How We Got Here
The roots of DEMO (Diverse Emerging Music Organization) can be traced back to the Diverse Arts and Music Foundation (DAMF) the former non-profit arm of First Avenue & 7th St Entry, two historic music venues housed in the same landmark building in downtown Minneapolis. The building sits on the corner of First Avenue North and 7th Street North, from which the venues, known locally as The Mainroom and The Entry, get their names.
DAMF was created in 1999 by the club’s General Manager, Steve McClellan, to keep artistic development from getting lost in the ever-changing landscape and often stifling grind of the music business. The goal was to keep an environment that would “nurture, keep, protect, and create a safe place for the artist and an even safer place for the music,” as comedian Louie Anderson had said in a quote about the strength of First Avenue under McClellan’s management.
DAMF became a remarkably successful operation and was reorganized as DEMO by McClellan in 2005 upon his departure from First Avenue, becoming no longer affiliated with the club.
With McClellan at the helm, DEMO functioned similarly to DAMF as it showcased hundreds of emerging artists at dozens of venues throughout the Twin Cities. The list included Patti Smith, K’naan, The Hold Steady, The Twilight Hours, and many, many more.
DEMO also expanded its mission, taking on the role of educator by holding music industry panels and discussions on topics such as “Breaking into TV and Movie Music Licensing, “How I Learned to Survive in The Indie Music World,” “The Ins and Outs of Indie Music,” “Viral Marketing,” and “The Future of Music.”
This culminated in the creation of the DEMO Center for Music, which opened in 2015. The Center was DEMO’s own brick-and-mortar home that hosted music lessons, workshops, discussions, and live performances, along with other programming and collaborations with local arts and community organizations. Structured to resemble a music version of Minneapolis’ Intermedia Arts, it was a short-lived but extremely vibrant attempt to find the right path for DEMO.
“We were able to pull together something big. It was a grand idea that really brought Steve’s vision to life,” DEMO Board President Ted Martin has said about the project. “Lease problems forced changes and moving was going to make things unsustainable. But we learned a lot from it.”
DEMO stepped back, and its only activity over the next few years was to host shows at the Twin Ignition Start-Up Garage during Minneapolis’ Art-A-Whirl festival and at several Minneapolis Open Streets events. The pause in activity was used to reconsider and evaluate how DEMO could next best serve the musicians and legacy that it embodies and keep that sense of being that place where “music was safe as art” alive. This pause led to the creation of the Minnesota Music Archive. (MMA).
Created in 2020 from a generous donation from Paul Lindner in memory of his late wife Julie, and with additional support from the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS), the MMA’s mission is to create an archive of all available independent and small commercial recordings with Minnesota roots, preserving them for all time. The focus is on unsigned bands and those from minor (or discontinued) record labels.
The new initiative also helped sharpen DEMO’s mission focus: Promoting and Preserving Minnesota’s Independent Music Legacy. This mission gives the organization a past, present, and future-looking perspective. Learn more about the Archive at archive.demomn.org
DEMO’s Offices are located in the Keg House Building at 34 13th Ave NE within the Minneapolis Art District.