Suicide Commandos, “Try Again” (2017)

[listen up!]

The original Twin Cities punk-rockers, the Suicide Commandos ruled the nascent local scene in the second half of the 1970s, an irresistible live act built out of trash rock ‘n’ roll, heirs to the Trashmen, Monkees, New York Dolls, and others. They entered oblivion as the three principals moved and reinvented themselves in various ways. But punk-rock means never having to say you’re old again just because you’re living forever. Approximately 30 years later the trio reassembled to play comeback gigs, pick up the trash on a stretch of highway in Minnetonka, and, eventually, record another album, Time Bomb. They acquitted themselves well there, with all-original songs and an unmistakable dedication to the ideals of rock ‘n’ roll aging grizzled but still effective, with no overreach, like the old friend of a plainly well-used amplifier they put on the cover of the album. The whole thing is worth checking out. “Try Again” may be as good a place as any to enter in—perhaps one of the best. It’s tidy. It can feel almost effortless. And it sets its hooks deep. With only the preamble of a single drum hit by drummer Dave Ahl it locks into a throbbing groove guaranteed to set heads bobbing. You feel it right away. It bears the potential to grow into something much larger and more significant. The doggy yips no one could have expected only signal the freewheeling dedication to fun—complicated fun, the band’s calling card. “Try Again” is a simple exercise in rock, all sustained control, the singer stalking and riding the surging glides with an air of patience and persistence. Declarations of fidelity like this seem likely to last a lifetime, or at least for the three minutes this song goes. Chris Osgood’s squalling electric guitar answers any remaining questions about this song written by Steve Almaas, my old high school mate who died last week. R.I.P.

Time Bomb (2017)

I don't keep careful track of such things, but surely the 39 years that passed between the first album by the Suicide Commandos and this second one must be some statistical record. Even Paul McCartney and Santana came up short of 30 years between top 10 hits ("Spies Like Us" and "FourFive Seconds" for the one and "Black Magic Woman" and "Smooth" for the other). At this point I know it's mandatory to mention whether it was worth the wait, but as far as I'm concerned, like the 2015 This Is the Sonics, I'm just happy they did it—"rage against the dying of the light," you know. The fact that Time Bomb is a pretty good album is a bonus. The Suicide Commandos, the Minneapolis mid-'70s punk-rock standard-bearers (accept no substitutes), were matched in 1978 with Cleveland's finest, Pere Ubu, on the Mercury subsidiary label Blank (not to be confused with Glenn Danzig's original Misfits project). That first Commandos album, Make a Record, was released simultaneously with Pere Ubu's first, The Modern Dance. Pere Ubu went on to the more illustrious career, and the truth is in 1978 the Commandos were close to calling it quits for almost two decades. Make a Record was a pretty good album too—packed with great, classic songs from their set list—but it was unfortunately dogged by a poor recording. That problem has certainly been addressed on Time Bomb, which is as explosive as the title suggests, crackling with energy, power, and clarity. A more nebulous problem has also been fixed: the three principals—drummer Dave Ahl, bassist Steve Almaas, and guitarist Chris Osgood—seem to like each other more than they did in 1978. The humor is still intact too, based on misspent youth watching trashy movies and playing Monkees records, and they generally rock the house with authority all night from track to track.

If the album consists mostly of solo songwriting credits, the attack of the band is as sharp as ever, updated to beyond middle age, for a seamless batch that's nice to play a lot. And there are a couple of formal collaborations, including one of the best songs here, "If I Can't Make You Love Me," with a monster riff straight from the '70s (is that Bad Company? Thin Lizzy? Aerosmith? I know I should know it) and garbled adolescent sentiments ("you're an idiot, shitty-it, itty-bitty fitty-it," innit?). All my favorites have big riffs and hark to classic-rock or even, dare I say it, boogie. If I had to pick a single favorite it would probably be Osgood's "Pool Palace Cigar," a devil's riff by way of ZZ Top paired with a narrative about traveling through small towns trying to act cool and getting drunk—perfect. His "Boogie's Coldest Acre" is another good one, complete with a classic Osgood riff. This time the boogie mainly exists in the title. The song appears to be about a dangerous situation that needs to be defused. It comes in versions with and without swearing—"put that thing down" versus "put that fucking thing down"—and for some reason (maybe because I'm 39 years older now too) I like the one without swearing more. "Cocktail Shaker" is by Ahl and works more swampy boogie rhythms, with a sinuous guitar line and a way of moving, stopping, and starting that is propulsive. "Depth charge rock" I wrote in a note. All together: "Shake!" Ahl likes his trash culture and Osgood tended to favor the story song, whereas Almaas (full disclosure, a high school friend) has long seemed more rooted in the Buddy Holly / Beatles / Byrds schools of country-inflected pop. A few of his songs here—notably "Try Again," "For Such a Mean Time" (Byrds strained through Cyril Jordan Flamin' Groovies), and "The Wrong Time"—tend to be the ones that make me happiest coming back to the album regularly. His "When I Do It, It's OK" comes out of the same high-velocity kick as the Beatles' "Dizzy Miss Lizzy" and other '50s covers. Time Bomb: Play loud. All of it.

99. Buzz Barker & the Atomic Bums, "Land of the Free" (1979)

(listen)

Buzz Barker = Curtiss A. The Atomic Bums = the Suicide Commandos + keyboardist Mark Goldstein, who wrote the song, and a few others. This Minneapolis one-off was recorded for the Twin Tone double-LP anthology, Big Hits of Mid-America Vol. III, and it's a scorcher. Both Curtiss A and the Commandos were known for their live acts, which only rarely made it to vinyl. But this is one of those times, with a meditation on American values right in front of the Reagan revolution ("1980's just around the corner," Curtiss A broods as an aside at one point, which I recall as a frequent preoccupation of his at the time). In a lot of ways it seems more relevant than ever: "I like money but I hate the rich / They run this place and the rest of us bitch," it carps, going on to rhyme "home of the brave" with "learn to shave," "Jesus saves," "Sam & Dave," "the New Wave," and "we're in our graves," and it stretches out all kind of ways: Chris Osgood gets a tidy guitar solo. Goldstein sends it into ultra dimensions with haunting lovely long notes near the end. And the band absolutely cooks all through. Sometimes I just have to sit back and gape, still. This was a lift-and-drop needle operation on my stereo for most of the summer that it was released, a constant prelude to leaving my studio apartment and going on all my adventures, day job as delivery van driver, summer school classes, and out at night to the Longhorn to see touring and local punk-rock acts. But it's not just the nostalgia talking when I laud this song so ardently, because I don't think you had to be there to grasp its fundamentals. You just need to listen to it.