A Short History of the Band Suicide

New York State funded the early work of Alan Vega and Martin Rev. They may have thought they were funding gallery space for a project called the Project for Living Artists. By day there were creative workshops and exhibitions. By night it all became a project for homeless artists to live in. Alan Vega was one of the curators and had the keys. He let his friend Martin Rev sleep there and make his strange electronic music.

In 1971 the two friends worked on an event called A Punk Music Mass. It could be the first time the word punk was used in a musical setting. They both listened to the music of the Silver Apples. The Silver Apples were pioneers of all thing electronic in music and worked with amplified oscillators and produced strange hippy electronica. Vega and Rev started creating their own version of this strange music. For them though, it was a little darker and less hippy. Vega sounded, strangely, like Elvis Presley when he sang. So it all sounded a bit like Elvis singing stories about seedy characters and urban dread set to electronic experimentation. Rev was classically trained to be a pianist. He used his musical education to create primitive electronic tunes with sparse and stark pulsating beats. His equipment was basic, though they managed to acquire an early drum machine which helped them make music which had never been heard before in New York.

When punk broke in the mid-seventies at CBGB, the duo were much talked about and had a decent following. However, record labels were on the lookout for new punk bands. For them this meant bands with guitars and Vega and Rev didn't fit the bill with their electronica. They finally managed to get a record deal with Red Star, an independent label, in 1977. Their self-titled debut album sold ok in New York, but hardly at all outside the city. They toured in Europe and developed a good following there. Soft Cell watched them at a gig in Leeds, UK and went on to start making electronica which was obviously influenced by Suicide. Then the Human League, from Sheffield, followed shortly after with a single called 'Being Boiled'. It was the first all-electronic single to be released in the UK and also has a darker edge to it, thanks to the Suicide influence.

The centerpiece of Suicide's first album is the track 'Frankie Teardrop'. It's ten minutes in length. Then there's 'Rocket USA' which still sounds fresh and has a great big bass rhythm. Their second album was released in 1980. It was produced by the Cars' Rik Ocasek. He gives the tracks a smooth studio sheen which strips them of their original personality. Suicide's debut album was re-issued in 1988 on Mute Records. The re-release coincided with Alan Vega working with the producer Stephen Lironi. They called themselves the Revolutionary Corps of Teenage Jesus. The results were demented dance tracks with a good deal of violent imagery. But Suicide will ultimately be remembered for influencing electronic bands like Soft Cell, Human League and others during the eighties. These bands went on to take Suicide's electronic experimentalism to the mainstream market and have a good deal of commercial success. Then, in turn, those eighties electronic bands have influenced early house, techno and dance music which have gone on to become one of the main musical forces in mainstream music today. Funny how things pan out. A band that couldn't even secure a punk record deal having a role in the development of the dominant musical form of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The New York State's money was money well spent.