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 7^th 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.

I need to write more, but I can almost never bring myself to do it. I stare briefly at the computer screen, with a sentence formed in my head, before I quickly turn the browser to Facebook. It’s my own personal form of avoidance Oh hell let’s be honest its pretty much all of the slackergencia’s form of avoidance, my generation really sort of mastered that particular art form. The economy sucks, everyone is broke, and if they aren’t they are preparing to be. I saw my whole industry die a stupid and ignoble death, leaving generations to try and figure out what to do once the record industry is gone. Make no mistake its over, There is no bailout for the indie world, if only we made expensive things that put people in debt and destroyed the economy then we could get a check.

I find myself in the rather odd predicament of having lots of little projects and because the nature of them (Film, TV. Music) they have a certain profile, while at the same time I haven’t had the well paying corporate gig that subsidizes it all since June. Giving me plenty of time to brood and more importantly worry.

Not this Harold, a different one

Harold (the name that i gave my kidney disease) has become more forefront as he slowly (hopefully very very slowly) shuts down an organ, the thing is its not just that its all the other questions and read questions as fear that it raises. Make no mistake oh dear and gentle reader this is a disease that feeds on fear, like fat people at an Old country Buffet, and me I am chock full of fear. One of the many joys of chronic disease is not being able to tell actual symptoms from the messed up anxieties in my head ( please note that said anxieties are different then those in your head) See the thing is I don’t want to be defined by disease but right now it’s hard help it. It’s like it doesn’t just have a hold of my kidneys, it very selfishly seems to want my whole life.

I get told by people how brave I am and I’d love to be able to front a little here, play off that Steve McQueen cool thing, but it’s total utter nonsense: because I am scarred. It’s a reasonable fear for certain but fear nonetheless. Fear is not cool, not even in anti-cool nerd chic way. It’s a mastodon chasing you into the cave type of primal thing. And me, I am an all you can eat buffet of fear, which sadly is just the right diet for someone like Harold.

For me in most aspects of my life I deal with fear by jumping in head first, if it scares me I confront it, because I want to conquer it. Its worked great in business I made a lot of people a lot of money (of course I never managed to make all that much for me), It helped me make art with some amazing people most of whom had no business taking my phone call in the first place. That conformational edge helped me to rule the world or at least a very small corner of it. That was of course until I met Harold.

It all changed once he entered the picture, his presence in my life has ebbed and flowed in relation to the severity of his toxicity right now he back and with an ego. I worry about playing it safe, its not about money, or career , things that lost that can be built again, this game you only get the one chip, so you better play it the best you can. Why is it that when forced to take a seat in the high stakes game i start to play like a nervous dowager.
Fear comes in all sorts of flavors, its what keeps us in a job that is going nowhere, relationships that are just sad, it makes people wear pleated Dockers and shirts with golf logos on them. It makes us drink too much or not enough. It makes people virgins, it makes peoples whores, and it is a great motivator- only in reverse. It’s something your never thankful for: honestly when was the last time you said “Thank God I was so afraid of Fill in the Blank ”It’s what keeps us from doing the right thing, or finding the secret treasure that we keep hidden in our hearts.

Fear does have an archenemy though: Faith, sadly faith and I have had a somewhat rocky relationship, but that’s what happens when you start to doubt. You wake up one day and wonder where your life went, when it changed from a song by Mission of Burma to something by the Eagles, and we aren’t talking Kinda ok Glen Fry “Take it Easy” Eagles, but the hell-spawn damnation “Boys of Summer” Don Henley Eagles. Fear moves in and Faith does something else, possible a tour of hostels in Europe- I really don’t know she never writes.

Don Henley

I want to rebuild my relationship with Faith, but I have no idea how, she’s fickle and you really have to do all the work, I am told that there is great reward if you stick around but I have never been around for the Payout. Meanwhile Fear just never wants to go home. I do believe that everything has a purpose and I have to wonder if Harold’s not here to help Faith and me get back together. In the meant time I find myself a not so lucky Pierre in a most unfortunate threesome

I want to have normal conversations, complain about Britney Spears, make fun of Orin Hatch, but each little tweak in my body, every patch of dry skin, or minor cough brings him to the forefront. Faith would tell me not to worry about the little stuff, she’s nowhere to be found, instead Fear is there, and she wants to make smores. I hope that Faith comes by soon.

The RNC is over  and the Unconvention is at a close at least for me, however the shows are done. the question remains is what next. While I ponder that here are three of the four episodes (the first one has some good moments but it’s really not all that and a bag of chips…so ) here they are

Episode 2

Episode 3

Episode 4