Suicide was an American musical duo composed of vocalist Alan Vega and instrumentalist Martin Rev, intermittently active between 1970 and 2016. The group's pioneering music used minimalist electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers and primitive drum machines, and their early performances were confrontational and often ended in violence.[7] They were among the first acts to use the phrase "punk music" in an advertisement for a concert in 1970—during their very brief stint as a three-piece including Paul Liebegott.[8][9]
Rev and Vega met and became friends in 1970. After the former's avant-jazz band broke up, they decided to form a band together. The initial line-up was Vega (a.k.a "Nasty Cut" or "Nasty Punk") on guitar, trumpet, and vocals, Rev (a.k.a "Marty Maniac") playing drums and keyboard and Paul Liebegott (a.k.a Cool P) on guitar. Their first show was June 19, 1970 at the Project of Living Artists in lower Manhattan. They soon began billing themselves as "punk music". Liebegott left at the end of 1971, and they continued as a duo. By that point, Vega was no longer playing any instruments, and began performing only vocals. Rev stopped playing drums and blowing whistle by early 1975. By 1973, they had become part of lower Manhattan's underground music scene, and played shows with the likes of the New York Dolls and the Fast. Their first release was "Rocket U.S.A.", which was included on the 1976 Max's Kansas City compilation. The following year, they recorded and released their debut album. They played their first overseas shows in 1978, supporting Elvis Costello and the Clash in the UK and Western Europe. They continued to perform sporadically in the following decades, until playing their final shows in 2015. Shows scheduled for the following year were cancelled, due to Vega's declining health and eventual death.[12]
According to a 2002 interview of Alan Vega, the name of the band was inspired by the title of a Ghost Rider comic book issue titled "Satan Suicide". He further explained, "We were talking about society's suicide, especially American society. New York City was collapsing. The Vietnam War was going on. The name Suicide said it all to us."[13]
Rev's simple keyboard riffs, which were initially played on a battered Farfisa organ combined with effects units, before changing to a synthesizer, were accompanied by primitive drum machines. This provided a pulsing, minimalistic, electronic backdrop for Vega's murmuring and nervy vocals. It was the first band to use the term punk to describe itself, which the band had adopted from an article by Lester Bangs. Some of the band's earliest posters use the terms "punk music" and "punk music mass".
Early notoriety
Suicide emerged alongside the early glam punk scene in New York, with a reputation for its confrontational live shows. Many of the band's early shows were at the Mercer Arts Center, alongside bands such as the New York Dolls and Eric Emerson and the Magic Tramps. During an early show at the Mercer Arts Center David Johansen played harmonica with Suicide. Vega and Rev both dressed like 'arty street thugs', and Vega was notorious for brandishing a motorcycle drive chain onstage. Vega once stated, "We started getting booed as soon as we came onstage. Just from the way we looked, they started giving us hell already."[14] This sort of audience confrontation was inspired by Vega's witnessing of an Iggy and the Stooges concert at the New York State Pavilion in August 1969, which he later described as "great art". After the collapse of the Mercer Arts Center in 1973, Suicide played at Max's Kansas City and CBGB (before being banned), often sharing the bill with emerging punk bands. Their first album was reissued with bonus material, including "23 Minutes Over Brussels", a recording of a Suicide concert that later deteriorated into a riot.
The band's first album, Suicide (1977), was released independently on Red Star Records. Although initial press reviews were divided (with Rolling Stone in particular giving it a scathing review), media recognition has changed over the years. Nick Hornby writes, "'Che', 'Ghost Rider'—these eerie, sturdy, proto-punk anthems rank among the most visionary, melodic experiments the rock realm has yet produced." Of note is the ten-minute "Frankie Teardrop", which tells the story of a poverty-stricken 20-year-old factory worker pushed to the edge. Critic Emerson Dameron writes that the song is "one of the most terrifying, riveting, absurd things I’ve ever heard."[15] Hornby, in his book 31 Songs, describes the track as something you would listen to "only once".[16]
In 2002, Suicide released their first album in over a decade, titled American Supreme. Sales, however, were slow, and critical reception was mixed.
In 2005, SAF Publishing put out Suicide No Compromise, a "docu-biography" by David Nobahkt, which featured extensive interviews with Vega and Rev as well as many of their contemporaries and famous fans.
In May 2010, the band performed the entire first album live at two London concerts, double billed with Iggy & The Stooges performing Raw Power.[19] The band performed their final concert at London's Barbican Centre on 9 July 2015.[20] Billed as 'A Punk Mass', the show featured solo sets by both Rev and Vega before a headlining Suicide performance. Henry Rollins, Bobby Gillespie, and Jehnny Beth made guest appearances. The concert received positive reviews.[21][22][23]
Alan Vega died in his sleep on July 16, 2016, at the age of 78.[24] His death was announced by musician and radio host Henry Rollins, who shared an official statement from Vega's family on his website.[25]
The riff from "Ghost Rider" was sampled extensively in M.I.A.'s single, "Born Free", released in April 2010.[51] Martin Rev joined M.I.A. to perform the song on the Late Show with David Letterman.
In mid-2009, the band The Horrors released a cover of the song "Shadazz", as part of a tribute to Alan Vega and his work. They have performed it many times live, along with another Suicide song, "Ghost Rider". Later that year, Primal Scream and Miss Kittin covered the song "Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne" for a limited-edition 10-inch vinyl pressing. A total of 3,000 copies were pressed and released on March 30, 2009.[52]
"Ghost Rider" was covered by the garage punk band The Gories, and released on the album Cheapo Crypt Sampler No. 2.[53] In April 2011, the influential dance-punk band LCD Soundsystem used a snippet from "Ghost Rider" during the song "Losing My Edge", and covered the Alan Vega solo effort "Bye Bye Bayou" during their final concert, held in a sold-out Madison Square Garden. The song was also covered by British duo The Last Shadow Puppets at New York City's Terminal 5, as a tribute to Alan Vega, shortly after his death in 2016.[54][55]
In April 2012, Neneh Cherry released a cover of the song "Dream Baby Dream", which appeared on her album The Cherry Thing.[56] In May 2014, The band Savages, also released a live cover of the song as a b-side of their single "Fuckers"/"Dream Baby Dream" 12". Other artists who covered the song include Bruce Springsteen in 2016, and Many Angled Ones & Guy McKnight, in August 2018.
The 2005 Blast First/Mute/EMI CD reissue has a slightly different mix of the album, most notably the song "Surrender", and includes a live bonus disc recorded in 1987 and videos for "Dominic Christ"[57] and "Surrender" by Stefan Roloff.
The 2005 Blast First/Mute/EMI CD reissue includes a live bonus disc recorded in 1989 and a complete remix by Martin Rev of the original album and different track order.
1981 – Half Alive (a collection of live and demo material recorded from 1975–1979; originally released by ROIR on cassette only, with liner notes by Lester Bangs)
1986 – Ghost Riders (a live concert from 1981 – originally released on cassette only)
1997 – Zero Hour (late '70s live recordings)
2004 – Attempted: Live at Max's Kansas City 1980 (soundboard recordings from a New York City rock club performance; with liner notes by Marty Thau)
2008 – Live 1977–1978 (a six-CD box set containing 13 complete Suicide live performances from September 1977 to August 1978 plus bonus material)
^Greene, Doyle (March 2016). Counterculture and the Avant-Garde, 1966-1970: How the Beatles, Frank Zappa and the Velvet Underground Defined an Era. McFarland. p. 101.
^ abcdefghiAlexandre Breton (2017). Alan Vega: Conversation with an Indian. Le Texte Vivant. ISBN9782367230443.
^ abKris Needs (October 12, 2015). "Five". Suicide: Dream Baby Dream, A New York City Story. Omnibus Press. ISBN9781783235353. With Alan, events which oddly foreshadowed Suicide itself were taking place elsewhere in downtown Manhattan. He had just discovered the world's first two-man electronic band. They were called Silver Apples, and featured Simeon Coxe III singing over the otherwordly noise he coaxed out a pulsing heap of arcane electronic junk he called The Thing, all punctuated by highly creative drummer Danny Taylor. Alan recalls discovering the duo in the late sixties, and being first to spread the word in CBGB and Max's about their monumental place in the city's musical history. "They were so way out, man," he still enthuses. "I loved the minimalism of their stuff. I used to rave about the Silver Apples, but nobody had heard of them. That music was part of me so, from my angle, Suicide stole from the Velvets, Iggy, Question Mark & the Mysterians and the Silver Apples.
^Alexandre Breton (2013). Alan Vega - Conversation with an Indian. Le Texte Vivant. ISBN9782367230467. Vega, a melting pot of influences. Presley, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Johnny Burnette (for the hiccups and chanting), Lou Reed, the wizard of Metal Machine Music (pre- or post-Suicide opus?), Captain Beefheart, the splenetic Dada master who blended rock and jazz, the nasty Garage scene's golden period of 1966-1967; pre-krautrock beep-obsessives Silver Apples, the heathens of Mississippi blues, like Hooker and Hopkins especially, the rap avengers Public Enemy and their formidable Bomb Squad; and of course the radicalism of what has been called free jazz since 1960.
^Alexandre Breton. Alan Vega - Conversation with an Indian. Le Texte Vivant. ISBN9782367230443.
^Jonathan Monovich (22 March 2023). "Suicide's Music in Film: An Interview with Martin Rev". PopMatters. PopMatters Media, Inc. Retrieved July 14, 2023. Interviewer: "Growing up during a high point in the history of counterculture with shared disapproval of the Vietnam war, was Easy Rider an important film for you and Vega?" Martin Rev: "I'm sure Alan saw that picture. I saw it and certainly related to it as it was very much a part of the times and the war in Vietnam for many years. I think one picture we found closer to what we were feeling and doing at that time was Alejandro Jodorowsky's El Topo. It came out around the time that we first started. It was maybe within a year of the beginning of Suicide. I think he [Jodorowsky] was feeling a lot of the things that we were feeling. It was in the same kind of spiritual ambiance and extremism. We didn't see ourselves as being extremists, but the film also showed experimentation and innovation. We didn't set out to be innovators either, but we set out to do what we felt we needed to do to express ourselves."
^ abJonathan Monovich (March 23, 2023). "Suicide's Music in Film: An Interview with Martin Rev". PopMatters. PopMatters Media, Inc. Retrieved 14 July 2023. Interviewer: "Given that El Topo was famously played for midnight screenings at New York City movie theaters in the '70s, were you also interested in any of the other midnight movies of that era?" Martin Rev: "Filmmakers like John Waters and David Lynch, yeah, their movies were all in that scene. I don't think I saw everything of theirs. I saw a few films from each, maybe two each, but that was all part of that period, especially the early '70s."
^Suicide related
Television, Chrome, Wire, PiL, Gary Numan, Richard Hell, Pere Ubu, Patti Smith, Talking Heads. Retrieved 23 March 2022
^Colin Larkin (2006). The Encyclopedia of Popular Music: Rich, Young and Pretty. Muze. p. 10. ISBN9780195313734. This US duo was an important influence on Birthday Party , Soft Cell , Sigue Sigue Sputnik , Nine Inch Nails and the Sisters of Mercy with their potent fusion of rockabilly and electronic music on cheap equipment...
^ abGuardian staff (July 17, 2016). "Alan Vega, Suicide frontman and electronic music pioneer, dies aged 78". The Guardian. Guardian News & Media Limited. Retrieved 15 August 2024. Suicide's aggressive synthesiser rock has been cited as an influence by bands such as Radiohead, U2, New Order and Depeche Mode, electronic acts such as Daft Punk and Aphex Twin, and Bruce Springsteen, who covered their song Dream Baby Dream on his 2014 album, High Hopes.
^Daniel Dylan Wray (October 14, 2015). "People Would Boo, and I Would Scream Back at Them: "I Hate Your Fucking Guts!"". Vice. Vice Media Group. Retrieved 21 December 2020. "Go and see Suicide, everybody go and see Suicide NOW!" So screamed Nick Cave on stage at the end of Grinderman's set at Primavera Sound in Barcelona, 2011 Conor McCaffrey (August 4, 2017). "No Compromise: Remembering Suicide's Alan Vega – A True One-off". Moo Kid. Retrieved 21 December 2020. . One memorable festival moment of the last few years for me was Grinderman finishing on one stage at Primavera and Nick Cave ordering the crowd to rush over and see Suicide across the way, as "none of us bands would be here without them".
^ abDavid Nobahkt (2004). Suicide: No Compromise. SAF Publishing Ltd. p. 188. ISBN9780946719716.
^David Nobahkt (2004). Suicide: No Compromise. SAF Publishing Ltd. p. 166. ISBN9780946719716. By the end of the eighties, Suicide's influence could be heard in the output of the industrial dance/ rock/noise bands that emerged during that era. DAF's Die Kleinen UndDie Bosen album had much in common with Suicide. There was also The Neon Judgement, Dirk Ivens' Absolute Body Control, Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Die Krupps and Front 242.
^David Nobahkt (2004). Suicide: No Compromise. SAF Publishing Ltd. p. 166. ISBN9780946719716.
^David Nobahkt (2004). Suicide: No Compromise. SAF Publishing Ltd. p. 166. ISBN9780946719716. There was also Bon Harris and Douglas McCarthy's band Nitzer Ebb, who had their own style of 'take no prisoners', beat driven electronic rock 'n' roll that came to form on their 1990 album Showtime.
^David Nobahkt (2004). Suicide: No Compromise. SAF Publishing Ltd. p. 166. ISBN9780946719716. Amongst the synth bands that emerged at the start of the eighties was Depeche Mode. Suicide's influence on their sound is indisputable. Martin L Gore of Depeche Mode told The Times newspaper, "The synthesizer before Suicide was always a clean-cut instrument, whereas they brought in a punk element." He went on to say, "That was a very important step in the history of electronic music, they were way before The Prodigy and the whole industrial scene." Alan Wilder, Depeche Mode's music director and keyboard player from '82 to '95, had taken notice of Suicide's sampled and manipulated guitar sounds whilst recording the 1990 album Violator. Wilder later commented on his Shunt Website. "When we recorded the track "Blue Dress" it was based around using washy sounding, drone guitars (a la Suicide) which formed the backbone of the track."
^Ben Ratliff (September 29, 2013). "A Big, Booming Show With Space for Reflection: 'Massive Attack V Adam Curtis,' a Film and a Concert". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 April 2014. During all of this, Massive Attack — along with the guest singers Horace Andy and Liz Fraser — acts as a kind of house-band mood setter. The band covers at chronologically or thematically specific places songs you may associate with The Shirelles, the Archies, Dusty Springfield, Bauhaus and Suicide.
^David Nobahkt (2004). Suicide: No Compromise. SAF Publishing Ltd. p. 166. ISBN9780946719716. Suicide's influence on electronic music was to carry on into the next decade with the Aphex Twin, Autechre and Two Lone Swordsmen having their Suicide-like moments.
^Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine: "AFI - What's in My Bag?". YouTube. Amoeba. Retrieved 21 December 2020. Davey Havok: "I can pull out the Suicide record. What a rough past year we had, because we lost Alan, amidst other great, hugely influential artists. Safe to say that we're all fans here of their work and this record, which is just so wildly ahead of its time and cutting edge in what they were doing with electronics and soundscapes and mood and creating darkness within this minimal crunchy noise art sound."
^1001 Songs (2007). Frankie Teardrop - Suicide. Hardie Grant Publishing. p. 89. ISBN9781742731483. Suicide's heirs – Devo, Ultravox, Depeche Mode, Jesus and Mary Chain, Sisters of Mercy, Daft Punk, Air, Chemical, Nick Cave to name but a few – benefited from their pioneering sheets of industrial music.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)