[The Soup Nazi]

 

From The Wire:

Alan Vega 1938–2016: back on the street
Edwin Pouncey recalls a walk in Manhattan with the Suicide vocalist

During a recent conversation about electronic music with Henry Rollins, it was inevitable we would end up talking about Suicide and the profound effect their self-titled debut album had on us when we first heard it. Released in 1977 on their then manager Marty Thau's Red Star Records label, it featured six minimal electronic/garage rockabilly compositions with Marty Rev on 'instrument' and Alan Vega, who died on 16 July, on 'voice'. We agreed it was "Frankie Teardrop" that hit the hardest on first listen. The story of a returned Vietnam War veteran who, haunted by the horrors he had witnessed during conflict, decides to kill his family before finally blowing out his own brains and descending into hell.

It's Vega's screaming portrayal of the tortured Frankie that makes the track such a powerful and uneasy listening experience, where you are transported to the very centre of the character's combat-damaged brain as he puts the gun to his head and pulls the trigger. So convincing is this performance that, although we loved the record, we returned to it with trepidation, steeling ourselves for when the stylus hit and Vega's horrific yowl would burst from the speakers. The only time I had previously felt this sense of terror from a record was when I first heard Pink Floyd's "Careful With That Axe, Eugene" on Ummagumma — Roger Waters's unearthly squeal, as said axe dropped, is the psychedelic equivalent of Vega's torture chamber howl.

Suicide received high praise when it was released, but was too far ahead of its time to be fully embraced by the punk rock fraternity. Vega and Rev looked suspiciously like hippies to the safety-pinned legions, and their songs were not demanding anarchy or riots, but robotic hymns about girls, obscure comic book characters, Che Guevera and neon dreaming.

By the time I met Alan Vega in 1985 he had embarked on a solo career with a two album deal for Elektra. I had been flown to New York and put up at the Gramercy Park Hotel on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan with a mission to interview Vega for a cover story in the (now defunct) UK music weekly Sounds. On the day of the interview a preordered rental car drove me to the record company's lofty office and I was ushered into a room where Vega was waiting for me to discuss (among other things) his new album Just A Million Dreams. We enjoyed talking to each other, but I got the feeling that he was not totally comfortable being cocooned inside a major label. I could tell that he wanted to get back on the street as soon as possible.

Refusing the lift home, we decided to walk back to his apartment, picking up an Arby's roast beef sandwich to eat on the long trek home. We walked and talked, about music and art, until I suddenly noticed that we were outside the Gramercy Park Hotel. "Nice talking to you," he said stepping inside. "That's weird," I replied, "this is the same hotel I'm staying." It turned out that Vega was a resident at the Gramercy Park, and nobody at the record company had told him I was just a floor below him. He invited me to his room where we continued our conversation into the night while I checked out his neon crucifix collages that decorated the walls. He played some of the new music he was working on through a chaotically constructed collection of beat-box parts and crudely soldered together electronics. To be honest this raw rockabilly noise sounded more in tune with the real Vega than the cosmetic professionalism that seeped out of Just A Million Dreams. Nobody bought that one either. Vega eventually teamed up with his future wife Liz Lamere and went back to his roots with 1990's Deuce Avenue.

The original Suicide line-up of Vega and Rev was reformed in the late 1990s at the suggestion of Blast First's Paul Smith. After their early studio albums were reissued, they released a landmark album in 2002's American Supreme. An extensive touring schedule brought the entire spectrum of Rev and Vega's work to a new audience, and underlined the extent of their influence on modern electronic music.

One particular gig I fondly remember was on 22 January 1998 at London's Barbican Centre as part of an art installation called Reinventing America. One section was devoted to the art of the motorcycle, complete with gleaming choppers and their attending owners — a wild bunch of grizzled bikers and threatening Hells Angels who scowled at any visitor that dared to breathe too hard on the chrome of their machines. It immediately brought to mind Suicide's supernatural biker song "Ghost Rider", especially as Suicide themelves were about to play a set in the blacked out basement adjoining this hog homage. They played just two songs, an incredibly tight "Mr Ray" that cut through the darkness of the hall, with Vega's treated vocal shimmering alongside Rev's electronic beat onslaught, and a more subdued, yet totally hypnotic "Girl". No encore. They just walked away into the night.