Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Bettie Visits CBGB's
The Story of Bettie visits starts in 1976- when the dutch born Ringma arrived in New York from Washington where she had studied art therapy. Outside her new apartment on The Bowery- Ringma noticed a group of people on the opposite side of the street, this turned out of course to be the legendary CBGB's. Rather drunk one evening Ringma asked Pattie Smith to pose for a photograph with her, which soon became a series, and here are included photographs of Debbie Harry (x2), The Erasers, The Screamers, The Voidoids, The Dictators, The Shirts, Tina Weymouth, Willy de Ville, John Cale, The Dead Boys, The Cramps, The Zippers, Joan Jett, The Ramones ,Rat scabies out of The Damned and of course that Patti Smith. The folio also includes photographs of the exteriors of both CBGB's and Max's Kansas City and Bettie either being arrested or posing with the police. Many of the images with the bands were taken before they became known to a wider audience, and CBGB's was, according to Ringma- "where future rock legends were just as likely to be hanging out and drinking by the pinball machine as performing on stage."