CBGB - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• Most prominently, CBGB featured in a promotional ad during the bid for New York City to host the Olympic games in 2012.
• CBGB is featured as the only non-fictional venue in the 2010 rhythm game Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock. A replica of the club was opened for one night only at Paramount Studios for the game's launch party.
• Talking Heads, who had strong ties to the area, account for perhaps the most famous lyrical mention of CBGB with the song "Life During Wartime", in the verse "this ain't no Mudd Club or CBGB...". Much later, in a related effort, the club played an overtly prominent role in the song "Punk Lolita" by The Heads, a 1996 collaboration of three former Talking Heads members with various guest vocalists.
• In Bandslam, CBGB is a favorite place of central character William Burton.
• A central character in Spike Lee's 1999 movie, Summer of Sam, Richie, becomes a regular CBGB patron after becoming a punk rocker.
• CBGB is also featured in The Simpsons episode Love, Springfieldian Style, named "Comic Book Guy's Bar".
• In Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Nick and Norah break into the, by then, closed CBGB.
• In Gilmore Girls, Rory Gilmore's friend Lane Kim's band, Hep Alien, gets booked for a gig at CBGB.
• In Joan Jett & The Blackhearts clip Good Music, Joan Jett skips a fancy dinner party to go play a gig at CBGB.
• Lana Del Rey references having a job singing at CBGB's in her b-side song "Never Let Me Go".
• In Green Day's music video for their 1994 hit Welcome To Paradise, drummer Tre Cool is seen wearing a t-shirt sporting the CBGB logo.
• In "Losing My Edge" by LCD Soundsystem James Murphy mentions CBGB as the rock club where he first played Daft Punk to 'the rock kids'.
• In 13 Going on 30, Matt Flamhaff is seen wearing a CBGB shirt.