The Electric Fetus is a record store with locations in Minneapolis

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

, Duluth

Duluth, Minnesota

Duluth is a port city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and is the county seat of Saint Louis County. The fourth largest city in Minnesota, Duluth had a total population of 86,265 in the 2010 census. Duluth is also the second largest city that is located on Lake Superior after Thunder Bay, Ontario,...

 and St. Cloud

St. Cloud, Minnesota

St. Cloud is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the largest population center in the state's central region. The population was 65,842 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Stearns County...

 in Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

. It was founded in June 1968 by partners Dan Foley and Ron Korsh. Minnesota Public Radio

Minnesota Public Radio

Minnesota Public Radio , is the flagship National Public Radio member network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, Classical Music and The Current, MPR operates a 42-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest serving over 8 million people...

 said of the Electric Fetus that it is "widely regarded as the pre-eminent indie record store in Minnesota."

The store was conceived of and created by Dan Foley and Ron Korsh. Several months after opening Korsh sold his half of the store to Keith Covart, who also obtained Foley's half about ten years later. It began in 1968 when Korsh rented a storefront in the Cedar Riverside

Cedar-Riverside, Minneapolis

The Cedar-Riverside, also referred to as the West Bank, is a neighborhood within Minneapolis, Minnesota. The boundaries of the neighborhood are the Mississippi River to the north and east, Interstate 94 to the south, and Hiawatha Avenue and Interstate 35W to the west...

 area of the West Bank (of the Mississippi River), then the Haight-Ashbury of Minneapolis , and moved to its current location at the corner of 4th Avenue and Franklin in 1972. A definitive actual history of the store was written by historians Penny Peterson and Charlene Roise in their account titled, "A History of the Electric Fetus" as prepared for the Greater Twin Cities Blues Music Society, in July 2006.

Owner Keith Covart estimates that the store has an inventory of approximately 50,000 titles.

The Electric Fetus Onestop is the wholesale distribution portion of the Electric Fetus. It has "a huge emphasis on local music and aim[s] to provide an outlet for local musicians/bands to consign their CDs or records to be available for distribution through the One Stop. The One Stop's primary focus is local indie record stores and secondly national Independent Record Stores." The Electric Fetus Onestop is located in the basement of The Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, and is not accessible to the public.

The Minneapolis Electric Fetus suffered some minor damage from an F0 tornado on August 19, 2009.

Trivia

• National Lampoon, among others, singled out the Electric Fetus as the worst name for a business.
• Bazaar magazine called the Electric Fetus one of the "best places in America to shop."
• Ringo Starr
  Ringo Starr
  Richard Starkey, MBE better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for The Beatles. When the band formed in 1960, Starr was a member of another Liverpool band, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. He became The Beatles' drummer in...
  
   wore an Electric Fetus print shirt to the 2010 Grammy Awards
  52nd Grammy Awards
  The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards took place on January 31, 2010, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Neil Young was honored as the 2010 MusiCares Person of the Year on January 29, two days prior to the Grammy telecast. Only ten of the 109 awards were received during the broadcast...
  
  .

External links

• Electric Fetus Homepage
• Myspace: Electric Fetus Onestop
• Myspace: Electric Fetus, Saint Cloud
• Electric Fetus' page on StylusCity
• Photos of the original Electric Fetus at the Minnesota Historical Society
  Minnesota Historical Society
  The Minnesota Historical Society is a private, non-profit educational and cultural institution dedicated to preserving the history of the U.S. state of Minnesota. It was founded by the territorial legislature in 1849, almost a decade before statehood. The Society is named in the Minnesota...
  
  .
• A History of the Electric Fetus.
• Electric Fetus mural near 6th and Cedar.