80s pop icon unrecognisable 44 years since huge Happy Talk hit

EXCLUSIVE: 80s pop icon unrecognisable 44 years since huge Happy Talk hitIt was the dingiest of dive bars on one of the least safe streets in a dangerous city. But the CBGB club gave birth to a whole new genre of music - and a galaxy of starsNewsSue Lee and Hannah Britt, Senior Reporter Mirror Features08:00, 04 Apr 2026View 5 ImagesBritish singer-songwriter and guitarist Captain Sensible in 1982(Image: Gentle Look via Getty Images)Fifty years after the explosion of punk and 20 years since it closed its doors in 2006, the legendary New York venue where it all began is being celebrated. A four CD box set has been released to mark the CBGB’s heyday as a cultural hotspot, where artists like The Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads and The Damned took to its stage and changed the musical landscape.‌Music writer Rob Tannenbaum (cor) who collated the box set, says: “If you were a weirdo, an outcast, a misfit, this was your home; a place where the oddballs gathered to encourage one another. Now, alternative culture is no longer the alternative. It's been integrated into the mainstream, not just in music, but in all of the arts. It would be dumb to say all of that started at CBGB, but it certainly accelerated it.”‌For somewhere holding such an iconic place in musical history, the surroundings were less than salubrious. Rat Scabies, of The Damned - the first British punk band to play there in 1977, says: “There was sawdust all over the floor and it smelt of dog s***.” There was a candle on a counter that had at least 25 years worth of wax built up around the bottle and the ceiling was wall to wall cobwebs. The dressing room was drenched in graffiti. We'd heard and read so much about this ultra cool club that I was expecting somewhere unique, which in its own punky grubby way it was.”‌READ MORE: 'Grim' UK city transformed from horror deaths hotspot to superstar paradiseBandmate Captain Sensible remembers the ‘filthy bogs and grotty seats’. He says: “We were fair...