Jukeboxing Big V's

Where they haven’t been replaced by charmless, trend-crunching tune-bots, jukeboxes say a lot about a place—nay, enhance the place.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 Twin Cities bars and venues. This edition takes a look at the jukebox at Big V's.

The Box: As you flip through the pages of this 1980-something Rowe AMI, which boasts “Compact Disc” on its faded, sunset-orange façade, a story unfolds: Classic rock, vintage country, and soul (The Rolling Stones, Patsy Cline, Curtis Mayfield) give way to glam, punk, and art-rock (T. Rex, The Murder City Devils, And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead). The result? An utterly satisfying night inside the bottle.
Price: Three plays for $1; seven plays for $2; 21 plays for $5.
Drinkin’ songs: This box makes it easy: Right there on the first page is a compilation called Irish Drinking Songs, with such classics as “The Pub With No Beer” and “Maloney Wants A Drink.” For you punchier drunks, try Karp’s “Octoberfleshed.”
Nerd jams: If we’re talking geek rock, you’ve got Weezer’s Pinkerton, but the closest thing Big V’s clientele has to nerds is slightly less hardcore music lovers. For them: Built To Spill’s Keep It Like A Secret, Deerhoof’s Apple O’, and one from the jammiest, nerdiest new-wave/punk/etc. band ever: Trenchmouth.
Beer goggle time: Feelin’ the love? At the end of the night, when your loins are telling you not to pass out alone, punch in The Cars’ “Candy-O” (or, if you prefer, The Melvins’ cover of it), “Need You Tonight” from INXS Greatest Hits, and all of Dan The Automator and Mike Patton’s Nathaniel Merriweather Presents...Lovage: Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By.
Mixes: There are plenty of baby-boomer best-ofs and greatest-hits (Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Bruce Springsteen) alongside such esoteric compilations as Sickroom Records’ New Music Sampler. Oh, and one called Music For All Occasions, which includes two wedding marches and “Night On Bald Mountain”—you know, the scary one from Fantasia.
Locals: The jukebox features a collection from the now-defunct Minneapolis noise-punk band The Cows. Their Old Gold 1989-1991 brings both drinking jams like “I Miss Her Beer” and sexy jams like “Sticky And Sweet” (“I am a waffle and you are the syrup / I am covered with square dents / You are sticky and sweet”).
Witnesses: The jukebox, like Big V’s clientele, sings the same sad ballads and angry punk rock into the darkness night after night. “It’s bittersweet,” said one longtime barfly as he punched in the code for Freddy Fender's “Before The Next Teardrop Falls."