The jukebox can be an instrument of empowerment. Play the right songs, and you'll have everyone in the bar swaying and singing along, shooting many approving glances your way. However, if you select, say, the entire repertoire of Enigma or the screechy hidden tracks of Beck, you'll be publicly humiliated as a Bad Chooser of Music. This won't happen at Dave's Stagecoach Inn, where an impressive selection of albums makes it by far the best jukebox in town. All the standard favorites are on there, like Led Zeppelin, Elvis, the Beatles and Blondie, as well as many genres of music, from ska to punk to funk. It also features
Round Here, a compilation album of local bands that includes great hits like "Forever Always Ends" by Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys; a disc of "favorite jukebox sing-alongs"; and the sadly apropos
Life During Wartime, which includes "War" by Edwin Starr and "The Ballad of the Green Berets." At Dave's, where there's no such thing as being a jukebox pariah, only a jukebox hero.
