CBGB and the BGCB

I started my "Tom Petty death sync" post by mentioning that I had been listening to "mostly New Wave kind of stuff." At the time, I was also thinking about the Blue Green Crystal Ball, which I typically abbreviate to BGCB in my handwritten notes. Today I noticed the similarity of BGCB to CBGB, the New York club that is usually considered the birthplace of new wave, so I decided to look up that club on Wikipedia.

Despite its association with punk and new wave, CBGB originally stood for Country, Bluegrass, Blues -- so it could just as easily have been named BGCB if bluegrass had been given top billing. Bluegrass is a good match with Blue Green, since grass (including bluegrass) is green. As for the Crystal Ball part, it turns out that CBGB was founded by a Jew named Kristal, so if you went out dancing at CBGB it would in a certain sense be a "Kristal ball." I also noticed that the club's street address corresponds to my birthday, the Ides of March.

Wikipedia has this to say about the origins of new wave:

The term "new wave" was originally coined by Seymour Stein of Sire Records as a catch-all for more accessible music that emerged after punk rock in the United States. At the time, due to the emergence of the Sex Pistols, the American media portrayed punk rock as dangerous and violent, leading to a stigma that made music "virtually unmarketable," emerging groups who stemmed from the American punk scene, began to adopt "new wave" as a form of marketing that distanced themselves from the "punk" label.

Seymour Stein -- a "see-more" stone -- fits right in with the crystal ball theme. Note also that new wave is described as a reaction to the Sex Pistols.

Last night I started reading The Cryptoterrestrials by Mac Tonnies, a classic I had somehow heretofore neglected. The foreword by Nick Redfern compares Tonnies's new perspective on ufology to the emergence of punk rock:

I rather liken Mac to a Fortean equivalent of the Sex Pistols and the Ramones (Mac would probably prefer I cite the Smiths or R.E.M.; but, hey, that's how it goes). When, in 1976, both bands firmly saved rock music from the bloated stodge of groups like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Yes, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, they didn't do so just because they could. No, their actions were prompted by the fact that (A) the dinosaurs of rock had become utterly irrelevant and redundant; and (B) a new, fresh approach was sorely needed.

I don't think anyone would call the Smiths "new wave," but the label is often applied to R.E.M.

Speaking of the BGCB and music, if you play the sequence BGCB on a piano, it sounds like the beginning of the Mormon hymn "Come, Follow Me." (The hymn actually begins ECFE, but the intervals are the same.) No obvious relevance other than a few mentions of "spheres" in the lyrics.

Note added (9:20 p.m.): This post puns on ball as meaning both a spheroid and a dance party. I've also been posting about the Metric song "Gimme Sympathy," and its repeated line "something like Here Comes The Sun" made me think of Shakespeare's "nothing like the sun." Today Bruce Charlton published a post called "Nothing like a ball: Instead of appointing mediocre middle managers or psychopaths as leaders; what should churches do?" He was quoting Jane Austen and meant ball in the sense of "dance party," but the sun is also a "ball" in the other sense.