, so I went down to the Bowery to find out what was happening. It didn’t take long before I began to photograph what I saw and heard there. Shooting with available light under the Bowery street lamps using a handheld Leica and Tri-X film to give everything a look that felt like you were there, these photographs document those nights between 1976 and 1979. During the pre-MTV, pre-digital era of rock 'n' roll — once upon a time on the Bowery."