Former Luna Lounge Co-Owner Addresses CBGB Resurrection
Rob Sacher, onetime co-owner of the long lost Luna Lounge, is set to release a memoir on March 1. Wake Me When It’s Over centers on his life as a club owner, from Sanctuary and Mission to the Luna Lounge. Through his eyes, we see encounters with many rock heavyweights, including Debbie Harry, Joey Ramone, The Strokes, Interpol, and Elliott Smith. Because the volume is self-published, Sacher has taken to Kickstarter to raise promotional funds to help push the product.
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In the meantime, the rock maven penned a somewhat related piece for the WNET blog about why the CBGB brand should not be resurrected. There are some very interesting, and valid, points made in the article. Below are some choice excerpts:
A club is more than a name; it’s a moment in time brought forth by an inspired soul found among the creative forces of that time. And within the context of that moment, other inspired artists merge with an intrepid entrepreneur and help to create a scene.
If CBGB reopens, people will come not to be part of a scene but to bask in the light that comes from being some place that was once a pantheon of the gods; a place these gods have forsaken. People will text and take photos from phones and have no awareness and no connection to the meaning of the place in which they are standing; a vague knowledge of having lost out on something but no understanding of what it is that they missed.
There is no way to raise the dead, no way to resurrect a club without the soul and the spirit of the creator of that endeavor, and the scene that grew around him. Someone may buy the name, even buy the walls, but no one can buy into a time that is glorious, though frozen in the past.
And here is a video snippet produced some years ago about the Strokes’ connection to Luna Lounge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4bwgNx2-7Og
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