Soaring with the Eagles (and the Pigs)
Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune Friday, Sept. 29, 2006
Doug Knutson has lived in south Minneapolis for most of his life, but he only found out a couple of years ago that the Eagles Club even existed. And he's been trying to make heads or tails of it ever since. "It's sort of this hole-in-the-wall, VFW-and-wedding-hall type of place," Knutson, 45, said last week while watching his favorite local band, the Butanes -- which is what originally brought him to the Eagles. "In a way, it reminds me of the Rock 'N Bowl in New Orleans, just this weird, old, hidden kind of place where now you can see a lot of really great bands play."
Officially, it's called the Fraternal Order of the Eagles (FOE) Aerie No. 34. Explaining ! what all that means will probably make a lot less sense than Knutson's description, but here goes ...
Tucked away on a quiet street near the Hexagon Bar and Memory Lanes, at 25th Av. and 25th St., the dusty, time capsule of a club is home to the Minneapolis branch of a Masons-like organization.
FOE No. 1 was started by theater owners in Seattle way back in 1898. Minneapolis got its own Eagles order a year later.
Back then, Eagles members were mostly stagehands, actors and other performers, explained John Eicher , bar manager and nearest thing to historian at the Minneapolis Eagles Club. Today, he said, "anyone can become a member so long as they get two other members to sponsor them."
To me, it all sounds like a ploy by older members to get free drinks from prospective newbies. But anyway, the club itself -- which opened in 1953 and hasn't been remodeled since a fire in 1983 -- has long been open to nonmembers. Bands started playing there in 2003.
"It seemed like too great a room to only be u sed for bingo," said Vince Gillespie the Eagles bartender who started booking bands with the help of longtime friend Max Ray (the Wallets/X-Boys horn player).
The room Gillespie referred to is the club's dance hall, a 200-or-so-capacity room that sits off the main bar area. It has a low, tobacco-coated ceiling, a checkered-wood dance floor and a funky little tucked-in stage with red curtains behind it (which cover up the electric bingo sign).
"It's one of the closest things we have to a beat-up old honky-tonk," said Becky Thompson, who performs there most Mondays with her country band Old School.
Thompson moved to the Eagles Club after her weekly gigs at Lee's were canceled last December. In fact, most of the Eagles' regular performers are castaways from other venues.
The Butanes haven't had a regular home since their Cabooze stand ran out in the early '90s. The Liquor Pigs and Willie Murphy booked regular gigs there after the Viking Bar closed in July (Murphy also now plays the 400 Bar on Mondays).
And then there are the X-Boys, who've never really had a home. The loose '70s-themed cover band also features Chris Osgood and Dave Ahl of the Suicide Commandos , three ex- Suburbs and scenesters such as Steve Fjelstad , who was staff engineer at Twin/Tone Records, and former Suburbs/Hüsker Dü roadie Casey Macpherson .
All these veteran players gravitated to the Eagles Club, Thompson theorized, "because we get treated well there. That's getting rarer and rarer."
The club's longtime patrons have been as welcoming to the bands as have its operators. "I l-o-o-o-o-ve it when the bands are here," said Jacqui Ihde , a fraternal member since 1985, who said she would've joined years earlier, "but I thought it was just an old person's place."
That stigma still exists. The bands have ! brought in new blood to the Eagles, but it still could use an ! infusion , many of the regulars say. "A lot of people don't seem to know it's there," said Randy Webb of the Liquor Pigs, who so far haven't seen all that great a turnout for their relocated Friday happy-hour gigs. "The place holds twice the bodies we could ever get in at the Viking, so it has potential."
Some other selling points for the venue: free parking, cheap drinks ($3 a beer average) and, along with the Hexagon Bar and Memory Lanes (ex-Stardust), it's in something of a born-again entertainment district.
At the very least, Gillespie and the other Eagles Club handlers hope a few myths about the place will soon be dispelled."You don't have to be in the military or join a cult or anything like that to get in," Gillespie said.
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| When Pigs Fly . . . they land at the Eagles (Club) nest
Pat Courtemanche
Pigs Fly to Eagles: With the closing of the Viking Bar on the West Bank, the Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs seemingly eternal Friday night happy-hour residency appeared to finally resolve itself. In an attempt to fill the void being experienced by their displaced community of Pigheads, however, the group has landed at the Eagles Club, 2507 E. 25th St. in Minneapolis. They plan to continue the Friday night 7:00 to 9:00 pm tradition at the Eagles until further notice (or until they receive their notice, whichever comes first). The Eagles Club, with its rural flourishes right in the heart of the city, is becoming a punky and funky destination with The X-Boys (ex- Suicide Commandos, Suburbs and Wallets members) and the Willie Murphy Band on (most) alternating Fridays following the Pigs. This Friday, August 18, the Liquor Pigs will be joined by Randy Weeks (on his CD Release tour of Minneapolis for Sugarfinger). Weeks is a Los Angeles-based (Minnesota native) roots-rocker who penned the Lucinda Williams tune Can't Let Go.The Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs loved the Viking Bar and the great crowd, but were typically unprepared for Last Call. |
Dear Fellow Mourners
Pat Kerrigan (July 31st, 2006)
I think it's time for all honorary and not-so-honorary members of the Krewe
d'West Bank Social Aid and Pleasure Club to grab their hankies, sashes and
parasols and head down to 1829 Riverside Ave for some crying in our beers
and kicking up our heels. Once the ghost has finally been given up and the
doors locked for a (hopefully not) final time, the faithful would join the
second line celebrational funeral parade to the Biomagnetic Center of the
Universe for an impromptu service, with KFAI blasting appropriate or
inappropriate music into the neighborhood. This processional would include
amazing outfits, a big brass band and horse drawn (or tricycle-powered)
hearse bearing the mystical gris gris gumbo of countless
magical/hilarious/outrageous Viking memories, ending with sending off in
grand style the collective spirit of the Viking Bar in it's journey to the
glory on the other side (maybe with the Liquor Pigs doing Prayer of Death).This is what I'm visualizing, how 'bout all y'all? |
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Memories of the Viking Jay Johnston
I confess to being a newcomer over the past 4 years, but we were loyal.
The Viking was our favorite destination on Friday night from 7-9 pm. We had a beer there while the Liquor Pigs played, prior to the Yonder Mountain String Band event at the Cabooze. The Pigs won hands down and we have been coming ever since.
Marty, Jay and Shelly couldn’t have been more hospitable as they tried to handle the crowd when the place filled up. The bouncers would look at Zana and I after missing a few weeks and simply say,” Welcome home”.
You took one look at those knotty pine walls and the ancient wiring system and you knew you were in West Bank paradise.
One thing remains as a common denominator, we love the Pigs. They will get gigs elsewhere and we will be there. But there was something to dancing to Bol Weevil after a couple of Michelob Golden Lights that made the world seem a bit bohemian. The aisle down the middle of the bar was too small and there was really no dance floor to speak of, but we just moved where we were. With Doug playing the “bones” on the floor in the corner.
It would be hard to forget the night the Pigs closed with Delilah and the women threw panties at the band. I recall hearing Lucinda confide: “They are getting kind of expensive to throw these days”.
We were there the last Friday night when the full Pigs crew was in session. After the music, we all stayed around to watch the Twins lose a tight game against the Tigers. The world was in sync and we had just experienced the last Friday night with the Pigs at the Viking.
As the song Big Yellow Taxi says “No, no, no, don't it always seem to go,
that you don't know what you've got till it's gone”.
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