Turf Club
Two rooms, two jukeboxes, two ways to play DJ
Maggie Ryan Sandford
Why yes, that is George Hamilton prominently displayed on the downstairs jukebox
More Jukeboxing
Where they haven’t been replaced by charmless, trend-crunching tune-bots, jukeboxes say a lot about a place—nay, enhance the place.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 two jukeboxes at the Turf Club: one in the ground-level main room, and one secreted away in a dusty corner of the subterranean Clown Lounge.
The boxes: When the stage is empty, rock fans and regulars alike make their own fun on the upstairs juke, a Rowe Ami “Venus” which looks right at home in the company of Moon Patrol and a Creature From The Black Lagoon pinball machine. Meanwhile, in the basement—snuggled between a stuffed lynx and a shelf full of antique tallboys—sits a glowing gift for the jukebox purist: a 1960s Seeburg Console with analogue push buttons and an old-school paper display decorated with ancient cards from Hymie’s Vintage Records (3820 E. Lake St., 612-729-8890). And it only plays real 45s.
Prices: The Venus is pricey by local jukebox standards: 2 plays for $1, 5 plays for $2, 15 plays for $5. But downstairs, the Seeburg is speaking our language, with a little paper sign that reads, “It’s free!”
Nerd jams: Erring toward the experimental, harder-core end of “nerdy,” the upstairs juke offers The Minutemen’s Double Nickels On The Dime, Pavement’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, and the greatest-hits of Devo and Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds. The downstairs box appeals to nerds of a different ilk, not so much “geek rockers” as folks who geek out over a bygone era of wholesome hits: the Art Farmer Jazztet, Buddy Morrow Orchestra, The Marathons (a.k.a. The Vibrations), Stan Getz, Keetie And The Kats, Bo Diddley, and the original version of “Girls, Girls, Girls” by The Coasters—before it was popularized by white groups like The Fourmost, The Renegades, and Elvis.
Mixes: Not many. Upstairs, you’ve got some best-ofs (Waylon Jennings, David Bowie, James Brown) and some after-the-fact compilations, like The Sonics’ Maintaining My Cool. Downstairs, the whole thing’s one big mix waiting to happen, an infinitely entertaining lineup of wild and wacky singles—Harry Nilsson’s “Me And My Arrow,” Glen Campbell’s “True Grit” (from the original movie soundtrack), and the tuba version (vs. the honky-tonk version) of the Budweiser theme, “Here Comes The King.”
Locals: When it comes to repping MN, the mainroom juke has the Clown Lounge beat. The old Seeburg downstairs is like a crotchety granddad, banging on the ceiling and yelling, “Turn that racket down!” He has a couple songs from that Bob Dylan fella with the whiny voice, and that’s all the local music he cares to hear. Meanwhile, the Venus is upstairs cranking her Dillinger Four, The Ashtray Hearts, The Glenrustles, Black-Eyed Snakes, The Blind Shake, Martin Devaney, Kruddler, Hüsker Dü, Atmosphere, The Replacements, and Slim Dunlap, yelling back, “Not even Charlie Parr?!”
Overlap: The dueling jukes do manage to find some common ground, however, with classic artists like Marvin Gaye, Patsy Cline, Willie Nelson, Smokey Robinson And The Miracles, and... Black Lips? Young musicians, take note: One way to become an instant classic is to act like the classics by pressing your own vinyl and unapologetically slipping it in with the best of ’em.
Drinkin’ songs: There are two ways to drink: like a rock star or like a cowboy. For the rock star in you, the upstairs juke offers sonic self-destruction, with sing-along hits like Thin Lizzy’s “Whiskey In The Jar,” rock-outs like Misfits’ “Where Eagles Dare” and Public Enemy’s “Bring The Noise,” and bottom-of-the-bottlers like Joy Division’s “She’s Lost Control.” For the cowboy in you, head downstairs and punch in Webb Pierce’s “There Stands The Glass,” Moe Bandy’s “Here I Am Drunk Again,” or really any Merle Haggard tune, including “Bar Room Buddies,” an incredible duet with the original movie cowboy himself, Clint Eastwood.
For closing time: When the other shoe drops for those hard drinkin’ punks upstairs, send them out with Johnny Cash’s “The Beast In Me,” or something from Radiohead’s The Bends. Downstairs, there’s nothing better to get folks lonesome for home than John Lee Hooker’s “Hobo Blues” or Koko Taylor’s “Ain’t Got No Home.”
Witnesses: Upstairs or downstairs, it’s all about the music at the Turf. During our visit, a regular/musician from the local band Easy Baby wandered by to make a track recommendation from memory, from The King Khan & BBQ Show. The staff is all rockers or roadies in some form or another, and they hand-selected the 99 albums for the upstairs box (which explains why two employees’ bands are represented among the disks: The Hypstrz and Tulip Sweet And Her Trail Of Tears). But even without all the punk, raps, heady jams, and hardcore, the old Seeburg is the staff favorite. In fact, it’s most people’s favorite—if they know it’s there.
