First Avenue

First Avenue and 7th Street Entry are two music venues housed in the same building in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The names are derived from the building's location: the corner of First Avenue and 7th Street in downtown Minneapolis. They are considered to be a cornerstone of the Midwest music scene, and serve as a historic landmark of downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The nightclub has been the starting point for virtually every single band to come out of the Twin Cities, including The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Prince, Soul Asylum, Semisonic, Atmosphere, Brother Ali, Dillinger Four, Dosh, The Jayhawks, Curtiss A, and many others. Its stage has been graced by a tremendous number of important bands/artists from 1970 onward, as exemplified by the silver stars that adorn the black building's exterior (every star has the name of an artist who has played at First Avenue or 7th Street Entry). First Avenue also appeared in Prince's 1984 film "Purple Rain".

Initially named The Depot (after the building's former function as a Greyhound bus station, the building itself built in 1937), the club got its start when owner Alan Fingerhut opened the doors for the very first time on April 3, 1970 to showcase a two set evening with Joe Cocker. A few years later, during the height of disco music, the venue was renamed Uncle Sam's and was part of a national franchise of the American Events Company. Steve McClellan and Jack Meyers, the club's financial manager, took control in 1978, shortening the club's name to Sam's for a brief time before finally renaming it as First Avenue. McClellan opened the 7th Street Entry in 1981.

The club was shut down by then owner Alan Fingerhut in the late fall of 2004 for financial reasons, causing protest from music fans in Minnesota and elsewhere. The issues were quickly resolved (even the judge presiding in the bankruptcy case noted, "I gather there is some urgency about this"), and the club was reopened by owners Meyers, McClellan, and long time business manager Byron Frank, resuming shows after only one week. Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak promised to do a stage dive at the first show after reopening, but ended up dropping the idea when he discovered that the show would feature the heavy metal band GWAR. Rybak had previously crowd surfed at a "Rock for Democracy" event earlier in the year.

McClellan ended his 32 year stint at First Avenue in 2005 and formed the non-profit [http://www.demomn.org Diverse Emerging Music Organization] . He still serves as an outside consultant to the venue.

Locally, First Avenue and the 7th Street Entry are respectively referred to as First Ave or Mainroom and The Entry.

External links

* [http://www.first-avenue.com/ First Avenue and 7th Street Entry]
* [http://www.citypages.com/databank/24/1187/article11480.asp The City Pages Oral History of First Avenue]
* [http://articles.citypages.com/2004-06-30/columns/the-first-avenue-massacre/full/ The First Avenue Massacre - What Steve McClellan's Pink Slip Said by Jim Walsh]
* [http://citypages.com/databank/25/1249/article12657.asp First Avenue's Black Tuesday by Peter S. Scholtes]
*cite web
title=First Avenue & 7th Street Entry Band Files
author=Minnesota Historical Society, Catalog ID 002942632
date=1999-2004
url=http://www.mnhs.org/library/findaids/00233.html
accessdate=2007-01-14