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.

Suburbs, "Chemistry Set" (1978)

(listen)

I think the Suburbs are now not so known outside of the Twin Cities of Minnesota. They flared up in the early '80s as a lively DOR act (dance-oriented rock, we were calling it), earned the distinction of a couple of Christgau reviews (an A- and a B-), and tried to find a way to wallow into the mainstream the weird pastiche that animated them of a supper-club Bryan Ferry (in the person of dapper pianist and tux-wearer Chan Poling) welded at the hip to a streaming-sweat Iggy Pop (in the person of Blaine John "Beej" Chaney, who often appeared in need of diapering). Eventually they were lost in the mid-'80s hoopla of Prince, the Replacements, and all that. Interestingly (or not) the Suburbs hailed from the suburbs where I grew up, in and around Hopkins and Minnetonka, west of Minneapolis. I went to high school with guitarist Bruce Allen (who died in 2009) and bassist Michael Halliday. Chan and Beej and I think drummer Hugo Klaers went to high school in another school district an easy bike ride from where I grew up. The nine-song 7-inch EP that climaxes with "Chemistry Set," The Suburbs, was the first-ever release by the indie label Twin/Tone in 1978. It was the band's showstopper for a long time, primitive, bone-headed, roaring simplicity, in all of 1:11. "I'm into chemistry and that's about it" is the lyric. Repeat as directed. Lazy blogger takes the easy way out of making and posting a YouTube of the song, found now on an excellent 2003 compilation, Chemistry Set, along with more of their greats, surprisingly many of which actually still are great (and some of which we will be getting to by and by). Instead, this time, I found a video from their performance at the Minneapolis M-80 festival in September 1979. Two points: 1) the lyric as noted above (it's not always intelligible in this version), and 2) ... I was there.