A packed house showed up for the first legal concert in roughly two years at Eclipse Records last Friday.

The featured act was Malachi Constant, preceded by fellow St. Paul rockers Hockey Night and Valender. Malachi singer/guitarist and Eclipse Records volunteer Carl Wedoff '01 is now booking free, all-ages shows on a regular basis.

Eclipse is unique among Twin Cities venues in that it frequently drawing high-profile local bands for exclusively all-ages performances. "[Eclipse] is the only place where rock culture and all-ages culture meets," said Malachi drummer Alex McCown '01.

Joe Furth began holding in-store performances when he opened the record store in September of 1999. Once noise complaints from neighbors started popping up, Furth was notified that retailers were forbidden by the city to offer entertainment (defined by the city as live music) without a cabaret license. Only bars and restaurants are eligible for the license.

Furth said that he started a 'no clapping' rule to avoid the ordinance. Shows ended by 10 p.m. and noise stayed under legal limits, but complaints continued. Under threat of citation, Furth discontinued the shows and took his case to the city council. Furth said "[they] just didn't want to push it or fight it."

"I felt strong about it," he said, "if the city supported kids, it would be different."

Last Friday, a crowd of high schoolers started gathering an hour before the concert was slated to start. One of them, Adam Vanney, articulated Furth's inspiration when he said, "Where else is there to be?"

Before performances were suspended, Eclipse had a reputation of not only hosting exciting local rock and hip-hop acts in their early days (Malachi Constant, Sean Na Na, Heiruspecs, Selby Tigers, Capitol Capitol), but also booking creative high school bands who might not get the same chance at other, more traditional venues.

Neighbors are divided on the overall value of Eclipse's impact on the community.

"I think [Furth] needs to just rethink the whole thing," said Dan Craig. A musician, Craig says the music itself is not the issue. Rather, he cites loudness, the small capacity of the venue, and lack of crowd control (if capacity is exceeded) as reasons why Eclipse "doesn't fit" in the neighborhood.

Lani Jordan, who lives a couple of houses down from Craig, said she was one of the few neighbors who was not bothered by the concerts.

Furth asserts that he did as much as he could to be proactive about relations with neighbors and St. Paul. However, after getting nowhere with city hall for months, he called the community together to hold an in-store deliberately aimed at shaking things up. Eclipse was cited for ordinance violation; Furth also gained the attention and assistance of City Councilmember Jay Benanav (of neighboring Ward four). With Benanav's help, the cabaret license ordinance got amended last November. Furth then proceeded through the application process for the license and began to exercise the privilege with last week's shows.

Part of the licensure agreement was to end concerts by 10 p.m., make some structural changes to the venue, and keep noise under legal limits.

As regular music programming resumes, a new crowd of young bands will be taking the stage and Macalester students will be able to participate in a local scene. In the meantime, Furth has already aquired a gameroom license from St. Paul (the first in the city in 10 years, as far as he knows), and plans to convert the basement into an arcade of classic game machines.