MMR: Please put First Avenue to rest

So for this Monday’s rant, I’m asking that the powers that be put euthanize First Avenue, the over-hyped music venue in Minneapolis. A once grand place, is painfully beyond its glory and shamefully living on its past. I should be careful with the word shame as it is getting tossed about quite easily these days. Shame here, shame there, fuck it First Ave sucks.

It struck me as I was there for a Jeff Tweedy show on Sunday evening. Jeff put on a great show and opening act and Wilco/Loose Fur co-collaborator/drummer, Glenn Kotche was a stunning surpise and wonderful compliment to Mr. Tweedy's "thoughtful" folk set. Now that I think about it, I guess it strikes me every time I go to this piece of shit club with it’s crappy service and over-priced beers. So, you were a great club in the 1980s, big fucking deal – that was a long time ago!! You can’t keep living on that. You are out of touch with customers and the Minneapolis music scene. For the love of god, please just shut down again and let us romanticize you. Your staff, the pierced and tattooed version of late to the party hippies (no ethos or pathos, just generational degradation and a rough idea that something was cool) – you don’t know why you’re there or what you represent, but you love being aloof and caustic. Just like hippies who joined the party for the pot, the sex and lax bathing habits (enough of the first two and I suppose I wouldn’t care about the third). In simple terms, fuck off, you Blink 182 versions of punks and rock and roll.

You can’t even handle Ticketmaster and/or advanced ticket sales for will call functions – I know all quite new to concerts. That's not the way they did it when Prince was here or when Husker Du played. That's right, but you didn't charge that much for the shitty experience either. Save the nostalgic fumbling for third-rate university libraries and the high school talent shows. And what’s up with the silver stars on the outside of the building? That’s just gauche. It’s like NFL goofballs celebrating a tackle – great asshole, you did your job. Better yet, you’re like the ski club kid in high school that kept all of your lift tickets on your jacket, but you’ve been doing this for thirty years. You’ve become a mockery; a caricature of the old punk that can’t make sense of the world around them.

What’s the last local act you’ve helped launch? You’re too busy trying to remain cool to touring acts that you continue to let your base erode. I’m happy enough with Roy Wilkins Auditorium, The 400 Bar, The Turf Club – I don’t need you. Also, the old man in me just can’t let this go, why the fuck do you start shows on Sunday night at 9:00 PM for the opening act and 10:15 for the headlining act? What are you getting out of that? I would drink more beer if I new I had more time to sleep it off. Well, that just me and this is my Monday rant, but unless you have Johnny Cash and Selena open for John Lennon, I don’t think I’ll be buying tickets any time soon.

ARRR.