The Current Rewind Minnesota Public Radio

Before we wrap up our First Avenue season, we have to pay homage to its famous painted stars.

The day Prince passed away, thousands of Minnesotans congregated outside First Avenue to dance and cry. Although the street party might've seemed like magic, of course real people made it happen - and we talked to a few of them for this episode. It's the last full installment of our season, and it celebrates Prince, parties, and Minnesota music. [Songs sampled: Prince - "Sometimes It Snows In April," Cameron Kinghorn - "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore," Lizzo - "The Beautiful Ones"]

A piece of First Avenue's ceiling fell to the ground during a concert in August 2015. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt. But throughout the music industry, concert safety has been a huge issue during the last decade. How can we keep each other safe? [Songs sampled: Icetep - "Hive Sound," Stereo Confession - "Tonight," Theory of a Deadman - "Angel"]

Description: When First Avenue entered bankruptcy on Election Day 2004, some saw it as the end of an era. But others – including devoted employees, local music fans, and a certain stage-diving ally in City Hall – would not rest until they'd saved the club.

This is the seventh episode of The Current Rewind's "10 Pivotal Days at First Avenue" season. If you missed the first six episodes, catch up below.

• April 3, 1970 (The day it all began)• Nov. 28-29, 1979 (The days that told the future)• Sept. 27, 1982 (Bad Brains/Sweet Taste of Afrika/Hüsker Dü)• Aug. 3, 1983 (The birth of "Purple Rain")• Oct. 22, 1990 (Sonic Youth/Cows/Babes in Toyland)• March 4, 1991 (Ice Cube/WC and the MAAD Circle)




Transcript of
The Current Rewind
season 2, episode 7: "Nov. 2, 2004"
Cecilia Johnson VO: Hey, it's Cecilia, host and producer of The Current Rewind. If you're listening to this the day it drops, it's Election Day in the U.S. You may be wondering what a First Ave podcast is doing in your feed, today of all days.

Well, first, we wanted to encourage you to vote, if you haven't already. On the flip side, if you're seeking a few moments of respite, we got you. Third, a while back, I noticed a really weird coincidence: This episode takes place on Election Day itself. In fact, some First Ave employees remember frantically working to save their club and having to take a break to vote. It's funny how history rhymes.

[🎵 A few stock music selections slide from song to song, separated by brief bursts of static. After several seconds, the music drops out, and we hear the following interview clips in quick succession 🎵]

Dan Corrigan: But we thought that it was not going to be open anymore. We thought it was done.

DJ Smitty: Nathan was like, "Yeah, I think this is it." And we're like, "Really?" Like, "Yeah."

[🎵 contemplative guitar fades up 🎵]

Randy Hawkins: It was heartbreaking.

Dan Corrigan: It was crazy, because when we closed the door for the – what we thought was the last time, all the lights in the whole place were off, but we turned on all the trouble lights.

[As Dan mentions the trouble lights, a "twinkly" sound effect fades up. Then, the guitar song resumes]

Cecilia Johnson VO: I'm Cecilia Johnson. This is The Current Rewind, the show putting music's unsung stories on the map. This season, we're looking back at 50 years of First Avenue, one of the Twin Cities' and the country's greatest live venues.

So far this season, we've welcomed a series of guest hosts, but this episode, I'll be your guide through the story of First Avenue's bankruptcy. In this episode, we'll visit First Ave on one of its darkest days, which some folks took to be the end. But others – including devoted employees, local music fans, and a certain stage-diving ally in City Hall – would not rest until they'd saved the club.

[guitar song fades out; rewind sound effect]

Cecilia Johnson VO: Although it shocked a lot of music fans, First Avenue's 2004 bankruptcy was a long time coming. If you've been following this season of our show, you've probably got a general understanding of First Avenue's finances, from its genesis as the Depot up until 2004.

Craig Finn: ...these carpetbaggers weren't bagging much cash.

Joe Shalita: But First Avenue is First Avenue. A dingy little place – at first, it was real dingy – you know –

Steve McClellan: We were, like, $60,000 in debt with no backup revenue source.

Cecilia Johnson VO: And the whole way through, Allan Fingerhut had owned or co-owned the business. We introduced him in the first episode of our season, but just for a little recap: Fingerhut had grown up in a suburb of Minneapolis, and his family ran a profitable mail-order company. He was one of the founding members of "The Committee," the small group who opened the Depot at First Avenue and Seventh Street in 1970. The Depot entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1971, and Cincinnati disco chain American Avents took over

When First Avenue entered bankruptcy on Election Day 2004, some saw it as the end of an era. But others - including devoted employees, local music fans, and a certain stage-diving ally in City Hall - would not rest until they'd saved the club. [Songs sampled: Icetep - "Hive Sound," Mojo Nixon - "Are You Drinkin' With Me Jesus," Lifter Puller - "Lifter Puller Vs. The End Of The Evening"]

Description: One day after the LAPD beat up Rodney King, an Ice Cube concert went down in history as one of the most violent shows ever held at First Avenue. Hosted by Jay Smooth, we ask rap experts and former First Ave staffers about gangsta rap, security, and the uneasy relationship between the Minnesota music industry and Black hip-hop artists.

This is the sixth episode of The Current Rewind's "10 Pivotal Days at First Avenue" season. If you missed the first five episodes, catch up below.

• April 3, 1970 (The day it all began)• Nov. 28-29, 1979 (The days that told the future)• Sept. 27, 1982 (Bad Brains/Sweet Taste of Afrika/Hüsker Dü)• Aug. 3, 1983 (The birth of "Purple Rain")• Oct. 22, 1990 (Sonic Youth/Cows/Babes in Toyland)




Transcript of
The Current Rewind
season 2, episode 6: "March 4, 1991"
Anne O'Connor: We're talking about almost 30 years ago, but my memory of this was like, you opened up the gate at the horse races, and everybody was off to it.

[Ice Cube, "The Bomb," with the lyrics:

"With the L, the E, the N, the C, the HThe M, the O, the B, the greatLyrics that make the beat swing and I gotchaIt's the hip-hopper that don't like coppers." Hard cut.]

Anne O'Connor: And it was just like an explosion, and it was non-stop all night long.

["The Bomb" picks up where it left off, running through these lyrics:

"And if you try to upset the pot, sonYou get kicked in the chest like a shotgunI make the beats, I make the breaksI make the rhymes that make you shakeMake you findIce Cube never caught in the middleI make stuff that kick you in the a** a little." Hard cut.]

Anne O'Connor: We just went from one fight to the next fight to the next fight. There was no breathing time. There was no downtime. It was just, "What emergency is there to go and deal with next?"

[Ice Cube's "The Bomb" returns with a sample of spoken audio and several voices singing, "The bomb"]

Cecilia Johnson VO: Gangsta rap was the most controversial music of the '90s – praised as an expression of Black America's righteous anger, reviled for its misogyny and depictions of violence. Taking cues from Schooly D and Ice-T, Los Angeles group N.W.A popularized the genre with their album Straight Outta Compton. Their most talented rhymer, Ice Cube, left the group to go solo in 1990. In early 1991, he brought his show to Minneapolis's First Avenue, for one of its most memorable nights ever.

["Hive Sound" by Icetep]

Cecilia Johnson VO: [over theme] I'm Cecilia Johnson. This is The Current Rewind, the show putting music's unsung stories on the map. For our second season, we're looking back at one of the Twin Cities' – and the country's – greatest live venues through a series of pivotal nights. We're bringing on guest hosts for several episodes. In this one, Jay Smooth – the New York hip-hop radio legend and cultural commentator – joins us to tell the story of one of the most infamous shows in First Avenue's history. I do want to warn you: This episode contains explicit accounts of racism and violence.

[rewind sound effect]

Jay Smooth VO: Way back in 1991, I founded New York's longest-running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad. It was a pivotal time for hip-hop music, when it was still just beginning to cross all sorts of cultural boundaries. And the other love of my musical life back then was the Black Minneapolis Sound, as defined by Prince and his many collaborators – who, in their own way, were on a similar path of bringing Black music into spaces where it hadn't necessarily been all that welcome.

So, as a devoted student of Prince and hip-hop who came of age in that era, the First Avenue club and its relationship with Black music, and hip-hop, specifically, has always been an object of fascination for me. And though it was primarily defined as a rock club, First Avenue did host a number of high-profile hip-hop shows in the '80s and early '90s, according to someone who saw a lot of them.

Tim Wilson: Timo