Tom Verlaine

If in the 60s, Iggy & the Stooges and the MC5 out of Ann Arbor and Detroit, Michigan inadvertently upped the stakes of a new genre of music by inadvertently inventing punk rock --



they were building on the lo-fi underground kick-off by NYC's Velvet Underground - and it was NYC that became the Mecca and ground zero of that budding movement.



The downtown streets were fertile ground for creative people who could do not much more than make their art.



The New York Dolls were the segue between glam and punk... and Television, Patti Smith and Richard Hell were the bridge between poetry and music.



Most importantly for the history of NYC's underground music scene and birth of NYC's punk rock destination of choice: CBGB, we must tip our collective hat to Television's Tom Verlaine. He is the man who convinced CBGB owner Hilly Kristal to turn that old man Bowery bar into the club that ruled the punk rock roost for over 30 years.

Today is Tom Verlaine's birthday.