In the annals of musical history, there are shrines of such monumental importance that it only takes one word to describe them. The Filmore. The Garden. Graceland. In one particular instance, it only takes four letters to bring a smile to faces of punk and new wave fans everywhere.

CBGB stood on the same hallowed ground for over 30 years, unfortunately succumbing to the ravages of financial complication and gentrification, causing this once proud venue to turn its eyes westward to the land of hedonism and kitsch, Las Vegas.

As for our own experiences at the legendary establishment, we have Kern, who’d never set foot in New York City and found the closing of CBGB to be bittersweet. He never had the chance to stand in its crowds, breathe its rarefied air, or use their infamously disgusting restrooms. He’s chosen to remember it the way he believes it should have been: a slightly dangerous haven for the musically adventurous known for its raw, creative mystique, and a hungry desire to take every convention of its time and rip it into tiny, unrecognizable shreds.

Jeff Roesgen’s visits to the club can be isolated to a handful of punk shows that took place over 15 years ago. For him, the place had no preserved aesthetic. Nothing about CBGB seemed to celebrate itself; in fact, if anything it seemed trodden, a place where music made a good home for a while.

Judy Ain’t No Punk only went to CBGB twice, both times before she was legal (to vote, much less drink). The first time, she was ostensibly there to see some obscure band whose music she’d never heard, and who broke up soon after that performance. Really, though, she was there to commune with punk rock history. It was just the way she hoped it still would be, as described in books like Legs McNeil’s Please Kill Me — walls plastered with 30 years’ worth of flyers, bathrooms scummy to the core, kids with spiky, dyed hair packed close together. (As it turned out, one of the bands on the bill that night, not the one that initially interested her, was the nascent Yeah Yeah Yeahs.) Even though she moved to New York after college and has lived there for a year and a half now, she hasn’t been back to CBGB. Frankly, the majority of bands booked in the venue’s last few years were local neo-"punk" (whatever that term means these days) groups, more fashion and snarl than substance.

While an address is temporary, the music within it is not, and to that end we have assembled this final mix tape; a dream set list representing CBGB’s golden days (1975-1983) as our way to bid this fine institution the fond and proper farewell it so richly deserves.

1. Richard Hell and The Voivoids - "Blank Generation"

Perhaps my favorite song from the late seventies, Richard Hell’s "Blank Generation" is a perfect slice of post-punk glory, channeling the spirit Hell’s presence brought to early Television material to its full glory. The film of the same name is one of the best rock ’n’ roll movies ever made, capturing the astounding charisma The Voivoids had back in the day. This is absolutely necessary listening for anyone who digs Television’s classic Marquee Moon LP, especially cuts like "See No Evil." – Chris Gliddon

2. Bad Brains - "Banned in D.C."

D.C. wasn’t prepared for the hardcore bombast of Bad Brains. Most of the city’s notable clubs issued a collective and unofficial ban on the band citing vocalist HR’s penchant for hurling himself about the stage and into the crowd during performances. "Banned in D.C." documents the band’s furious ascension to icons of the underground in spite of the rancor from their hometown. Thanks largely to Hilly Cristal, the exiled Bad Brains incubated their sound in Manhattan’s lower east side where they initiated the American hardcore punk scene. In the song HR claims, "You can’t afford/ To close your doors/ So soon no more," and we understand that "Banned in D.C." is more a statement of consciousness than a cry for vengeance. – Jeff Roesgen

3. Patti Smith - "Birdland"

By 1975 the emotive forces for what would become punk had been established; it only required that someone articulate it all. Of the many affecting pieces that Patti Smith recorded at that time, "Birdland" stands alone as a near perfect slice of sonic poetry. The song, like much of her early work, seems to assemble itself in the listening. Richard Sohl’s piano provides a gentle frame while Lenny Kaye lays squelches of guitar that build as Smith tells her tale of a boy driven to such despair that he glimpses heaven. Patti Smith’s early records and performances show us that punk was never solely anger or fashion, but a viable fragment of a vast human experience. – Jeff Roesgen

4. Flipper - "Ha Ha Ha" and "Sacrifice"

While I innocently stacked Legos, or whatever the hell else children did back in 1983, I was blissfully unaware that a thousand miles away, one of the finest and most underrated albums of San Francisco punk was being unleashed on an unwitting public. Blow’n Chunks, the second album recorded by SF misfits Flipper, was recorded live at CBGB in November of 1983 for New York label Roir Records. As it happens, this session yielded two of the most memorable songs of the band’s career; it was as though the same beam of filthy, disheveled light was filtered through a cracked prism into two very different wavelengths. "Ha Ha Ha" is an energetic mess, full of slurring hi-hat, sloppy, caterwauling guitars, and Will Shatter’s bratty, disaffected delivery which playfully captures the lethargic ennui of middle class youth. "Sacrifice", on the other hand, eschewed the rapid, ramshackle stylings of "normal" punk music, instead carving blocks of droning Sabbath sludge and dragging Shatter’s vocals through the thick, primordial tar pit of distortion. The pitch black lyrics about the dangers of a society enveloped by their own blind fear and succumbing to groupthink are perhaps even far more relevant and haunting today than the night they were recorded.

As the doors close for the final time, I lament the fact that I was never fortunate enough to step across the hallowed threshold of CBGB, but I can at least take comfort in the fact that these recordings allow me to feel as though I once stood on those sticky, beer-stained floors and saw a glimpse of a beautifully uncertain future. – Kern

5. The Talking Heads - "Don’t Worry About the Government"

Admit it — you’ve pinned The Talking Heads as apolitical, art school types. They may have co-existed with punks, but they were far from it. Right? Well, in the same year that The Sex Pistols from across the pond brought us "God Save the Queen," Byrne and co. put out a less angry but ultimately creepier political tune. Melodic and upbeat, "Don’t Worry About the Government" laughs in the face of the American dream. Satiric lyrics like "I see the laws made in Washington, DC/ I think of the ones I consider my favorites/ I think of the people that are working for me" are no less relevant today than they were 30 years ago. The best part is that you don’t even have to put a safety pin through your nose to enjoy it. – Judy Ain’t No Punk

6. Blondie – "Heart of Glass"

What happens when the prom queen meets a bunch of rockers in mid to late ’70s New York and forms a band? Well, after playing the circuit with a bunch of now legendary bands, they launch themselves onto the global stage with this near perfect dance-rock, disco-pop nugget of a song, accidentally creating the musical template for a number of chart topping early ’80s behemoths and providing fuel for the wet dreams of thousands of music-loving boys throughout the 1980s (If you’ve ever seen Debbie Harry in Videodrome, you know exactly what I mean). – Charles Ubaghs

7. The Ramones - "Judy is a Punk"

It’s easy to imagine that it was aimless wandering that first brought The Ramones to the door of CBGB for an audition. The ratty quartet lacked prospects, social skills, musical ability, and connections. It seems absurd then that within a year, the group would be guiding rock music on a new course. Absurd too that they abandoned the glitz and showmanship of mainstream ’70s rock for quick floors of sound and three chords played in unimaginative combinations. "Judy is a Punk" epitomizes absurdity. The song tells us the tiny tale of how Jackie and Judy travel to Berlin and then San Francisco to join the ice capades and then SLA. Nowhere does the song predict how it would become an anthem, not only for youth subversives, but also for those who found that modern music had become too confounding (a.k.a. Led Zeppelin fans). Through the 1970s, the public gradually discovered that The Ramones appealed to the same side of them that The Beach Boys and The Beatles had: the side that, however absurd, loved music. – Jeff Roesgen

8. Jim Carroll Band - "People Who Died"

While CBGB’s main constituency consisted of underground rock bands, Hilly Kristal mentions on the venue’s website that it was a magnet for a plethora of artists and poets as well. Perhaps best known for tales of his lurid descent into drugs and crime as chronicled in his 1978 memoir, The Basketball Diaries, underground poet and Warhol compatriot Jim Carroll channeled his ghastly experiences into the closest thing to a hit single his Jim Carroll Band would ever have. "People Who Died" is exactly what it sounds like; Carroll’s tattered growl runs down a list of deceased friends and acquaintances and their respective causes of death over an idling mass of nervous guitar, punctuated by a Chuck Berry-on-amphetamines guitar lick during the chorus. This high octane elegy paints a colorful, yet earnest portrait of Carroll’s sad, seedy corner of the New York City of his youth. – Kern

9. The Dead Boys - "Sonic Reducer"

If self-empowerment can sometimes come from the darkest, unlikeliest places, then the kerosene soaked mantras found in The Dead Boys "Sonic Reducer" would make up its theme song. Stiv Bators’ churlish snarl and the band’s close-but-not-quite hooks grind over the top of Jeff Magnum’s charging bass lines like a scuffed Doc Marten toeing out a spent cigarette, while a flanged out "Wipeout" flavored drum break leads into the song’s fiery climax. When Bators triumphantly proclaims, "Then I’ll be ten feet tall/ And you’ll be nothing at all," it’s as though his grizzled words are a scarred, but helpful hand reaching down to pull anyone who’s ever felt like nothing from their own personal gutter. Somehow ass-kicking and affirming at the same time, "Sonic Reducer" is a hardcore three minute attitude adjustment that would make life coaches everywhere piss themselves in fear and shame. – Kern

10. Television - "Elevation"

Though all of the songs on Television’s 1977 debut Marquee Moon are arguably among the most powerful progenitors of the proto-punk movement, "Elevation" is perhaps the most unsung contribution on that album. While it may not be as sprawling or ambitious as "Marquee Moon," nor as lively and easily charming as "See No Evil", "Elevation"’s skittering cymbals and slithering, mercurial twin guitar lines are the perfect match for Tom Verlaine’s cryptic lyrics and crestfallen vocal delivery. – Kern

11. The Dictators - "I Live for Cars and Girls"

Think what you will of me, but I could never truly love The Ramones, and it isn’t just because they called me a runt (see also, clever TMT nom de plume). You see, kiddos, way back in 1975, a little band called The Dictators released an album called The Dictators Go Girl Crazy!. Fusing early ’60s surf sounds with sludgy vocals and lowbrow proclivities, these guys made the album I always wished The Ramones would make—and they did it first! Simple, boastful, and blunt, "I Live for Cars and Girls" begins with the admission, "I’m the kind of guy who’s into gettin’ high on a Friday afternoon" and then makes an extended argument for why "There’s nothing else in this crazy world except for cars and girls." The combination of working class New York accents and Beach Boys-style "ooo-weee-ooo-ooo" harmonizing transcends anything The Ramones ever managed. –Judy Ain’t No Punk

12. Mink Deville - "Spanish Stroll"

In the same year that Chevy Chase jettisoned SNL for the promise of Hollywood, Mink Deville left the lower Manhattan club scene for a major label record deal. Both events followed each other in similar ways: each with their recent emergence from anonymity and the belief that fame would elude them if they didn’t immediately jump. In the intervening year between obscurity and fame (1975), Mink Deville frequented CBGB as one of the club’s first house bands. While their music paralleled the embryonic punk scene, Mink’s sound came from somewhere else. "Spanish Stroll" with its Lou Reed-esque vocal delivery, hints at Latin rhythm, Stephin Merritt sense of romanticism, and R&B backing chorus would have little trouble finding a place on Transformer had it been recorded in a candlelit piano bar in Rio. – Jeff Roesgen

13. Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers – "Chinese Rocks"

I appreciate Tom Petty more than I probably should, but his Heartbreakers are no match for Johnny Thunders’s band of the same name. I mean, can anyone really compete with Thunders, Jerry Nolan, and fucking Richard Hell? Now, what would these three guys sing about? Well... heroin, of course. And they don’t mince words. By the end of the first verse, Thunders is asking us, "You wanna take a walk?/ You wanna go and cop?/ You wanna go and get some Chinese rocks?" While The Velvet Underground’s "Heroin" is gorgeous and delicate, "Chinese Rocks"- actually written by Dee Dee Ramone, not Thunders, surprisingly enough- revels in the grittiest, dirtiest side of addiction. I supposed it’s no coincidence that of everyone mentioned in regards to this song, only Richard Hell is still alive. – Judy Ain’t No Punk