740 words about the Uptown Bar

740 words about the Uptown Bar October 21, 2009
Filed under: “True”Stories, Life, MN, On Culture — Chris @ 11:38 am

The Uptown Bar really seemed to hit its stride in that mid late to late 90’s, for a good deal of that time there were really only two “credible” bars to do alternative shows, there and the 7th Street Entry. No offense to the Fine Line but they were still having their supper club period and it wasn’t a great fit for a band like Dumpster Juice, The 400 hadn’t had their revival yet, and Goofy’s and the Longhorn were long since gone.
I think it’s important to keep in perspective the whole idea of  “alternative” at the time it was big culture wise, but not like it is now; a time before your mom listened to NIN. Then it still had some cachet of being underground, you still had to work a little to find ironic t-shirts or the first Yo La Tengo record.  Unlike today where every mall has a Hot Topic –the Emo Superstore, and everything is accessible all the time, then scarcity was still a commodity. That era helped to make the Uptown an important clubhouse in the fraternal order of hipsterdom.
During that time I was the Director of A&P for the Twin/Tone Record Group, I liken it working for Sun or Chess records- but in the 60’s: still cool but past the era of earth shattering. We did make some phenomenal records, they where just lost in a sea of  other records. When the Replacements came out there were maybe2-3000 records released a year in the US, by the mid 90’s that number was more like a 100,000, Now with internet and digital releases that number is really incalculable.
We booked a lot of shows at both venues, but probably a bit fewer at the Uptown for one reason: Maggie the booker scarred the hell out of me.
Bar bookers tend to be a legendary breed, they always at the center of tales told by musicians and management in the wee hours: their kindness, their curmudgeony, and their pure unadulterated craziness.  It was a business run by characters and Maggie was most certainly a character. She wasn’t inhospitable or mean, rather imposing, I never had a call with her that I didn’t feel like I was wasting her time, even when we did shows that sold out the room. As intimidating as that was it’s also what made that room great. You could have Oasis there one night and Vinnie and the Stardüsters the next, and it didn’t seem incongruous- it just seemed like the Uptown.
My favorite stories of that place though are much less specific, just great slivers of memory: The plethora of Funseekers shows, almost all of which where Keith Patterson one of the greatest front men the Twin Towns have ever produced would at some point drop his pants- and it sort of made sense; granted the same action now would probably find him sued. The freighting and mildly dangerous backstage area. The ripped booths and cantankerous bartenders and sound system that was always les then ideal- it was if all the negatives added to a plus- a Minneapolis CBGB’s but cleaner and with French fries.
Some of my most important memories of the uptown don’t involve bands at all; rather breakfast there the day after. More meetings and planning were held there then I care to recall. It was Zine head quarters for both And She Said, and the Wrap Up. Mostly because of it’s proximity to Kinko’s (well that and the Bloody Mary’s) where we would sneak time on the computers and be made fun of by Peter Davis while he worked on the far bigger Your Flesh.
I negotiated more then one contract at those booths, and laid the ground for countless others, met girls, dated girls and broke up with girls all to a stompin’ 4/4 backbeat and the largest food ever envisioned by man and the most disgusting bathrooms short of a bus station in southern Alabama. In short it was a bar like any other bar, and unlike any other bar.
Once Maggie was gone, it just wasn’t the same. Not for me at least. It’s liked the spirit left the building and I found myself spending less and less time there. When I did go it was for reason of sentimentality, but what they say is true you can’t go home again. At least that home was more of a sense of time than a sense of place.

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