In case you don't know, First Avenue is one of the busiest nightclubs in the country. Located at the corner of First Ave. and Seventh St. in downtown Minneapolis, and comprised of several different rooms (each with it's own character), it looks and feels like a big, black box. Seriously, there are live bands playing in the Entry almost every night of the year. In the Mainroom dance nights and live music split the time. I worked in the big, black box on and off for about five years, first as an entry level floor guy, then working my way up to bartender and eventually one of the eight assistant managers (the Octagon). I also worked in the office taking care of the computers, cash registers, and the initial web site. Working in a nightclub is a different kind of life. I loved it and sometimes still miss it terribly, but ultimately it's hard to consistently pay the bills. Living on tips sucks! I kind of liked working at night, sleeping in till whenever every day. But eventually the strain of living on the opposite end of the day gets to you. It's hard to maintain a relationship (of course working in a nightclub doesn't help either, if you know what I mean), and trying to get anything done in normal business hours gets pretty tough. Anyway, here are a few of my favorite memories... I'll start with the first show I ever saw there, not a very exciting story, but it is the first memory I have. I'd just moved to St. Paul to go to college, and I found out that Shelter was playing in the Entry on a Sunday night. This would have been the fall of 1991. Some folks around campus knew that if we got into the Mainroom dance night with comps, we'd just need to pay the cheaper crossover charge to get into the Entry. So comps in hand, we walked down Snelling Ave. to catch the 16 bus into downtown Minneapolis. On the bus I saw this girl that looked really familiar, which was strange because I'd only been in town for like two weeks. When we got off the bus and were walking toward the club, I turn to my friend Steve (who I'd known in St. Louis), and say, "Didn't that girl look like.." and he interrupts me with "Carissa!" That was too weird, but we figured she was gone. Eleven years later, it's hard for me to really remember my first impressions. I know I thought it was pretty fuckin' cool. Probably twice as big as the biggest punk rock venue in St. Louis, and staffed mostly by punk rockers. St. Louis shows always had the same crew of skinheads working security, or there was the band of fat-ass bikers who liked to kick the shit out of the kids. This was a place for the kids, by the kids. I also remember being astonished at how many kids there were. The scene in St. Louis was always pretty small. I came from the kind of town where punks could still get there asses kicked just for having a crazy haircut and walking down the street. Even now, most of the kids in St. Louis have hair cuts that they can comb down and look normal on Monday morning. Minneapolis had every different color hair I'd ever heard of, and crazy styles. Walking around, checking the place out, I felt at home. But I also would have never guessed that three years later I would be working there. I was never one of the Cool Kids. While scoping the joint out, I saw the familiar looking girl again. And it looked like she was there to see Shelter too. Carissa had been part of the St. Louis Straight Edge scene, but I still doubted that it was her (the club was too dark to get a really good look). I figured I was doing stuff I'd never done before, why not just go up and ask. So I did and it was her. She had just started school at the University of Minnesota and was at her first show too. I ended up seeing her every once in a while. It was cool to have someone else in town that you could just bump into and know. Shelter was late. I mean really late. For a while, it looked like they were going to cancel. Before they got there, some kid got onto stage and made a little speech about how the Shelter guys were only interested in converting kids to Krishna and selling religious stuff. They asked us not to buy anything from them and kind of boycott the whole Krishna aspect of the show. In my opinion, it was messed up. We were there to see Shelter and support them while they were on tour. I never really got into the whole Krishna thing, but it was their deal. Why did anyone need to step all over it? Shelter didn't have anyplace to stay the night when they got into town, and we almost got them to stay with us in the dorms. But they found the kid they stayed with the last time they were in town. The only other thing I distinctly remember happening at that show was meeting one of the guys from Sertia. Sertia was the crew of skinheads that were known for being really politically correct. In the spectrum of skinhead beliefs, I was pretty happy to run into the cool end. (Did I mention that I had a shaved head at the time?) I was standing next to this guy, and a girl turned around and looked at us. She was like, "Holy shit! Are you two brothers?" Apparently she thought we looked a lot alike. We both shook our heads, and she asked if we even knew each other. We shook hands and exchanged names and said that we did now. He ended up being on the bus home with us all as well. I found out Chad was pretty crazy much later on. He was the kind of anti-racist who specifically moved into the nazi enclave to try to clean up the neighborhood! I latter found out that he had been stabbed by some gang-bangers because they thought he was a nazi. Stupid bullshit. Going to Macalester, we always heard about the big name Alumni (there weren't many and the coolest ones never graduated). Walter Mondale, Kofi Annan, and Bob Mould. I hadn't gotten into Husker Du or Sugar yet, but the first time I heard his solo album Workbook, I was hooked. I had seen him once before (met him too) and I was counting the days until his next show. Especially since the first time I saw him, his voice was giving out and he had to bring kids on stage to help him sing. When he finally booked a return show, I was working at United HealthCare as an IT Crisis Manager. This meant that I was on call 24x7 every other week. The night of the show, I couldn't get my partner to cover, but it had been quiet so I kept my fingers crossed. It was probably before the first band even went on when my pager started going off. Fuck! I kept my office keys and a desk at the club until the day I moved away from Minnesota, so I was able to find a quiet corner of the office to call in. I don't remember what the specific problem was, but I know it was something we saw all the time and considered somewhat routine. I told the guy on the help desk how to handle it and to let me know if anything went wrong. It was all right for a little while longer. The first band was done and it was almost time for Bob to take the stage, but my pager started buzzing again. Fuck! I need to mention here really quickly that I was watching the show from the DJ booth, the absolutely best place to watch a show from. It's elevated over the crowd so you can see the stage perfectly and there aren't a bunch of sweaty bastards bumping into you. But NO, I have to run back into the office and get on the phone! Gary (our help desk guy) tells me that the guy at Unisys (our hosting and support partner) doesn't see anything wrong on his end, which is where I told him the problem was. He's already called everyone else that could even be remotely involved. I told Gary to have the guy at Unisys look again because this had happened several times, and it's always been the same problem, and it's always been at Unisys. While I'm on the phone, I hear the crowd go nuts and the first strums of the acoustic guitar. It takes me five minutes to get off the phone and back in the booth. I see about a song and a half and the pager starts buzzing again. Fuck! Gary tells me that the guy at Unisys swears it's not a problem on his end. So now I have no choice but to organize a conference call. It only takes Gary about three and a half minutes to get everyone on the phone, so there isn't even enough time to get back out to see another song. We spend the next forty minutes going around the call with each person claiming everything is a-ok on their end (and me saying to check the Unisys systems and everyone agreeing that was what was wrong last time this exact thing happened). Finally we decide to take a fifteen minute break and reconvene. I get back to the DJ booth just in time to see half of a song and Bob walking off stage. But that's ok, I mean I'm pissed but at least there's still the encores. But Bob takes too long and guess what starts buzzing again. Fuck! I'm back on the conference call, and still nobody sees anything wrong. Let me take a second to explain that the club had a new phone system installed about a week prior to this show. It gets pretty tedious sitting with a phone in your ear, so I was using the speaker, and I had mute on. At least the little red light next to the mute button was on. And I had made sure earlier with the handset that no one could hear me. After another twenty minutes of futile checking of shit I knew wasn't wrong, the guy at Unisys suddenly pipes up with, "Oh... Wait a minute... Yeah... I was looking at the wrong thing. I see what you were talking about now." And I (on mute) let loose with "Oh You Fucking Asshole!" And everyone suddenly got real quiet. I look at the mute light, shining bright red. I say, "hello," and Gary says "Yeah I think we've got everyone here." My career starts flashing before my eyes. After about a minute of a really quiet conference call, I take a deep breath and let loose with the biggest pile of crap I could think of. "I have to apologize to everyone on the call. As you all know I'm dialing in from the office at First Avenue. Someone just spilled a drink on me and all of my papers. I know my comment was wholly unprofessional and very poorly timed, but I assure you all that it was not directed at anyone on this call. And I am sorry." He says, dripping with sarcasm, "Yeah, well thanks for the explanation." About four seconds later, I get another page reading, "Brian, you're not on mute. We can all hear you. --Gary" Fuck. Nothing really bad ever came from the call. I warned my boss at UHC, and someone else told me they thought he was an asshole too and that he deserved it. I figured out that the mute button didn't work when the speaker was on. And eventually, I saw Bob Mould again. Sometimes, my strongest memories don't have stories attached. They're just moments when I felt completely energized, and at one with the club, staff, scene, or music. One of those times was standing on the stairs' landing (where customers weren't allowed to stay), with Mark next to me, watching Simple Minds play Don't You Forget About Me, and going NUTS. Singing along, and thinking that this is what it's all about! It wasn't always about the music, but there were nights that the music was almost overwhelming. I especially loved finding some band that I'd never heard before to rock my ass. Working at a nightclub will definately expand your musical horizons unless you are seriously closed-minded. At the same time, I rarely listened to the commercial radio crap. So I could be both on the edge and way behind. It almost seems trivial now, but the night I heard the Presidents of the United States of America was incredible. I came to work not expecting much, I was working a regular dance night. But when I got there, Michael sent Jose and me down the street to work an All Ages show at the Fine Line (First Ave occaisionally booked shows in other venues.) Apparantly, it was one of our shows and the Fine Line didn't have enough staff trained to deal with the All Ages crowd. I asked who was playing and they said the Presidents. When I asked who they were, someone tried singing Lump, but I hadn't heard it yet. They all looked at me like I was weird. That happened a lot. Jose and I were just supposed to sit on the edge of the stage and keep any kids from getting up or stage diving. Pretty easy, even though the smallish club was packed. The first time I ever heard the Presidents was from the edge of the stage, about three feet from them, and they RAWKED! I've seen them half a dozen times since then, but that will always be the best. Another memory of being that close to a great band actually recurred several times. Whenever Fishbone played, I did whatever I could to be in the baracade. There was a steele barracade erected in front of the stage for All Ages shows to keep kids from getting up and stage diving. They could have easily climbed over it if we didn't have staff actually in the barracade to fight them back. There usually weren't that many attempts, except when Fishbone played they tried to get as many kids up as they could. That's when it became a free-for-all. We put as many people as we could fit in the barracade and the kids still passed through us like we weren't there. Certainly Angelo pulling them up by the wrists didn't help. But occaisionally I'd catch a kid's legs as he got their wrists and we'd play tug of war. I always had to let go. For us the customer wasn't always right, but the band on stage was. After the show, I had a chance to hang out with Angelo. I apologized for fighting him, but he was like, "It's cool man, it's all just a game. We each got our roles to play." A lot of great memories came from All Ages nights. Kids could be so much more entertaining, except when it was like baby-sitting. Every Sunday was the Sunday Night Dance Party (Original name, huh?), where the music was a pretty good mix of what most call Alternative. Everything from technotronica to good, old-fashioned, punk rock. Whenever the DJ would go into a punk rock set, a small pit would start up in the middle of the dance floor. So of course all of the available staff would converge to watch. I think most kids thought we were there to police them, but really we just liked watching. And every once in a while, one of us would pull our staff shirt off and make a few rounds in the pit. Another great moment was bartending on New Year's Eve, the busiest night of the year. On a night like that it all becomes about moving as absolutely fast as possible. It's actually pretty easy to keep track of which customer is next because they all line up and wait their turn (not necessarily patiently, mind you). You just go around the bar in order and then start over. The moment came at midnight. As the countdown ended and the crowd went crazy, John and I stepped back from the bar, turned to each other, lit cigars and shook hands. Jess, Ana, and Corrine fought their way through the crowd to give me huge hugs. John and I took a deep breath and went back to work. There was one night when tending bar was the coolest place to be in the world. The Reverand Horton Heat was playing the Mainroom, and I was bartending at the closest bar to the dance floor. I had my hair slicked into a pompadour and was wearing a second-hand, plaid, fifties shirt. The bassist for the Reverand kept coming to my bar for his shots of Jagermeister, and the girls were treating me like I was the coolest guy there. (One even told me so.) Not bad for some dork that the other kids never really like. Sometimes being behind the bar was much cooler when you weren't working. Like the night Ben Folds Five played the Entry. This was just before they broke out huge, but late enough that the show was more than packed. The Entry had a capacity of 271 people, but there were times that was slightly exceeded. Basically it was hard to figure out exactly how many people were let in because they could leave or cross over to the Mainroom. When Ben Folds Five played, there were probably five hundred people packed in. There was no room to move or breathe. And I hate sweaty bastards rubbing up against me. So I watched the show camped out behind the end of the bar, with my glass of Guiness and cigar. I knew the fun eventually had to come to an end. (Actually, for a long time, I tried denying it.) The week that I got a job in corporate America, I told Mark that I wouldn't be able to work nights anymore (I still worked in the office though). I had one bar shift left, and as it happened it landed on Dave and Ana's birthday. I had a nice cozy bar upstairs, right next to the office. Word quickly spread that it was my last bar shift. Mark walked by and said, "Now let's watch the over-pouring." I laughed and dared him to pull my ass out from behind the bar. No one got out sober that night. Tino woke up the next day and couldn't figure out why he was hung over. He had only had a couple of shots and a couple of beers. That's when Emmanual reminded him that my shots were running six to seven ounces each. I actually emptied a bottle of Jagermeister on the two of them. There were a lot of fight stories from over the years. It could be a rough place, and we weren't always gentle when we decided someone needed to leave. But for me, there's one story that will always stand out. It was a Sunday night, and therefore All Ages. On All Ages nights we set up ID Check stands that seperate the All Ages section from the bars that were still serving. Brad was checking IDs at one of the stands set up on the stairs. Some guy came up to him to pass, but Brad thought he had already had enough to drink, so he didn't let him by. The guy went around and got through the other stand before Brad had a chance to spread the word. As the guy is coming down the stairs to pass Brad, he takes a swing and locks onto Brad's neck. They kind of grapple and roll down the stairs. But this is just the beginning. I was hanging out in the office on my night off when the alarm went off. I ran out the door and checked the indicator lights to see that there was a problem at the front door. By the time I got there, Brad had managed to get this guy into the breeze-way between the outer and inner doors. Brad was sitting on top of him. He had the guys left arm pushed back across his neck and pretty much immobilized. But the guy had his right arm free and had his hand on Brad's crotch. He wasn't hurting Brad, he was just kind of softly squeezing Brad's nuts. Brad was getting more and more pissed and screaming, "Sir, please let go of my balls. Sir, you have to remove your hand from my crotch..." Hey, Brad was always polite, even in the middle of being molested. To me the funniest part was that there were half a dozen guys watching, but no one helping to get Brad out of there. That's when I looked at the guy's fingers and wondered how far back I could bend them before either they broke or he let go. He let go first. Damn. I tapped Brad and pulled him out of the mess. He was too upset to deal with it rationally. Now we had this guy pinned, but he was laying across the front doors. If he hadn't assaulted Brad we probably would have just kicked him out. But attacking a staff member gets the cops called, so we had to hold him while we waited for the police. In front of the doors was a bad place. So we got about half a dozen guys around him and picked his ass up. About half way to the holding area (really just a 6'x8' converted bathroom), he asked what was going on. When someone said the word "police" he FREAKED out again. That's when I figured I would see how far I could jab my thumb into his ribs. It went pretty far, but I didn't hear any cracking, just a little blood from where my thumbnail broke the skin. It took everything we had to shove him into the room and pin him against the wall. As we held him, Jose stood there watching. The guy wouldn't give up or relax, he just kept struggling. Suddenly Jose snapped. He started yelling, "That's it, this mother fucker's never going to give up, I'm gonna break his fucking leg!" And then he reached down, picked up his foot, started twisting it and tried to lift it over his head (while twisting it). The guy dropped like a sack of flour onto the ground. It's a lot easier to hold someone on the ground. He calmed down for a minute, but when we told him we couldn't let him just leave, he started freaking out again. Matt started standing on the backs of his knees bouncing up and down, telling the guy to just calm down. The more the guy struggled the higher Matt bounced, until he was almost jumping on his knees. (If this guy can still walk, I'd be amazed!) I don't remember how long we had to hold him, but eventually the police arrived. It was some newer guy who didn't know us yet, and didn't quite trust us. When he told us to let him up, we warned him that he was on something and was going to get really violent. The cop didn't believe us, and as soon as our grip loosened up, the guy went balistic again. So the cop pulled out his pepper spray and hit him in the face with it. Did I mention that we were in a 6'x8' concrete room, with no ventilation. About half of the guys holding him got hit with the spray and totally lost their grip. The other half of us repositioned and got the whack-nut back under control. That's when the cop gave the hand-cuffs to Michael and told us to cuff him. Once we got the cuffs on him, we could let him go. He was still squirming around on the ground, but he couldn't get up or hurt anyone. The police asked us to carry him to the car. On the way, Brad (who had his upper half) jokingly asked the cop if he could head-butt him. The cop said sure and then immediately, literally, looked the other way. We finally got the squirming madman into the car, but he started kicking at the cruiser windows. The cops all looked in disbelief and wondered if he would be able to break the glass. (He was that strong.) They decided that they needed to strap his feet down, but when they went to get their industrial zip ties out of the trunk, they discovered they didn't have any. The cops thought about it for a minute, then decided to use his own shoe laces to tie his feet together. I watched in amazement as six cops opened both sides of the car at the same time and jumped this guy. With a lot of struggling they got his laces tied around his feet and shut in the car door. Back in the office, as I recounted the story to Sonja, I thoughtlessly rubbed my eyes. That's when they started to burn and sting. I rubbed them again. It got worse. I yelled, "Oh Shit! I've got mace on my hands!" as I ran to the bathroom to wash out my eyes. In all of my life, I've only worked on one St. Patrick's Day. I figured since I'd be assistant managing I'd have more fun than being off that night. There were three things about the night that made it particularly fun. First I talked to the door people and told them I didn't want any shiny, green, plastic hats in the club. I hate those things, and they have nothing to do with being Irish. Second, I carried around a huge stack of drink tickets and made sure everyone I knew was well liquored. The last thing, which pushed the night into greatness, was the pipers. Every year the Minnesota Pipes and Drums tours downtown bars and plays a couple of songs at each. As strange as it sounds, I love the bagpipes, especially with the drums. So the band marched into the middle of the crowded dance floor, formed a circle, and played louder than hell. And there Jess, Ana, Corrine, and I were, all of us with our arms around each other. Before the VIP Lounge was converted for smaller DJs, it was just a VIP lounge. A small room over-looking the stage with couches and a private bar. Usually it was used for nights when the performing band would have a large group with them, but didn't want to have them backstage. It could also be used for other events, like my twenty-fifth birthday party. I invited everyone I knew, had my buddy Adam bartend, and bought a stack of drink tickets as thick as my fist. I think the stories from that night are better left untold. The last memory I'll share is actually sort of a correction to a story told on the official club web site. The teller of that story admits that she heard it second hand, and she got part of it wrong. I know because I was there and heard the recording first hand. The club's public phone number has an answering machine that turns on when the office closes for day business (about 5:30). After that people either have to know the unlisted numbers or they have to leave a message. That way the night staff doesn't get inundated with people asking stupid questions. Actually there's a funny sub story about the machine. We always recorded the next few days' schedule with door times. That actually answered most of the dumb questions. But the schedule was usually pretty busy, so recording the schedule in less than sixty seconds every night could be a real pain in the ass. Mark HATED doing it, and it always took him forever because he would screw something up at the last second. So we would saboutage him as best we could. Either by making him laugh, or just lose his train of thought. There were some nights that it took him half an hour to record the damn message. At the end of the night, we had to listen to all of the messages and write any of the important ones down. There were usually just a string of thirty hang-ups, with a few unintelligible grunts thrown in. But one night there was the craziest message from what sounded like the drunkest guy in the city. It went something like, "First Avenue, I'm into you. You better watch out because the health department is going to be paying you a visit. That's right you're gonna have health inspectors down there on your asses for what you're putting in those drinks. I don't know what you're doing but I'm on to you. They're gonna figure out whatever kind of homosexual shit you're putting in your drinks...." All of that is pretty much like the official site tells it and is true, but her claim that some guy got drunk, went home, fucked his best, and then tried to explain is latency by concluding that we put some "gay shit" in our drinks is pure speculation. We had NO IDEA what caused that guy to leave that message, other than he was clearly what we thought of as a crack head.

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