Paul's Club
Let the music play as you lounge under the giant fake tree.
Just the three visible albums in this photo have us ready to party.
Where they haven’t been replaced by charmless, trend-crunching tune-bots, jukeboxes say a lot about a place—nay, enhance the place. In Jukeboxing, The A.V. Club spends some quarters and punches some buttons at Madison bars and venues. This edition takes a look at the jukebox at Paul’s Club (212 State St., 608-257-5250).
The box: Located a few feet from the giant, light-adorned tree in the middle of the bar, the jukebox at Paul’s is as inconspicuous as the outside of the unadorned State Street bar. Overshadowed by the peculiar scenery as it may be, it’s what’s inside that blinking box that counts.
Price: 3 songs for $1, 20 for $5
Nerd jams: The box at Paul’s Club allows patrons to show off their worth to potential hookups by flaunting their knowledge of indie rock and/or seminal ’90s hip-hop. You can show your sensitive side by playing a cut off The National’s swooning Boxer or you can snare a potential mate by displaying your realness and playing “Life’s A Bitch” off Nas’ still-perfect Illmatic. Go deeper by throwing on some De La Soul (3 Feet High And Rising) or Mos Def (Black On Both Sides) or a non-single track from TV On The Radio (Return To Cookie Mountain).
Drinkin’ songs: If getting lit while listening to Deltron or Wilco doesn’t satiate your need to wreck shit, the bar's music machine carries Fugazi’s Repeater, which will open the opportunity for you to howl like Guy Picciotto in front of an all-ages show.
Mixes: Bartenders past and present fill in some gaps in Paul’s jukebox with their mixes, ranging from a deep-cuts reggae comp (titled Paul’s Club Reggae) to a hip-hop mix that has LL Cool J, Notorious B.I.G., and N.W.A. sharing space. Otherwise, stick with one of the best mixes of all time—Talking Heads’ greatest hits/live album Stop Making Sense.
For bar time: The box at Paul’s is light on room-clearing jams, but if you’d like to alter the mood drastically, you couldn’t go wrong with Massive Attack’s unsettling third album, Mezzanine, or Blonde Redhead’s perfectly titled fifth album, Melody Of Certain Damaged Lemons.
