In May 1976 came the hiring of General Manager Stephen Thomas McClellan. You’ll have to indulge me as I present a longer profile of the person who became the heart and soul of Uncle Sam’s, Sam’s, and First Avenue.
Matos:
Steve McClellan wasn’t punk. The first time he stepped foot into 701 First Avenue North, when it was still a Greyhound depot, he was a teenage runaway hightailing it to San Francisco during the summer of 1967 because, he says, “My dad was going to make me cut my hair.” The Nebraska Highway Patrol sent him back. “I could see my dad glaring at me across the lot,” says McClellan.
In 1968 he enrolled at the University of Minnesota during a heady period of social change: “I’ve only voted for two major-party candidates in the last 40 years: George McGovern [in 1972] and Obama [in 2008],” he says. “I was third party all the way.”
McClellan loved rock ’n’ roll in high school, having seen the Yardbirds on the eighth floor of the downtown Dayton’s department store, but gave his records to a neighbor upon entering college. He had his eye on a career in public service, researching legislation for the city coordinator (1974), and nursing ambitions to join Ralph Nader’s organization. He spent three years on the state board of directors of the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG), three years on the local board, and edited the MPIRG newsletter for two years(February 1973 to December 1974). He recalls thinking, “I was no longer going to waste money or time on music.”
He was wrong. In July 1973 he took a part-time [job as a barback, or bartender’s assistant] at Uncle Sam’s. McClellan got the job alongside an old friend from De La Salle High School, the straitlaced Jack Meyers.
In June 1975 he was rushed into management training, as he was transferred to American Scene’s Lincoln disco to become an Assistant Manager. And in May 1976, he returned to Minneapolis to start his long run as General Manager of Uncle Sam’s, then Sam’s, First Avenue, and 7th Street Entry, most names of which he created himself. By 1977 he was American Avents’ Rookie of the Year.
When asked to describe Uncle Sam’s in the mid ‘70s, Steve replied:
Blue-collar disco. Shag purple carpeting to match the Vikings’ motif. It was very mainstream – a blue-collar disco run by a bunch of people out of Cincinnati that had a real long-range vision of something that was going to die in three years. (Current 2014)
Matos:
Four years later, McClellan booked Nick Gilder and Starbuck, figuring they would be easy draws since each had #1 hits that year (“Hot Child in the City” and “Moonlight Feels Right,” respectively). Both tanked. “I paid too much and lost money,” says McClellan.
He had better luck a year later when, back-to-back, he booked Pat Benatar and the Ramones. Both were rousing successes, and American Events [by then Avents] noticed. “They let me do whatever I wanted after that, ’cause I sold out two shows like I knew what I was doing,” says McClellan, who was nevertheless surprised by the Ramones’ sellout. “I thought, They don’t even have a [hit] record out. How come people are buying these tickets? There was something exciting going on.”
. . .
But McClellan wouldn’t cut costs on bands. “I wasn’t looking at it in terms of a business plan. I was coming out of ’60s radicalism,” he says. “The only reason you exist is to make change. That’s why I was so hard on pure pop bands: I had no time for bands that didn’t have a message.”
In his book Hi Jinx and Hearsay, City Pages and Twin City Reader scribe Martin Keller wrote,
In my experience, McClellan was one of the smartest, most enthusiastic music lovers ever to run a joint. He had earned the respect of industry veterans, writers and reporters, and legions of musicians and music fans from across the diverse spectrum he brought to the stages of the main room and the Entry. He wasn’t fondly called “Chainsaw” by rock writer P.D. Larson for nothin’ either: Steve’s buzzing manner could silence the unaware.
A 1990 profile of him in a feature called “The Most Influential Movers and Shakers of the Twin Cities Music Community” has this to say about Steve:
A teddy bear in wolf’s clothing, McClellan has run First Avenue with a heart of gold and an iron fist. Hist tirades are legendary; his sincerity and grief-giving abilities seemingly boundless. While he’s quick to deflect praise to his support staff, over the past eleven years First Avenue/7th St. Entry has remained the Midwest’s most vital new music venue, due in no small part to McClellan’s energy and his willingness to take an active role in nurturing local music.
Steve takes no credit for the success of First Avenue, and insists that he relied on others for advice on which bands to book. Another factor in the mix was that the size of the venue precluded the big acts more suitable for arenas, and the major booking agencies were not interested in the club. As a consequence, he ended up working with smaller agents and record companies like SST that were more than happy to book their bands at the premiere club in town. Locally he often consulted people in the know like Peter Jesperson at Oarfolkjokephus, Jimmy Jam and Kevin Cole at the downtown Hot Licks, and Bob Mould of Husker Du. (Current 2014)
