Suburbs, "Love Is the Law" (1984)

(listen)

At the time, focused on other things (Prince, Replacements, Husker Du, Bruce Springsteen), I gave this Suburbs song and album a whole lot of short shrift. I had occasion to hear it again, with fresh ears as it were, shortly after I found out early in 2010 that founding member, guitarist, and graphic designer Bruce C. Allen had died. Bruce (and bassist Michael Halliday) went to the same high school as me and I knew them both to hang around with now and then. The rest of the band grew up in my home suburb of Minnetonka. And they weren't the only ones starting bands. Arguably Twin Cities punk/New Wave of the '70s started with the Suicide Commandos (setting aside Skokie & the Flaming Pachucos, more of a key influence), which also included a member I went to high school with, bassist Steve Almaas, and the rest of the band from Minnetonka. The Suburbs turned out to be an awesome live act, along about 1981 and 1982, and some of that made it to their albums, notably In Combo and Credit in Heaven. Good reviews helped cast a hopeful glow too but already interest in New Wave was on the wane, unless maybe it was British. So the Suburbs just missed. When I recall some of the epic nights I had with them, usually at the Cabooze, which was close to where I lived, and hear what a rousing, supple, exciting shout of a thing this song is, and even remember some details of hanging out with Bruce way back—his bedroom was a detached structure from his family's house, making it more like a cool kid's fort for playing albums loud and honking joints, and he'd sit there doing both with a guitar in his lap—it makes me both sad and happy. I know it's projection of some kind, purely personal, but I hear all that in this song now.