It was sad news for Corn-Fed New Wavers® last week with Blaine John “Beej” Chaney having died on January 5th while on his daily swim in the Pacific Ocean. The Suburbs were the inaugural band on Minneapolis’ vital TwinTone Record label with their EP “The Suburbs” kicking off that midwestern New Wave empire. I caught wind of this unfortunate event on the 11th and now we will discuss him here in ways that I have been shamefully lacking on over the 15 years of this blog. With only a single 12″ single ever having discussed in these virtual pages.

Stuck down in Orlando, Florida at the time, I was late to the game on The Suburbs. Their debut EP was right in there with a 1978 release that was the first from Twin Tone. I read about them in the pages of Trouser Press magazine, who gave raves to their first two albums, but I did not crucially have them enter my ears until 1983! Five years into their releases. An eternity for that time! But via the vector of MTV and the band being signed to Polygram via a deal with local hotshot Steve Greenberg, fresh from a world-conquering hit in “Funkytown” with him nicely producing, their video/single for “Love Is The Law” was a brash and exciting song that was infectious in its verve. I went out and immediately bought a promo 12” mix of the cut but dawdled on the full “Love Is The Law Album.” What did pass through the local stores [Crunchy Armadillo!] was their preceding release, the “Dream Hog” EP. And for long years that was my Suburbs collection.

The band were cut from Polygram after “Love Is The Law” failed to move great numbers but they secured a berth with A+M [who else!] that resulted in a single eponymous album in 1987…that also failed to sell in convincing numbers for the suits. After which, the band, sensibly, after a decade of efforts, split apart and that was that for many years. Twin Tone issued a live at First Avenue album in 1994. With rare reunion shows happening locally in Minneapolis where they were certainly big kahunas of the scene.

By the turn of the century, the profile of the band began to look up. Fortunately for all of us, Chaney himself licensed the masters for the extant Suburbs CDs out in the world courtesy of his own Beejtar label. The excellent reissues of “In Combo,” “Credit In Heaven,” and “Love Is The Law” came out in 2002. The next year Chaney issued a compilation CD: “Chemistry Set: Songs Of The Suburbs 1977-1987” that made a great point of entry. Chaney himself had moved to Los Angeles and bought and rennovated Shangri-la studios. Eventually selling that in 2011 to Rick Rubin.

The next big move occurred in 2013 when the band crowdsourced a new album; their 5th studio recording entitled “Sí Sauvage.” Spurred by the death of original guitarist Bruce Allen in 2009, this disc saw the core of Chaney with other vocalist/keyboardist Chan Poling and drummer Hugo Klaers picking up two new members and continuing on a path forward that’s lasted until today. Though Chaney only played with the band through the “Sí Sauvage” album and tour before heading back to Hermosa beach. Where he released two solo projects with a new collaborative Rockabilly album with Robby Vee, “Shake It All Up” which was scheduled for imminent release but is now being delayed and possibly reconfigured into a tribute.

Fortunately, the last twenty years has seen me finally act on the bulk of their catalog. With just a few releases evading my grasp at this time. The first two EPs are out of my price range, but they are available digitally. I’ve been buying the CDs and 12″ records and only need a few singles before I can wrap up a complete Suburbs collection. The band were fascinating. One of those bands that the midwest produced in the 70s when the Rust Belt scraped hard against a highly educated population of young people with no desire for limitations.

The early releases were twitchy New Wave, played with Punk speed but eventually incorporating plenty of Art Rock DNA into the roiling mixture. Fitting, since both Poling and Chaney attended college at the prestigious CalArts Institute before returning to Minneapolis to create The Suburbs in earnest. The band were fitting at various times on a spectrum between Pere Ubu on one hand and Roxy Music at their early-to-middle period on the other. Their penchant for sharp suits onstage marked them as Ferry disciples to a degree. Like Pere Ubu, they have that midwestern, postmodern slant as well as a vocalist in Chaney who didn’t sound like anybody else, with his intense, strangulated yelp being utterly distinctive.

On some of the songs he’s emoting so vividly, it seems like he’s going to burst into flames at any moment. Then he’s capable of pivoting to a prosaic piece of Dada like the song “Cows” while being utterly deadpan. The Suburbs weren’t content to stick to the script and offered a technicolor outlook for a geographically bland locale. The “In Combo” album was a sidestep away from Punk on most of its tracks, but there was room for a song like “Eye Sight” which was redolent of early solo Eno at his most placid and bucolic like “On Some Faraway Beach” or “Some Of Them Are Old.”

The first thing I did on the 11th was to pivot to a program of all Suburbs on playback. Marveling at the scope and growth of those first three CDs. And I also discovered that while I bat both “Sí Sauvage” and “Hey Muse!” on my want list, in 2021 the band had released a third modern era disc in “Poets Party” that I had been long unaware of. Memo to self. In the interim, it’s time to bust out those Suburbs records and discs and reacquaint ourselves with their reckless allure. Records that we can listen to now and proclaim, “now that was New Wave!” Condolences to his family, friend and bandmates who will have to adapt much harder to his loss.

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