"Hilly Kristal, the founder of legendary New York punk-rock venue CBGB, died Tuesday from complications from lung cancer at age 75.

Kristal, who opened the now-defunct venue in 1973 in the then-gritty Bowery neighborhood in Manhattan, is credited with helping to launch the mid-'70s punk revolution with his championing of bands such as the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television and Patti Smith. Following a final show in October 2006, Kristal had discussed plans to take the venue to Las Vegas.

"I am very sorry that Hilly is gone," Blondie singer Deborah Harry said in a statement released to MTV News. "He was a big help to Blondie and to the New York music scene for many years. His club CBGB has become a part of New York lore and rock and roll history."

"Hilly was an integral part of the punk scene from 1974 until his death," said former Ramones drummer Mark Bell, a.k.a Marky Ramone. "He was always supportive of the genre and of bands like the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, and Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and will hold a prominent place in music history. We are all grateful to him and will miss him."

CBGB, which opened in December 1973, was officially called CBGB & OMFUG, which stood for "Country, Bluegrass, Blues and Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers." But it was the decision by the gruff, bespectacled and bearded Kristal to offer a residency to a then-obscure rock band called Television in March 1974 that helped kick open the door for a raft of bands that would spark the punk-rock movement across the globe.

Intent on showcasing bands playing original music, Kristal offered his stage to thousands upon thousands of young acts over its three-decade-long run. A fixture at the ramshackle club's front door, Kristal ran the club for all 33 years, overseeing its growth from punk's incubator to a tourist attraction — albeit one with legendarily putrid bathrooms and poster-caked walls — whose iconic logo can be seen on T-shirts all over the world.

According to his son, Mark Dana Kristal, Hilly "was suffering" a great deal during the final weeks of his life. "I think he thought he was going to get better, but he didn't. I just wanted him to be in less pain," he said.

As for his father's legacy, "He already has recognition for helping people with music," Mark said.

At a time when many experimental New York musicians didn't have a club to call their own, Kristal provided a kind of incubator that helped the bands find their sound, according to Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, a longtime friend of Kristal's who used to live across the street from the club.

"He provided this place to play for a lot of disaffected musicians, and he did that by having an open-door policy," Kaye told MTV News. "The only real thing that was important for CBGB was that you played original music. If you did, he was willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt and the time to figure out what the music was."

Kaye experienced that policy firsthand as a member of Smith's group, which played a seven-week, two-show-a-night residency at the club in spring 1975. Kaye said the residency was key in helping the band to "settle into" its musical style. "It's the kind of environment that musicians need, like [New York's] Greenwich Village folk scene in the 1960s, or 52nd Street in the 1940s when bebop was taking shape. Those times had venues where people could see who they are."

Even after the golden era of punk had faded, Kaye praised Kristal for keeping that open-door policy over the next 30-plus years, inviting a variety of acts to play and asking them back if they could draw a crowd. "I saw such varieties of music in that club," Kaye recalled of the long, dimly lit room where curious masses shuffled past Kristal's desk beside the front door toward the low, cramped stage in the back. There fans would find acts that hoped the club would become part of their legend — or at least add them to its storied history.

After the heyday of New York punk passed, the club continued its streak of booking bands that would go on to bigger and better things, as well as those who just wanted to get a taste of its storied past. That includes Living Colour, Guns N' Roses, Pavement, Elvis Costello, PJ Harvey, AC/DC, the Beastie Boys, the Cars, the Pixies, Soundgarden, the Police, Yo La Tengo, Sleater-Kinney and Sonic Youth — who launched their summer 2006 tour at the club and filmed the video for "Do You Believe in Rapture?" there as an homage to the venue."

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1568463/20070829/ramones.jhtml?rsspartner=rssNI F

Hilly made this world a better place. He will be sorely missed by generations of musicians and fans. The gormandizers must now be kept uplifted by all of us who remain.