Double Lives: Aliccia Berg & Bob Zabor

Rock star Aliccia Berg Bollig, PhD is lucky she has two last names. The Karmanos Cancer Institute researcher conceived her successful band, Slumber Party, in 1998, while a doctoral candidate in molecular biology at MSU. This cerebral girl kept her double identity hush-hush because, "…no one really took you seriously in either realm if you were doing both." Yet she was serious enough to fund her own studies by securing a U.S. Department of Defense breast cancer research grant.

Splitting genes

For years Bollig lived a split life as Slumber Party toured the U.S. and Europe and signed with the Kill Rock Stars indie label. She issued three batches of mellow melodies under the Berg surname while labbing it at night to attach the Bollig tag to her research.

A native of rural Minnesota, Bollig recalls her engineer and "kitchen scientist" father applying career pressure but thinks her scientific bent wasn't really a choice. "It's hard to say whether genetically I'm predisposed like my father was or it was just becoming familiarized with it and enjoying it …." she muses.

She's currently investigating the HER2 oncogene – implicated in up to 25% of breast cancers, she says. And "rather than focusing on one gene or limiting the disease down to thinking about one individual factor that's causing it, we're now looking more broadly to see how the whole protein scheme in the cell is working together," she relates excitedly. "We're going to consider everybody's disease a new disease, and we'll find the best treatment for each woman …. So it won't just be giving everyone the same chemotherapy." She feels fortunate to be part of the problem's solution.

Back to the Musik

Bollig moves easily from lab implements to musical instruments, as guitar, drums, and piano join her over-achieving repertoire. So far, only the trombone of her teen years hasn't played in Slumber Party jams. "Can you imagine that scene: everything would be great if we could just find that trombone player!" she laughs.

Sans trombone, the band has been on roll, releasing 2006's "MUSIK," having their songs appear on various music compilations – including one from Warner Brothers, which played the soothing "I Don't Mind" on the "Gilmore Girls" television show. The song has a cool video, featuring whirling daisies and twirling pinwheels. Add to that a new single and Detroit show slated for early in the new year and one begins to wonder if Aliccia ever sleeps.

The quintet, which includes Raquel Salaysay, Naomi Ruth, Alia Allen, and Frances Reade, will remain all-girl. Bollig deems this "totally un-normal" in rock and roll and wants to see more girl-bands at the highest levels of the industry. "I think maybe the Bangles came close, but where are they now?" she wonders.

To be sure, mixing vocals and instruments isn't for the clumsy, coordination is key and Berg-Bollig uses her left brain to describe the process: With experience, she says, "things completely divorce themselves and it's almost like two different people playing, but playing so impeccably well together," and "soon enough I'm balancing a plate on one finger and a basketball on the other… There's a lot of pattern-building in your brain that is happening… like you've gotta wait until the synapses [make connections]."

A prolific lyricist who writes most of the band's numbers, the bookish Bollig finds most of her inspiration in print. "I used to always dream about the day I would write a novel and of course I'm never gonna do that, so I have two minute novels in my songs," and books, preferably decades or hundreds of years old, filled with "words and words and stories and poems. I would scrounge through those. I reject a lot."

A page of writing may yield only one catchy line, she notes, but eventually there'll be enough to fill her solo album. She'll be pairing with her piano for a spring 2008 UK release under the Alicia BB moniker.

Bob Zabor's Bakery Blues

At the Pinwheel Bakery in Ferndale, folks are gnawing on delights like Indonesian spice cake and lavender shortbread; but downstairs there's some jawing goin' on, as Bob Zabor tunes up his one man band, Jawbone. He lives life in triplicate: The international blues man and father of two runs the bakery with his wife, Ann St. Peter – and by day, programs back-end databases for online promotions company ePrize.

A graduate of MSU computer science, Zabor calls himself "academically oriented." It's an apt description considering how much word lust pops in his lyrics. Enigmatic phrases like "tombstone Chevy" and "donkey oil" fit neatly into Jawbone's raw musical numbers. Consider the "Doney" from song Zabor's "Doney Holler:"

"It was a strange word to me, right …. In fact, a lot of blues and old folk music uses old, out of date words and phrases," he states. "It’s an odd word from the blues past. It's really just another word for "lady" or "woman" translated different ways."

And Zabor lifted the name for five year-old Jawbone right off the side of a demolition and hauling company truck in his neighborhood because "I liked the way it sounded; it has a rural, Biblical kind of feel to it," he says. Apparently UK label Loose Music was a fan, too – it issued both his 2004 album, "Dang Blues" and "Hauling" in 2006.

A Box of Energy

The self-taught musician of 25 years says Jawbone's lilting sound "definitely has a garage rock 'n roll element because it's kind of loud and clangy. It's electric guitar and all that – " meaning banjo, harmonica, jaw harp, and drums. Appropriately enough, the programmer uses a computer box as a durable proxy for a drum --far easier than hauling a 50 pound kit on a European tour or busking in front of the Magic Stick and Detroit's St. Andrews Hall.

The unassuming Zabor is a solo artist – and likes it that way. "… I don't know if it’s a control thing or just a way to get things done. I just like it for the novelty of it." Jawbone's MySpace page video of a record store performance in Newcastle, England is a record of motion on the move. Zabor is captured in all his harmonica blowing, guitar dancing, tambourine-bungeed glory.

Calling his musical conglomeration "a pretty high energy affair," is a modest description to say the least. With pieces like "My Daddy" and "Bullcat" Zabor's a blur of sound and motion. "It's a challenge. Sometimes it falls apart. You gotta be in good shape…. I'm kind of playing the guitar and running in place and yelling at the same time," he says matter-of-factly.

All that running and yelling attracted notice in some pretty high places. The late  BBC Radio-1 icon John Peel invited Zabor to perform on air in 2004. The session was by far the biggest thing his music has done for him, he says. "Seems like anybody you've heard of in the last 20 years has done a Peel session," –-think Nirvana and The White Stripes. It was "my little rock 'n roll historical moment."

There is no doubt, however, that another one is in the making, as the multi-talented Zabor passes nights recording Jawbone's next album in the bakery basement studio – on life's third shift.