Hexagon Bar
If it's a worldly, hip playlist you're after, get an iPod. This juke is for the barflies, baby.
Where they haven’t been replaced by charmless, trend-crunching tune-bots, jukeboxes say a lot about a place—nay, enhance the place.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, Decider spends some quarters and punches some buttons at Twin Cites bars and venues. This edition takes a look at the jukebox at the Hexagon Bar.
The box: An NSM, its 100 CDs framed by a hot pink, red, and purple bird of paradise, perched atop an unused bar table. A receipt stub taped to the box's bottom bay window from the Jukebox License Office is for 2008. There is a touch of irony here, as NSM, a UK company, settled a case in 2005 with the Department of Justice for an alleged violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, for colluding with Ecast, Inc. not to compete in the US digital jukebox market. No word on what David Allan Coe, whose 16 Biggest Hits is contained within, thought of the DoJ filing.
Price: Bargains abound! Handwritten in ballpoint pen, the label reads: "$1 = 5, $5 = 30."
Nerd jams: Three words: Rush, Moving Pictures.
Drinkin' songs: The other 99 discs (perhaps with the exception of Coldplay's A Rush Of Blood To The Head). Led Zeppelin II, Santana's Supernatural, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Skid Row, Night Ranger, Metallica's black album: This is the soundtrack to American alcoholism through the decades. What really makes the Hexagon's box stand out when you can't stand up are the country cuts—Patsy Cline, Joe Diffie, The Judds, folks you only care about if you've got a few empty cans of Bud rolling around in the back of your pickup. There's also some Sinatra (Reprise: The Very Good Years, currently out of print) if you want to try classing up before passing out.
Mixes: Cruisin' 1964, featuring vintage cuts from the likes of Earl Nelson, Buddy Johnson, and Vinicius De Moraes. (On the cover, a long-haired individual asks, "Luthor—how come you never make it to free speech rallies anymore?" as Luthor fingers his bass and shifts a joint in his mouth.) There's also Rick James: The Ultimate Collection, The Donna Summer Anthology, and 1980s Radio Hits—all of which are now out of print.
Locals: At the Hex, all the locals are either seated at the bar or playing live on the stage.
For closing time: When "Your lips move, but I can't hear what you’re sayin'" and your friends are asking, "Can you stand up? / I do believe it's working," and "Come on, it's time to go," then you are indeed "Comfortably Numb," found here on disc two of Pink Floyd's The Wall. For the more literal-minded, there's actually a song called "Last Call" on Big Boi's Speakerboxx, one of a scant handful of choices released after 1998.
Witnesses: A bartender named Chris, after kindly sliding under the bar to power the box on, told Decider that it only really gets used "during Happy Hour, mostly by the older folks," because there's "live music and DJs at night." (At that particular moment, the stocking-capped, leather snowmobile-jacketed, and scruffly-bearded regulars seemed to be more interested in how the Timberwolves were doing on the flat-screen.)
The box: An NSM, its 100 CDs framed by a hot pink, red, and purple bird of paradise, perched atop an unused bar table. A receipt stub taped to the box's bottom bay window from the Jukebox License Office is for 2008. There is a touch of irony here, as NSM, a UK company, settled a case in 2005 with the Department of Justice for an alleged violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, for colluding with Ecast, Inc. not to compete in the US digital jukebox market. No word on what David Allan Coe, whose 16 Biggest Hits is contained within, thought of the DoJ filing.
Price: Bargains abound! Handwritten in ballpoint pen, the label reads: "$1 = 5, $5 = 30."
Nerd jams: Three words: Rush, Moving Pictures.
Drinkin' songs: The other 99 discs (perhaps with the exception of Coldplay's A Rush Of Blood To The Head). Led Zeppelin II, Santana's Supernatural, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Skid Row, Night Ranger, Metallica's black album: This is the soundtrack to American alcoholism through the decades. What really makes the Hexagon's box stand out when you can't stand up are the country cuts—Patsy Cline, Joe Diffie, The Judds, folks you only care about if you've got a few empty cans of Bud rolling around in the back of your pickup. There's also some Sinatra (Reprise: The Very Good Years, currently out of print) if you want to try classing up before passing out.
Mixes: Cruisin' 1964, featuring vintage cuts from the likes of Earl Nelson, Buddy Johnson, and Vinicius De Moraes. (On the cover, a long-haired individual asks, "Luthor—how come you never make it to free speech rallies anymore?" as Luthor fingers his bass and shifts a joint in his mouth.) There's also Rick James: The Ultimate Collection, The Donna Summer Anthology, and 1980s Radio Hits—all of which are now out of print.
Locals: At the Hex, all the locals are either seated at the bar or playing live on the stage.
For closing time: When "Your lips move, but I can't hear what you’re sayin'" and your friends are asking, "Can you stand up? / I do believe it's working," and "Come on, it's time to go," then you are indeed "Comfortably Numb," found here on disc two of Pink Floyd's The Wall. For the more literal-minded, there's actually a song called "Last Call" on Big Boi's Speakerboxx, one of a scant handful of choices released after 1998.
Witnesses: A bartender named Chris, after kindly sliding under the bar to power the box on, told Decider that it only really gets used "during Happy Hour, mostly by the older folks," because there's "live music and DJs at night." (At that particular moment, the stocking-capped, leather snowmobile-jacketed, and scruffly-bearded regulars seemed to be more interested in how the Timberwolves were doing on the flat-screen.)
