Man Sized action interview from Matter 10. Interview and photo by Steve Albini.

By Steve Albini

You have to dig, first and foremost, exactly how fucking weird a place Minnesota is. It's weirder than Wisconsin. It's weirder than Nebraska. It's even weirder than Arkansas, and a waitress there once asked me if I wanted gravy with my french toast.

Dig the people who live there. Weird. All of them. They've got to be to stick it out in a place like that.

It's cold there, for starters. People who live in Minnesota think nothing of running down to the Rainbow for beer when it's 10 degrees below and the snow is shoveled into banks eight feet high. They're used to it.

THEY RIDE THEIR bikes in weather that would cripple any normal civilization. They go to nightclubs when rain freezes to their skin. They sit on frozen lakes and fish through little holes in the ice.

And, through some bizarre meteorological/geophysical/socio-political climatic conditions, they form these killer bands. In the '60s it was the Trashmen and the Litter, using the vocabulary of the day, but in the '70s it was a whole new language.

Suicide Commandos, NNB, Husker Du, the Suburbs and the Replacements constituted what the locals consider the "first wave" of post-76 Minneapolis bands. The Vendettas were in there too, but only they and their friends remember them.

Then the fans of the first wave became the second wave. There was a gap in town left by the first wave. Part died out (Commandos, Vendettas, NNB), part mutated into ungainly parodies of themselves (Suburbs, Replacements) and Husker Du went on tour. Man-Sized Action was, rather unsanitarily, born in that vacuum. So were Rifle Sport and Loud Fast Rules (now Soul Asylum), but that's another story. Two, in fact.

"WHEN HUSKER DU left on their first tour," says Tony Pucci, drummer for Man-Sized Action, "we figured we had better become a band." In the fall of 1981, they played a gig with the seven songs they had written in the few weeks since their first rehearsal. None of them could play a lick the week before that. They didn't even own guitars.

The lineup stabilized that year with Pucci on drums, Kelly "Spatch" Linehan on left-handed bass, Pat Woods on vocals and Tippy (look, his real name is just too silly to print, I don't wanna embarrass anybody I don't have to) on guitar.

The sound was simple. Tentative at first (it had to be, didn't it?), MSA grew within its limitations, ultimately growing out of them.

MSA's debut record, the sadly overlooked Claustrophobia album, was produced by Bob Mould and released on Husker Du's Reflex label last year in a pitifully small pressing that disappeared without a ripple. The record was raw and thin, and lacked both the depth and the punch of MSA live, but the songs came through. Huge killer songs with balls as big as houses treading the water between Mekons/Fall-styled practiced amateurishness and Joy Division/Wire-styled controlled creepiness.

SOME MONTHS LATER, Brian Paulson, lifetime pal of everybody in Minneapolis and operator of the world's finest one-man four-track attic demo studio, asked if he could join the ride.

"I think the thing about bands around here is that they put a lot of heart in it," says Pucci. "There's a relatively large number of musicians up here, and the bands seem to try really hard. There's only a small number of fans, but it's a loyal following, and the bands try to earn their respect."

"I think we're about as popular as the other bands around here," says Paulson, "which doesn't say that much. We just got our biggest check ever for a gig, $279. That's good for around here, though."

MSA has recorded and wiii soon release an eight-song 12-inch EP of material recorded since Paulson joined. The record, Five Story Garage, on Dutch East India's new label, has a dense, full sound that does justice to the band's material and live impact.

"THE NEW RECORD is a large thing," Pucci says, "it's very much a sizeable, big, large record, as opposed to Claustrophobia, which was a teeny thing, a small thing. We've got more of everything this time."

Paulson joining the band was a turning point, if the band doesn't admit it much, people who've seen them do.

"Brian can play, that's how he's different from us," says Pucci. "We don't see this as an end; we're just hacks. We play honestly and we try to put a little heart in it. That's all. Nowadays, I think that's enough, since nobody else is doing it."

It's different for MSA now. They can play. Like motherfuckers. Dig Pauison's guitar part to "57" (named for its position on the MSA Master Song List of History and Achievement): a rapid-fire sequence of chiming harmonics that would make Andy Gill hang himself in jealousy. Dig further the bizarre sense of timing that keeps Tippy's rhythms constantly in the netherworld between beats. Dig further still the bastard rhythm structure that has developed from Pucci being too cheap to buy a set of hi-hats.

LINEHANS BASS THROBS and rumbles in creepy figures that make you shiver almost as much as when Woods sings, in his Minnesota-weird moan, "Hey, ma, why'd you put me in here? Ihink of all the time I spent locked in that room. Claustrophobia."

That's the sort of sound that comes about spontaneously, devoid of mimicry. Some bands are content to wear influences on their sleeves, whether the Clash, Springsteen, MDC or Husker Du (sometimes all of them on the same sleeve), and some are willing to cut their own paths.

"Initially, it was enough for us to make any kind of coherent music at all," says Pucci. "We couldn't play in the beginning, so being able to play was an achievement, I personally want to sound like bowling balls going through a jet engine. Not just my drums, either."

Paulson thinks MSA is headed into different waters. "Our new stuff is more like wimpy pop. Not wimpy pop, but more like that. Real touching, you know. Not with clean guitars or anything, but more wimpy."

The future certainly looks bright for MSA. The band is even branching out into non-musical areas. "There's this thing we're working on with Menudo, but we can't talk about that, and we were the stunt band for Prince's movie. We're going to invest our money in bumper boats," says Paulson. "Like at the World of Christmas park. You get into these inner tubes with outboard motors, and play Soak the Bassist. That's the future. Bumper Boats."

"No," Pucci corrects. "Pickle's Gin is the future. After that, Bumper Boats."