HEY HO! LET'S "GO"!

Review by Rick Majestic

Tyrannosaurus Rocks Art Critic

In the modern era art tends to be of-the-moment, an almost instantaneous reflection of the society in which it was produced. But now and again projects surface that harken to the ancient process by which art used to be made, a process outside of time as we understand it.

Stonehenge, for instance, was worked and re-worked for more than a thousand years by anonymous builders, existing in a place somewhere between the everyday and the sacred, between machine and art. Its direct descendant is Hilly Kristal’s modern masterpiece CBGB’s Urinal, currently on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex in New York City.

The obvious inspiration for this piece was Fountain (1917), the first of Marcel Duchamp’s “readymades.” But whereas Duchamp simply bought a new urinal from a New York dealer and immediately displayed it as “art,” Kristal’s more intense use of the object began with its installation in a public space, a reduction to sheer utility.

With his club providing the frame to his canvas, Kristal’s urinal was then worked and shaped every day for more than thirty years, its surfaces textured by thousands of band stickers and by the piss, spit, vomit and blood of an endless procession of musicians, clubgoers and celebrities until its status as both an object and an objet d’art became absolutely obliterated.

Seen today, CBGB’s Urinal clearly transcends art, for like the great monuments of the past its context is our shared reality, our life itself.

"GO"

CBGB's Urinal Hilly Kristal Manufactured by Gerber Manufacturing Vitreous china, stainless steel Circa 1975 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex New York

SANITIZED FOR YOUR INSPECTION

So you want to pee a rock and roll star? CBGB's Urinal today (left) and (gulp) back in the day

Contributors to CBGB's Urinal

Max Gerber and Dee Dee Ramone

In 1932 Max Gerber established a plumbing fixture company dedicated to quality, style, performance and durability. He could not have forseseen that some 40 years later, at CBGB’s, those same qualities would not be evident anywhere near his urinals, but rather in the music that was played near them.

Seeing CGBG’s Urinal behind glass brought back memories, most of them painful. The last time I was in CBGB’s was 2006, but the last time I saw the urinals was 1984. That was also the first time I saw the urinals.

Whereas upstairs at CBGB’s featured groundbreaking music, downstairs was akin to the basement in The Amityville Horror, where they kept the “Gateway to Hell.” Except Hell wasn't as scary.

My memory of the urinals is of a porcelain blur (right), as I was fleeing for my life.

Although it was nostalgic for me to see CBGB’s Urinal, it would be more nostalgic for

me to see Brick Wall on Residential Building Two Blocks From CBGB’s, because

that’s where I relieved my bladder during shows.

At the exhibit, right next to CBGB’s Urinal is a room (Men’s Room) which features a modern

update, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex Urinal (left) whose bland, New Age contours suggest

not rock and roll but Yanni or John Tesh.

The closest that Gerber Manufacturing has to CBGB’s Urinal today is

an uninspired facsimile called 27-740 LaFayette Washout Top Spud

Wall Hung Urinal – evidence (right), if any were needed, that punk is

over and we are back to long, bloated titles.

We need a return to quality, style, performance and durability – or, as Max Gerber and Dee

Dee Ramone might count them off: 1, 2, 3, 4!

Commode to ruin

An Appreciation By Dr. Lester S. Carboni

CHECK THESE OUT: 1981 - JOEY RAMONE INTERVIEW 2006 - THE CLOSING OF CBGB'S

Another Dr. Lester S. Carboni and Rick Majestic Production

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Copyright 2010 by John Marshall and Todd Rutt. All Rights Reserved.

Rick Majestic

The Recession Era's Greatest Hits

The Recalls

I see you driving down the street

In your car or truck

Your brakes don’t work

Your gas pedal is stu - uh uh, uh - uck

Here it comes again

Unwanted acceleration under the starry skies

Here it comes again

The CEO’s going to apologize

My best friend’s Toyotas

They used to not suck

(The gas pedal’s still…stuck)

– “My Best Friend’s Toyotas”

The Recalls are a new hybrid of two new automotive genres, Japanese decline and American malaise. Whereas previous artists such as Chuck Berry and Bruce Springsteen celebrated the romance of the automobile and the call of the open road, the Recalls sing of faulty electronics systems and sticky floor mats.

Songs include “Let the Complaints Roll,” “Bye Bye Lexus,” “You’re All I’ve Killed Tonight,” “Just What I Bleeded” and “I’m in Touch With Your Customer Relations Department.”

This is the Recalls’ first CD and also their last, because all CDs have been recalled as well as the Recalls themselves.

A spokesman for the group said, “You have my personal commitment that we will work vigorously and unceasingly to restore the trust of the people we have the most contempt for. I mean, our customers.”