With Olivia Lavecchia

In honor of last week's cover story, an oral history of the CC Club, we asked readers to submit their own stories from the landmark south Minneapolis bar. You did not disappoint. We ended up with a couple dozen tales of booze-fueled shenanigans, ranging from dates gone awry to bar fights and projectile vomiting. Here are the 10 best (in no particular order):

SEE ALSO:
Cover: An oral history of the CC Club
Extra: An oral history of the CC Club jukebox

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The bar back in the 1950s, when it was still the CC Tap and offered live music and dancing.

With Andy Mannix

When David Prass bought the CC Tap in 1974, it was a 3.2 beer joint that had live music and a stage. Prass re-named the bar the CC Club, and transferred the liquor license over from his father's old bar. Along with the booze came new restrictions on the kind of entertainment the CC could offer, including no more bands. But the bar could still have a jukebox.

Over the next decade-plus, as the CC Club became the center of Minneapolis's rock scene, its juke became legendary. The employees at the record store across the street would walk over with new records, and the bands who hung out there, including the Replacements and Soul Asylum, would drop off their singles to be added into the rotation. The juke became symbolic: If it was still playing, the bar was still swinging (several stories begin with some variation on, "It was like 1 o'clock, the jukebox hadn't been turned off yet..."). And if a local band's CD showed up in the juke, it was a sign they had made it.

About two years ago, the CC traded its carefully curated old jukebox for a digital one that can play thousands of songs. The greater catalog has meant increased revenue for the bar's owners, but also the feeling that, as Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner puts it, "That era is gone."


See Also:
- COVER: Here Comes a Regular: An Oral History of the CC Club
- Slideshow: Behind the scenes: The CC Club, an oral history
- Best Jukebox 1998 and 1999

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Photo by Piero F. Giunti

As hip hop grows ever longer in the tooth, the overall picture of what it meant in its infancy -- and still means -- becomes more clear. Some of it, like the rock, punk, funk and country before it, managed to transcend genre and enter into the cultural zeitgeist of America. The voting for the 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees was announced yesterday and on the ballot were two pioneering rap groups who managed to do those things, both of whom still carry weight today: N.W.A. and Public Enemy.

Given the voter makeup (the chosen panel is shrouded in secrecy, but it's not a stretch to say it's made up of mostly old guard musicians and record execs) only one -- Public Enemy -- will be inducted come next April, but when the dust has settled afterward and everyone finally stops the second-guessing, it should be clear the right choice was made.

See Also:
Ice Cube's good days begin with Peace Coffee from Minneapolis
Public Enemy at First Avenue, 12/6/12
Chuck D: Yeah, I voted in the 2012 election

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Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe" can't escape Tay Zonday
Rain Man

Minnesota's been home to many artists who've exploded from our local scenes and captivated a nation, pioneering new methods of expression along the way. One such supernova, Tay Zonday, has made a career of posting original videos on YouTube through the continued success of his 2007 single "Chocolate Rain." One of the biggest YouTube videos of all time, it set off a phenomenon that crossed-over into mainstream television and lead to covers from some of the biggest names in music. Five years later, we look back at the Summer of Tay.

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OK Computer is even older than Willow Smith.

Fifteen years ago on Saturday, Radiohead released a follow-up to The Bends -- which two years earlier had essentially cemented them as the new leaders of Brit Pop. Called OK Computer, the album almost single-handedly destroyed the Brit styling as we knew it. (The Spice Girls helped too.) The Bends was a leap forward from their 1992 debut, Pablo Honey, which successfully fused Brit Pop and grunge at times, and was at turns outright boring. But there was a marathon's-worth of steps between The Bends and OK Computer.  Does all of this rhetoric sound familiar?

Even if you have -- however improbably -- never listened to even one note of their music, you know Radiohead exists. Even if you despise them, their influence over the past nearly two decades is undeniable. But that question remains: Have they been talked about, picked apart, viewed under a microscope so frequently that it's hardly worth doing any longer? If you're still reading this, the answer is likely "no."

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Photo by Erin Smith; MyTradingCards.com

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Photo by Sam Holden

Grunge survivor Mark Lanegan.

With Saint Kurt gone for 18 years now, it's important to remember grunge wasn't just Nirvana. It was a movement, and though each year it seems a little bit sillier than it did the last, it was important. Most of the bands (and sadly many of the people themselves) didn't stand the test of time, some did and many of those songs are still as enjoyable to listen to now as they were then -- maybe even moreso now that they're a bit easier to hear above the din of down-tuned, sludge-filled rock that permeated everything for a few years in there.

Mark Lanegan comes to the Cedar tonight as one of the few still-vital survivors from the grunge era, operating at a high creative level and winning new fans that don't view him through a lens of diffused, detached irony, as often happens when a genre is "rediscovered." In honor of Lanegan's return -- and it should be noted that his old band, Screaming Trees, made this list and is still very much listenable -- here are ten grunge-era songs that are still just as good now as they were then.

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BobbyVee.com

Pop heartthrob Bobby Vee has announced via his personal blog that he has been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. The 69-year-old, born Robert Thomas Velline, has known about his condition for about a year, but just recently made the news public.

"As my buddy Fabian says, getting old is not for the meek," writes the North Dakota native and long-time Minnesota resident, whose hits include "Devil or Angel," and "Rubber Ball." "I think he may be right. A little over a year ago I was diagnosed with the mild stages of Alzheimer's disease... Since this time I have chosen to remain private and to focus on what is most important to me: my family and my music."

The music portion comes in the form of an upcoming record from Bobby Vee and the Vees titled The Adobe Sessions, which was created in his Tucson garage. Hear a song from the album featuring snapshots of his family on a recent road trip, and read his message to fans below.

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Badass Joan Jett is coming to Mystic Lake

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Possibly out 'do-ing Flock Of Seagulls on this one

​Howard Jones is one of few musicians lucky enough to have notable longevity decades past his prime, so don't take one look at his hair and mistake him for Richard Marx or that lead Seagull. He lived many musical lifetimes since his 1985 radio hit "No One Is To Blame,"  when he carved a niche for himself in snyth-driven pop songs that thoughtfully surfed new-wave territory. 

Jones was one of snythpop's earliest key figures, so it makes sense his sound stretched out to touch the edges of the genre as electronic music came to the forefront. The Brit's vocal style has largely remained the same throughout his career, keeping him tightly connected to the past and enjoying cult status with longtime fans. Since the '80s when he last released a gold-certified record, he's put out six full-length albums --  Revolution Of The Heart and Ordinary Heroes most recently.

Now a bit of a phenomena on the concert circuit, it was announced this week that Jones is coming to Minneapolis this summer to the Varsity, and we couldn't be more psyched.  

Here's a few tracks to refresh your memory.

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