I have these moments all the time -- sometimes monthly, sometimes weekly, oftentimes every few minutes if I'm seeing the Liquor Pigs or the Dillinger Four -- when I'm reminded how fun local music is to cover. It's infinitely better than, say, writing about a Nickelback concert, which I also had to do this year. What a professional low that was. I couldn't even think of a good adjective to describe that guy's hair; I was that uninterested.
How seriously a band takes itself seems to correlate directly to how near it gets to the true spirit of rock 'n' roll nowadays. Time after time -- including the stupid fun I just described at the Turf Club's holiday party on Saturday -- I see bands hit the nail on the head in the Twin Cities music scene, which has a great tradition of doing it for the fun of it and not minding the big things. I honestly believe that somewhere deep down below his latest gold chain, even Prince laughs at himself. That's why he's still our local kingpin.
They’re called The Busiest Bankruptcy Lawyers in Minnesota (you know where they got the name), and lead singer/guitarist/songwriter Al Grande (a cook at The Malt Shop when he’s not ripping holes in the sound barrier) has whipped up the perfect recipe to compliment your particular brand of self-flagellation tonight.
“I’ll just write when I get upset about something,” says the sharp-dressed band founder nonchalantly over cold beers with his bandmates, bassist Nan Madden and drummer Jay Donohoe. “Usually within a half-hour of whatever happens. If something happens, I sit down and write about it. One thing is, I don’t keep things in.”
That’s a good thing, considering that his band’s debut CD, Move to Canada, (“We recorded it right around the time of Bush’s election, and it was like, well, we might as well all move to Canada now”) is chock full of those almost frightening, in-the-moment psychic grabs. From “The Fridge is Empty” to “Santa’s Shit List” and “Evil,” the record captures those intimate, wicked thoughts and emotions that run through (only the lonely) the pain-twisted minds of the heartbroken and the lovelorn.
But this isn’t Morrissey. There’s not a trace of shoe-gazer in this dude (and he IS a dude, though in the old West he probably woulda had a derringer up his sleeve)—no meek acquiescence to the pain, no surrender, no quarter. There’s no fey, self-pitying alterna-mope behind these poignant, from-the-gut lyrics. The ferocious axe attack backing the words is more representative of the guy you meet, the guy you see on stage. He keeps a mask on, like we all do, but sly barbs and smart-ass wisecracks aside, once the stage lights dim and the bar lights come up, there’s no hiding the pain in those eyes. Al’s been there. Al’s still there. And he’s not bad company, once you get past the Grinch front and the sour, dour, proclamations.
It’s not surprising that Al’s got the outlook he does, actually. Born and raised in the lonely expanses of South Dakota (“It’s one of the most God-forsaken places in the world,” he states matter-of-factly), he was weaned on classic rock but discovered punk and rural rage at an early age. “When I was younger, I listened to some real crap,” he shrugs. “I liked GBH and Agent Orange, I had a really big mohawk and played in a really shitty punk band. We had to rent out Howard Johnson’s; there were no bars to play in. But we were terrible.”
He eventually outgrew the punk phase, retaining the knowledge but delving into more eclectic stuff like Guided by Voices, Merle Haggard, and Joy Division (to whom he’s still frequently compared). He never actually planned to move to Minneapolis, but after meeting Tulip Sweet founder Steph Dickson while they were both working at a summer camp in the Black Hills and hearing about the scene, he and fellow music hound Donohoe both packed up and headed to the Twin Towns in the mid-’90s.
“I had seen a lot of Minneapolis bands; most of them came through Sioux Falls,” he recalls. “I saw The Libido Boys, Bad Trip, The Replacements. They were good. Minneapolis was just someplace to go, though. One thing I did know—I had to get out of South Dakota! (laughs) Everybody there was getting somebody pregnant or getting pregnant, or going to hair school.”
Al and Jay both grooved into the local scene immediately, making key friends in the biz, gigging with bands like Push on Junior, and forming their own all-original band, Box of Steaks (yeah, you know where that name comes from, too). “We went through a bunch of bass players,” recounts Al, “and we had James Kelly (also the original drummer for BBLiM) on drums, and Brian Harlan (who went on to law school, and thus gave the current band some real cred as far as their name was concerned), but we recorded an album and then broke up. I still have all the stuff on DAT, we might release it someday.”
Bassist/political lobbyist Nan Madden leans in close, and chides Grande with a smirk: “I kinda came into things a bit later.” She’s soft-spoken, but her finely-chiseled features harden a bit and her eyes spark when she hits on topics that move her. Born and raised in The Twin Cities, Madden grew up blissfully unaware of the classic rock rebellions, small-town madness, and long-distance travails that Grande and Donohoe experienced. “When I was a kid, I took piano lessons, junior high band.” she says, “I did college radio at Macalaster, and ended up going out to a lot of shows, helping out friends who were in bands. Then when I went to grad school, we had a really long break after Thanksgiving. I went home and stayed at a musician friend’s place who was going to be out of town. I saw a bass, and asked if I could play it while my friend was gone. (laughs) But I taught myself a little, and my friends taught me a little. This was the early ‘90’s, and I was into early Nirvana, Soundgarden, The Pixies. And I always loved local bands like The Replacements and Soul Asylum. I took lessons for a while when I lived in Denver from a guy who used to be in the Del Fuegos. But there’s a lot of stuff that these guys are so knowledgeable about, that I’ve never gotten exposed to. I might think it’s cool now, but sorry, I was never a teenage boy, you know? When you guys were listening to Kiss, I was into Duran Duran! (laughs) That doesn’t help me much. But I don’t know any Black Sabbath, or any of that stuff.”
Donohoe, though always in contact with Grande, has spiraled off on his own musical (and some not-so-musical) jaunts over the years. He spent time in Bellyflop, did the stint with Box of Steaks, scored a sweet job as a mechanical engineer, and still has his own experimental, four-track side project, Higgins (yep, you know where that name comes from, too), where he continues to break new musical ground and occasionally take respite from the howling fury that is BBLiM. “In college I started listening to Hendrix and Zeppelin, just getting into the older jams,” he grins. “Schooling myself, so to speak. But I didn’t really ever play that kind of stuff. In Box of Steaks, we did mostly original stuff. We had songs like “Kill My Boss” and “You Kids Get Out of My Yard.” Though his original calling was guitar, Donohoe seems right at home hovering maniacally over a set of skins, a perfectly shadow-y backdrop for Al and Nan’s sonic undulations. “I took up drums when I first moved in with Al, back in ‘93. Before that I was playing guitar, but then Jeff Budin got out of 900 Pounds and asked me to play drums for his new outfit, F-150. They changed the name to Supermodel after they kicked me out. (laughs) No, I was just too green. And frankly, I was getting a little burned out on the whole thing. I took a break, and this thing with Al and Nan has turned out to be great. Lots of fun.”
Grande himself has kept more than busy over the years, spending time in Push on Junior, working with roomie Mike Suade, serving axe duties with Überscenester and Murderapolis, and appearing at innumerable local cover contests, theme celebrations and late-night shenanigans. Lately, the band has hooked up with Minneapolis music and art collective Sursumcorda (along with a slew of other great acts, including 13 Hertz, Drunk Drivers, Kruddler and Likehell, as well as comedian Lewis Black and the films of Harder-Fuller—check it out at www.sursumcorda.com), and will perform this weekend as part of the grand opening of their cafe/multi-media center. Grande is as nonchalant as ever about the impending breakthrough music event, but is clearly itching to hit the boards. And though he revels in his rough, crank image, there’s a fat black pearl of a sense of humor lurking behind those too-big glasses. After a few beers and some small talk, he launches into a hilarious tirade those closest to him are all too familiar with. “You know, I threw a party for my divorce at the Turf Club a few years back, called it Love Stinks. (laughter all around) We had a shitload of bands come out. The only thing was, they had to play songs of hatred or betrayal.”
So is he militant about the hard-as-nails, anti-love image he cultivates? Don’t believe it for a moment. “The only thing I’m militant about,” he laughs out loud, “are all the shitty bands around this town. Smug people dancing around their fucking computers. I guess I think the technology is making things soulless. All these people playing along with tapes and shit. They might be nice, but their lyrics are terrible; they just write ’em to have something to sing. What I write is what I write. I don’t go back and edit—ever. I get it out, I yell, and it’s done. It scares the hell out of the people I work with. All the waitresses at my job hate me, a lot of them have requested not to work with me. If they fuck something up, I let them know about it. That’s my job—I yell at waitresses all day!” A glint of wicked humor glimmers in his eye as the light catches his spectacles. “No, but it’s true, a lot of the bigger bands in this town are very unfunny. And it’s not that we’re a comedy act—most of our lyrics are pretty depressing, but it should be fun. Not ‘thinking man’s rock.’ Ugh.”
BBLiM play as part of Sursumcorda’s Grand Opening Bash this Saturday, May 12th, at Sursumcorda, 319 N. 1st Ave., Mpls.
Being the busiest anything could have good and bad points. When Al Grande, defacto leader and point man for the disenfranchised (but highly seminal) local Minneapolis group, Box of Steaks, announce a while back that he was creating a band called "The Busiest Bankruptcy Lawyers in Minnesota," many an eyebrow was raised. "That's a mighty long name!" many said. That was a good point...As Box of Steaks, an arcane reference to the boundless George Corporaal's gift to those that replace the windshield on their car, the band had built a solid cult following with their dark, churning guitar styles. By pairing down to a three-piece and adopting one of the longest names to grace a poster or handbill, The Busiest Bankruptcy…(well, BBLIM for the rest of the article) came forth from the smoke and beer of a couple of summers ago.
The line-up of Al (who also moonlights in the highly-touted, though sometimes misunderstood, UberScenester), Nan (bringing her bass playing from the now-defunct Speed Limit Five) and drummer Jay (who's activities in Bellyflop and Higgins, as well as being a former Box of Steaks crony) is a solid foundation for the band's brand of swirling guitar churns. Original drummer (and former First Avenue nightclub staple) James Kelley, who appears in the band's music video for the song "Backwards," left the band for the rainy pastures of the Pacific Northwest almost a year ago. Naturally, Jay was the perfect replacement on drums for the band.
BBLIM's shows are usually a heady mix of loud, broken guitars, dark suits, and sweaty people handing shots of Jagermeister around. Their originals carry the musical burden of the band, a lovely wall of sound to say the least, and then the sense of this type of guitar-bred music can be understood: bands like The Cure, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Butthole Surfers, and Neil Young suddenly make so much more sense. While these three musicians are very busy indeed, they still find time to get out and see a lot of local and regional bands and enjoy libations in moderation. With just a four song demo under their proverbial belts, there is serious talk that they will be venturing into Flowerpot studios to record a new album with Rich (Glenrustles) Matson. If they don't get too busy, the album should be out this fall.