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Glam Slam clubs

Glam Slam will be another thing to centre Minneapolis in the national eye.

Although operated by his bodyguard Gilbert Davison, Prince owned a stake in a chain of four nightclubs throughout the early-to-mid 1990s, which he named Glam Slam after the song he wrote in December 1987 and released on the Lovesexy album in 1988. Prince’s aim was to reinvent the nightclub scene for the 1990s.

Following a $1 million fit-out, the inaugural Glam Slam opened in the warehouse district of Minneapolis on 20 October 1990 with a show by newly signed Rosie Gaines. Sited at 110 North 5th Street, the club’s downtown location was chosen to rival First Avenue as the main live music venue of Minneapolis. Prince’s 5th Street Glam Slam was also larger – offering double the capacity at 20,000sq ft between its main level 1,300sq ft dance floor and 300 capacity members’ balcony ($3,000 3-year subscription). The venue could accommodate a total of 2,200 people, 800 greater than First Avenue. Its VIP room, named Erotic City, was where parties were held after hours, on occasion hosted by Prince himself. Regularly attending the club over the few years he kept it, on 6 January 1991 Prince chose the venue to stage the first live performance backed by his new band the NPG. Prince would play a total fifteen performances at Glam Slam Minneapolis, primarily as the setting for his Interactive Tour in the spring and summer of 1994, performing this tour across all three of his US clubs. Prince also wove the new venue into the storyline of his 1990 movie Graffiti Bridge, the base where Prince’s character, reprising the role The Kid from Purple Rain, wrestled for ownership of the club from screen rival Morris Day. In September 1992, Glam Slam’s side alleyway provided the outside location for the video shoot of My Name Is Prince. A retail outlet NPG Store was opened on 3 August 1993 at 1408 West Lake Street, 3 miles south of Glam Slam, followed by a store in London’s trendy Camden on 30 April 1994.

Prince created the venue as a space to hear live music from the hip hop and 70s funk bands he felt were being swept aside by the rise of the industrial warehouse club scene of the early 1990s. Here Prince discovered Brother Jules who was DJing at Minneapolis Glam Slam and became a mainstay at across the Glam Slam chain of clubs. Prior to joining the NPG, keyboardist Morris Hayes founded the club’s in-house band. Glam Slam Minneapolis booked the likes of Oasis, BB King, Miles Davis, Soul Asylum, The Whalers, Creed, and The Time, its resulting popularity led to the opening of a second Glam Slam, which followed on 21 December 1991. Located at 3-4-17 Shinyamashita in Yokohama, Japan, the venue was also featured its own restaurant. Prince would play one show at Glam Slam Yokohama, a surprise performance on 6 April 1992 between concerts at Tokyo and Nagoya on his Diamonds And Pearls Tour.

A third Glam Slam opened on 22 January 1993, at 333 South Boylston, Los Angeles. The new club in this expanding chain was named Glam Slam West; the Minneapolis venue was consequently renamed Glam Slam North. The LA venue, formally a nightclub named Vertigo, boasted 28,000sq ft and capacity for 1,250 people and quickly became a go-to haunt for celebrities and supermodels alike. Acts who played Glam Slam West included 2Pac, Ice Cube, Peter Gabriel, No Doubt, Billy Idol, Bjork and Lush. Prince’s $700,000 dance show Glam Slam Ulysses was staged at the venue for its two-week run in late August to early September 1993. He and the NPG played the occasional concert at Glam Slam LA, performing a total of nine shows there between the summer of 1994 and the early half of 1995.

The fourth and final club got its grand opening in Miami on Prince’s birthday on 7 June 1994 and was duly named Glam Slam East – located at 1235 Washington Avenue, South Beach. Built in 1934 as an Art Deco casino and then from 1937 a cinema, in 1984 it was converted into a nightclub of 29,000sq ft, named Club Z (the venue Prince hosted the party closing the Purple Rain Tour in 1985), until Prince purchased the lease. Prince played a total of seven shows at the Miami Beach venue, opening it with a two-hour set to celebrate his first birthday as Prince love symbol, taking place in the early hours of 8 June 1994. A launch party was simultaneously staged at Glam Slam LA hosted by Nona Gaye.

Prince directed the styling of every club. Glam Slam LA featured his greatest input, fitted out to a colourful scheme of mustard, blue, scarlet and green, complete with gold Egyptian statues and purple dance floors emblazoned with his trademark Prince love symbol. The walls of Glam Slam Minneapolis were decorated with graffiti by Prince’s art director JC Munson and bedecked in neon stage sets from Prince’s previous tours. The clubs additionally served as test-beds for Prince’s latest music as well as useful alternative revenue streams since he was at this time locked in dispute with Warner Bros over the ownership of his music, which had led him to quit the label in 1993. Glam Slams also retailed exclusive Prince merchandise. The range of items on sale included one of a kind hand painted leather jackets designed by Steve Parke retailing at $850, Tamboraccas ($29), 14K gold Love Symbol pendants ($650), limited edition prints ($50) and baseball caps ($12).

Prince’s involvement with the chain proved short-lived, after selling his stake in Minneapolis Glam Slam it closed down in October 1995 and was afterwards renamed The Quest until that was forced closed in 2007 due to a fire. The LA venue shut in August 1995, and Miami Beach followed suit in February 1996 failing to recover its reputation after a police drug raid as part of the city’s bid to clean up the area. The NPG stores in Minneapolis and London closed in February 1996 and their stock transferred to Prince’s online retail site 1800newfunk.com.

Glam Slam Miami was sub-leased and briefly reopened when Prince played it one final time to perform an after show gig following the Jam Of The Year concert at Miami Arena in the summer of 1997, just before it permanently shut. Glam Slam Yokohama closed in December 1993 and reopened under new management in 1995 renamed as Bay Hall. Prince later revisited the former Miami Glam Slam, reopened in 2004 and renamed Mansion under the new ownership, on 18 March 2006 for the final date in his brief promotional tour for latest protegee Támar Davis.

Prince concerts at Glam Slam

Date	Venue	City / State	Country
6 January 1991 (2 shows)	Glam Slam North Warm-up for Rock In Rio Festival	Minneapolis, MN	USA
7 February 1991	Glam Slam North with George Clinton	Minneapolis, MN	USA
11 January 1992	Glam Slam North Diamonds And Pearls Tour preview	Minneapolis, MN	USA
6 April 1992	Glam Slam Yokohama Unnannounced opening night performance	Yokohama	Japan
18 February 1993	Glam Slam North Act I Tour preview	Minneapolis, MN	USA
26 February 1993	Glam Slam West Act I Tour preview	Los Angeles, CA	USA
17 April 1993	Glam Slam West Act I aftershow	Los Angeles, CA	USA
17 April 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour	Minneapolis, MN	USA
21 April 1994	Glam Slam North	Minneapolis, MN	USA
23 April 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour	Minneapolis, MN	USA
24 April 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour	Minneapolis, MN	USA
26 April 1994	Glam Slam North	Minneapolis, MN	USA
27 April 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour	Minneapolis, MN	USA
10 May 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour, in VIP Room	Minneapolis, MN	USA
13 May 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour	Minneapolis, MN	USA
24 May 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour	Minneapolis, MN	USA
28 May 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour	Minneapolis, MN	USA
29 May 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour	Minneapolis, MN	USA
8 June 1994	Glam Slam East Interactive Tour – birthday show broadcast live to all Glam Slam clubs	Miami, FL	USA
9 June 1994	Glam Slam East Interactive Tour	Miami, FL	USA
10 June 1994	Glam Slam East Interactive Tour	Miami, FL	USA
20 June 1994	Glam Slam West Interactive Tour	Los Angeles, CA	USA
26 June 1994	Glam Slam West Interactive Tour, VH-1 awards aftershow	Los Angeles, CA	USA
27 June 1994 (2 shows)	Glam Slam West benefit shows	Los Angeles, CA	USA
25 July 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour benefit show	Minneapolis, MN	USA
26 July 1994	Glam Slam North Interactive Tour benefit show	Minneapolis, MN	USA
8 August 1994	Glam Slam North with TKO Orchestra	Minneapolis, MN	USA
31 January 1995	Glam Slam West AMA aftershow	Los Angeles, CA	USA
12 May 1995	Glam Slam West	Los Angeles, CA	USA
13 May 1995	Glam Slam West	Los Angeles, CA	USA
8 June 1995	Glam Slam East Venue 1st anniversary show	Miami, FL	USA
9 June 1995	Glam Slam East	Miami, FL	USA
16 August 1997	Glam Slam East Jam of the Year aftershow	Miami, FL	USA

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