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What bands play each Twin Cities music venue most often?

by Jay Gabler

June 19, 2014

Foursquare lets you see which local music fan—at least, among those who use the app—is "mayor" of each venue (attending shows there most frequently), but what about bands? Who holds down the fort most often at First Ave, or the Turf Club, or the Triple Rock?

To find the answers, we asked Dave Loomer, who runs MN Live. An impressive technical feat, MN Live automatically crawls local venues' websites to collect information on shows hosted there. That information is fed into a Google Calendar, a Twitter account, and a Facebook page for the convenience of local music fans who want to be kept up to the minute on who's playing where. Loomer also offers a service that searches your Foursquare checkins to tell you what music shows you've attended.

That means that Loomer has a giant database of local music shows, and we asked him to search the database to tell us what artists play various local venues most frequently. They're listed below—scroll down to discover which artists are the "mayors" of some of your favorite venues, presented in alphabetical order. Numbers of gigs appear in parentheses; we've listed the top ten artists at each venue, except in cases where the tenth spot is a tie, in which case we include all artists tying for that spot.

A couple of notes: the data below reflect shows indexed by MN Live since early 2009, so they represent just over the last five years of history (including upcoming shows that have been booked and announced but have not yet occurred). For venues founded since 2009, these data reflect the venues' entire histories. The data include only venues indexed by MN Live—a list determined by Loomer based on the interest of his audience and venues' online schedule availability.

All artists were included in this tally—both local and national—but unsurprisingly, in most cases the lists are dominated by local artists who live in town and are available to play more frequently. The data include all publicly announced and scheduled shows, whether ticketed or not, whether headlining or supporting—so if you play the Entry once as a headliner and once as a supporting act, that counts as two shows. Finally, MN Live defines an "artist" as the venue defines it—so artists performing in various bands are counted separately for each act.

Note: ​Not all DJ/dance nights have been indexed on MN Live, as Loomer's thoughts about how and when to represent them to his audience have changed. Thus, some dance nights don't appear in the list below, though others do. Unfortunately this is a limitation of these particular data, and isn't meant to slight any of the popular and talented artists who run those nights. The list of venues is also simply the list of those that have been consistently indexed on MN Live, and isn't meant to indicate any editorial endorsement. We present these data merely as an interesting snapshot of the local music scene at several Twin Cities venues over a five-year period.

331 Club

1. The Roe Family Singers (255)

2. Pocahontas County (113)

3. Corpse Reviver (53)

4. Glen Hanson (52)

5. Po' Boy Local 151 (43)

6 (tie). Brianna Lane (26)

6 (tie). Poor Nobodys (26)

6 (tie). Doug Otto and the Getaways (26)

6 (tie). Doug Otto and Friends (26)

10. We Are the Willows (22)

7th Street Entry

1. Red Pens (17)

2. Aaron & the Sea (14)

3 (tie). Prissy Clerks (13)

3 (tie). Me and My Arrow (13)

5 (tie). Gospel Gossip (12)

5 (tie). Mike 2600 (12)

7 (tie). Colder in Moscow (11)

7 (tie). Machine 22 (11)

7 (tie). Red Daughters (11)

7 (tie). Kids Like Us (11)

Amsterdam Bar & Hall

1. Reina del Cid (74)

2. Jack Brass Band (20)

3. Katy Vernon (15)

4. The Tim Malloys (14)

5. Cait Leary (13)

6 (tie). Courtney McClean & The Dirty Curls (10)

6 (tie). Mother Banjo (10)

6 (tie). Sarah Morris (10)

9 (tie). The Ericksons (9)

9 (tie). Exiles (9)

9 (tie). Dan Israel (9)

9 (tie). Dana Thompson (9)

9 (tie). Ian Alexy (9)

9 (tie). Matthew Griswold (9)

Cabooze

1. Soap (104)

2. Dead Larry (16)

3. Useful Jenkins (12)

4 (tie). Heatbox (10)

4 (tie). Wookiefoot (10)

6 (tie). God Johnson (9)

6 (tie). White Iron Band (9)

6 (tie). Hyentyte (9)

6 (tie). Jon Wayne and the Pain (9)

6 (tie). Circle of Heat (9)

6 (tie). Sovereign Sect (9)

Cause Spirits and Soundbar

1. Dream Crusher (40)

2. Me and My Arrow (22)

3. Hardcore Crayons (20)

4 (tie). BNLX (18)

4 (tie). Rockford Mules (18)

6. Hunting Club (16)

7 (tie). Buildings (15)

7 (tie). Kill Me Kare Bare (15)

7 (tie). Prozac Rat (15)

10 (tie). The Desert Vest (14)

10 (tie). Blue Sky Blackout (14)

10 (tie). Two Harbors (14)

Cedar Cultural Center

1. Charlie Parr (13)

2. The Brass Messengers (12)

3. Chastity Brown (11)

4 (tie). Haley Bonar (10)

4 (tie). Pert Near Sandstone (10)

5 (tie). Roma di Luna (9)

5 (tie). The Brass Kings (9)

5 (tie). Cafe Accordion Orchestra (9)

8 (tie). Lucy Michelle & the Velvet Lapelles (8)

8 (tie). Cactus Blossoms (8)

10 (tie). The Pines (7)

10 (tie). The Roe Family Singers (7)

10 (tie). Malamanya (7)

First Avenue (Mainroom)

1. Plain Ole Bill (21)

2 (tie). Jimmy 2 Times (19)

2 (tie). Get Cryphy! (19)

4. DJ Jake Rudh (17)

5 (tie). P.O.S. (15)

5 (tie). Last Word (15)

7 (tie). Doomtree (13)

7 (tie). Brother Ali (13)

9. Trampled By Turtles (12)

10 (tie). Umphrey's McGee (11)

10 (tie). Mason Jennings (11)

10 (tie). Jeremy Messersmith (11)

10 (tie). Solid Gold (11)

10 (tie). Communist Daughter (11)

Hexagon Bar

1. Teenage Moods (35)

2. Nato Coles and the Blue Diamond Band (25)

3. The Slow Death (24)

4. The Real Numbers (21)

5. Buildings (19)

6 (tie). Funeral & The Twilight (18)

6 (tie). Hollow Boys (18)

8. Red Pens (17)

9 (tie). Self Evident (16)

9 (tie). Les Deux Magots (16)

9 (tie). Claps (16)

9 (tie). Hot Rash (16)

9 (tie). Is/Is (16)

Icehouse

1. Droppers (71)

2. JT's Jazz Implosion (67)

3. James Buckley (61)

4. Bryan Nichols (58)

5. Phil Aaron (25)

6. Patrick Harison (24)

7. Michael Hauser (20)

8 (tie). Coloring Time (18)

8 (tie). Willie and the Specters (18)

10. T Collective (17)

Kitty Cat Klub

1. Connie Hawkins (33)

2. 1990 (26)

3. Broken Bicyles (25)

4. Porch Knights (19)

5. Funeral & The Twilight (17)

6. The Golden Bubbles (16)

7 (tie). Chord and the Fawn (14)

7 (tie). Mages (14)

7 (tie). Jack Klatt (14)

10 (tie). Claps (13)

10 (tie). Nice Beaches (13)

10 (tie). Hollow Boys (13)

Lee's Liquor Lounge

1. Dan Lund & Buffaloaf (227)

2. Davina & the Vagabonds (53)

3. Trailer Trash (49)

4. E.L.nO. (46)

5. Becky Thompson & Old School (44)

6. The Bootstrap Family Band (42)

7. Church of Cash (39)

8. The Belfast Cowboys (37)

9. The Bad Companions (36)

10 (tie). Elmer & The Thunderjetts (35)

10 (tie). Roxxy Hall Band & All Women's Jam (35)

Triple Rock Social Club

1 (tie). In Defence (18)

1 (tie). The Slow Death (18)

3 (tie). The Evening Rig (16)

3 (tie). Gay Witch Abortion (16)

5 (tie). Prizefighters (13)

5 (tie). Rocksteady Breakfast (13)

5 (tie). Arms Aloft (13)

8 (tie). Off With Their Heads (12)

8 (tie). Dillinger Four (12)

8 (tie). The Right Here (12)

Turf Club

1. Cactus Blossoms (84)

2. Fat Kid Wednesdays (43)

3. Charlie Parr (28)

4 (tie). Gay Witch Abortion (23)

4 (tie). The Blind Shake (23)

5. Birthday Suits (22)

6. Pocahontas County (20)

7 (tie). STNNNG (18)

7 (tie). F--k Knights (18)

7 (tie). Leisure Birds (18)

10 (tie). Nightosaur (17)

10 (tie). Teenage Moods (17)

Varsity Theater

1 (tie). Dan Rodriguez (9)

1 (tie). Keri Noble (9)

3 (tie). Ari Herstand (7)

3 (tie). Cedar Avenue (7)

3 (tie). Koo Koo Kanga Roo (7)

3 (tie). Tyrone Wells (7)

7 (tie). White Light Riot (6)

7 (tie). The Alarmists (6)

7 (tie). Quietdrive (6)

7 (tie). Augustana (6)

7 (tie). Red Daughters (6)

Infographic: Comparing venue sizes in the Twin Cities

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Clean Water Land & Legacy Amendment
This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.