photo courtesy of oxingale records Matt Haimovitz was the first classical musician to play seminal New York City punk club CBGB's. The performance got him attention in The New Yorker, The New York Times and the L.A. Times.

CBGB's is more than a series of letters on trendy, overpriced T-shirts sold at Urban Outfitters.

The name CBGB's is short for "Country Bluegrass Blues," which describes the kind of music owner Hilly Kristal first intended on showcasing in his New York City nightclub in the '70s.

Briefly: After giving punk-rock bands a chance back in the day, the punk kids adopted the club and eventually made Kristal rich and his CB's famous.

History, however, was still waiting to be made.

The one genre of music that had never been performed in CB's was classical. It's hard to imagine mohawked kids bobbing to Bach. Still, cellist Matt Haimovitz somehow got his foot in the door and convinced the NYC famous punk club to give him a chance.

"I don't know what they were on when they agreed to it," Haimovitz said.

In October 2002, the cellist became the first musician to play classical music in the famed nightspot. The media caught wind and soon there was a legitimate musical event happening.

"The atmosphere was very tense," he said. "You don't get something like that in New York very often because everything's been done in New York."

The night of the show, CB's was packed with film crews (including ABC), photographers, reporters, and fans. Admittedly calm in the face of the unprecedented, Haimovitz was a little concerned for his cello. See, it's from 1710. The year.

"I was worried that night, but it made it," he said. "It was okay. Definitely, I take good care of it. I'm just careful as can be, but it's my cello, that's what I play on and that's my tool. So, yeah, its definitely priceless."

Haimovitz, 32, ended up busting out an interpretation of Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner" that now opens his new album, "Anthem."

He's not a cover artist, though. Haimovitz is currently touring rock clubs around the country playing original compositions in the same vein as rock.

"If you come to this concert, you will hear the cello sound like an electric guitar," he said. "You will hear the cello sound like an accordion. The cello will sound like a flute. The cello will sound like a percussion instrument."

Playing cello since the age of 7, Haimovitz now heads the cello program at the University of Massachusetts. His goal for this tour is to expose different kinds of people to a different form of music.

"I'm sure many people haven't heard this kind of music before," he said. "So just exposing people to this music: there are some that are going to really get into it and get more deeply involved and there are going to be others that go, 'that was a wacky thing, I don't want to hear that again.' Just the idea that people are exposed to the free-spirit-ism."

Haimovitz thinks what sets him apart from other contemporary cellists is not wanting to directly mimic a classical piece note-for-note, creating the possibility of opening up people's ears to new musical adventures.

"I'm not so interested in the mirror, intellectual exercise of music," he said. "I want the music to have an emotional connection and I'd like to express that to an audience.

"I also think right now, what I'm doing by taking some of this music out of the concert hall and bringing it to clubs and listening rooms around the country, the idea that the kind of music I play can be packaged in a more popular way, I think that's what separating me at that moment."

Aside from having played with the world's best classical musicians, Haimovitz has shared the stage with Lou Reed, Bob Weir and others. He's been involved in projects featuring Elvis Costello and Jerry Garcia.

Heimovitz encourages people to attend his show because he is confident that it will not be standard classical fare.

"I think this is urgent music," he said. "It's music that relates and is relevant to our time. Give it a chance and see what happens. I've just been finding amazing audiences on my tour and they way they're listening. There are no prejudices. They just sort of absorb what's going on."

Haimovitz also thinks his live show could alter the lives of his audience.

"It's going to change the way they experience music," he said.