Overview:
The well-loved musician began his career in his native Minneapolis and spent his final years in the Hudson Valley. He passed on June 5 at age 70.
The Hudson Valley music community was greatly saddened to hear of the passing of musician Steve Almaas, who left us last weekend after a brave battle with cancer. He was 70 when he died on June 5.
I first encountered Almaas in the early 1980s, visually and sonically: a wiry kid in an ironically appropriated and too-small purple girls’ softball team T-shirt, grinning away on the cover of a used copy of Make a Record, the Suicide Commandos’ 1978 debut album. Formed in 1975 by bassist Almaas, guitarist Chris Osgood, and drummer Dave Ahl—they all sang—the trio was Minneapolis’s first punk band and a direct influence on the Replacements, Hüsker Dü (the latter covered Commandos’ “Mosquito Crucifixion” the first time I saw them), and other locals.
Although the Suicide Commandos would occasionally reunite over the years (the three played together in Minnesota as recently as 2023), they scattered in late 1978, with Almaas eventually switching to guitar and heading to the New York Metro area, where he formed the short-lived Crackers and recorded a solo EP, Beat Rodeo, before launching a band named for the record. Beat Rodeo, a chiming jangle-pop quartet with country-twang touches, made two mid-’80s albums before calling it quits; Almaas next played briefly with the Raybeats and the Del-Lords and began recording under his own name and in a duo with his then partner, the musician, author, and photographer Ali Smith.
Outside of his music career, Steve taught public school in New York for many years, commuting from the city to the quietude of outer Saugerties, where he’d purchased the weekend getaway spot that after time became his full-time residence. He also took a job at the Woodstock Public Library, where he was much loved by the staff and the clients. Although Beat Rodeo was still around when I landed in New York in the early 1990s—their residency at the Ludlow Street Cafe is legendary—it was until I was up here myself that I got to know Steve, one of the sweetest and most humble rockers you’d be lucky enough to meet, who indulged me graciously with my queries about the Suicide Commandos and the early Twin Cities punk scene.
Fittingly, the last time I saw Steve was at an April gig by Freek’s Garage at the Tinker Street Tavern, where he and his girlfriend, actress and Howland Cultural Center board member Brandy Burre, who so lovingly stayed with him and nursed him through his transition. He and Brandy were photographed by David McIntyre for our May Beacon pop-up photo shoot. Alongside Brandy, he leaves behind two sisters, a daughter, and two grandchildren.
Everyone at Chronogram would like to extend our deepest sympathies to Steve’s family, bandmates, and many friends and fans.
