Was Rick Rubin thrown off the stage at CBGB’s?
It goes without saying that the world of hip-hop and alternative rock would look very different without the pioneering influence of Rick Rubin. One of the most legendary music producers in American music history, Rubin has gifted us seminal works by the likes of Beastie Boys, Rage Against the Machine and even Johnny Cash. The producer has always had a rebellious streak, going back to his early days as a youngster in the revolutionary punk rock scene of New York City.
Born in Long Beach, New York, Rubin was only a stone’s throw away from the city’s blossoming punk scene as a teenager in the 1970s. Witnessing the advent of wonderfully abrasive outfits like the Ramones, Television and Blondie first-hand is enough to influence anybody, and Rubin was no exception. It was these early days spent within the dark and dingy punk venues of the East Side of Manhattan that set the young producer on his path to musical greatness.
Although he is undoubtedly best known for his prolific production work, Rubin did take a stab at creating music himself during the punk explosion of the mid-1970s. After being schooled in guitar and songwriting by one of his high school teachers, Rubin set about forming a punk group of his own by the name of The Pricks. As you might have guessed, the band never really took off. However, punk rock was never about commercial success or even musical proficiency; particularly within the early New York scene, it was all about attitude and energy.
Expectedly, for a scene which fostered such aggression and shock nature, the walls of the CBGB club were witness to some pretty bizarre occurrences over the years. The venue was ground zero for New York punk – it was a place where, seemingly, anything went. However, Rubin reportedly pushed the venue to its limits with The Pricks, leading them to be one of the few groups to be kicked out of the club after fighting with hecklers.
Being kicked out of CBGB would be a good endorsement for any punk group, in a similar vein to how Crass built an image off the back of being ‘Banned from the Roxy’. However, the conflict which plagued that gig by The Pricks was not entirely authentic.
Apparently, the group had orchestrated the heckling beforehand so that they could react violently and create a scene. Rubin even had his father, a volunteer policeman in Long Beach, travel up to Manhattan in uniform to ‘shut down’ the show. If employing the services of a policeman was not very punk, then manufacturing outrage certainly wasn’t either. Punk, as a genre, has always favoured authenticity, which probably goes some way in explaining why The Pricks never really took off.
The manufactured nature of their removal from the club makes the story distinctly less cool, but it should be remembered that Rubin was still a teenager at the time. He might have sold out his punk authenticity early on, but he certainly regained that accolade through his tireless production work later in life.
