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Suicide

Suicide

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Suicide: Glory Boy

Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 1 June 1985

DUE TO an allergy to cats, Martin Rev is forced to huddle next to an open window in manager/producer/believer Marty Thau's feline thronged apartment. ...

Audio interviews

Suicide (1998)

Interview by David Stubbs, Rock's Backpages audio, March 1998

Messrs. Rev and Vega discuss their legendary status and regular rediscovery; look back at their formation and NYC context; discuss their technology and methods, and contemplate their place in the greater scheme of things.

File format: mp3; file size: 76.2mb, interview length: 1h 23' 15" sound quality: **

Suicide (1978)

Interview by John Tobler, Rock's Backpages audio, June 1978

The pioneering electro duo discuss the significance of their name; their respective musical backgrounds; how they've changed since 1972; set lengths: long vs short; their desire to make video discs; their need for a beat, and using drum machines rather drummers; re-recording 'Rocket USA'; people starting to like them, and their bafflement at getting applause.

File format: mp3; file size: 15.1mb, interview length: 15' 42" sound quality: ****

Suicide (1998)

Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 22 January 1998

After a brief chat about touring with the Clash, Alan Vega and Martin Rev go back to how they first joined forces; Martin's jazz roots; their electronic predecessors the Silver Apples; being "punk" before Punk; their relationship with New York City's music scene and not being druggies; the name Suicide; their music as confrontational; their use of electronic instruments; their lyrical concerns; their second album, produced by the Cars' Ric Ocasek; their innate futurism; DIY and the future of recording and distribution.

File format: mp3; file size: 43mb, interview length: 38' 29" sound quality: ****

List of articles in the library

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Suicide: CBGB, New York

Live Review by Abby Weissman, East Coast Rocker, 10 September 1986

THE JURY IS still out on the music of the '70s, but the smoke is starting to clear. It's easier to see who was truly ...

Invisible Jukebox: Spiritualized

Interview by Mike Barnes, The Wire, July 1998

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

Suicide: Dingwalls, London

Live Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 17 September 1988

DEAD ON THEIR FEAT ...

Suicide: The Sound of NYC

Sleeve notes by Lester Bangs, ROIR Records, September 1981

OVER THE LAST few years there've been a whole lot of catch phrases bandied about to describe what folks kept insisting was "new" music unlike anything ...

Suicide, Angel Corpus Christi: Irving Plaza, New York NY

Live Review by David A. Keeps, New Musical Express, 25 August 1984

BACK FROM THE DEAD ...

Suicide: Garage, London

Live Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 21 March 1998

The OD couple ...

The Clash, Suicide: Music Machine, London

Live Review by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, 29 July 1978

NO TWO ways about it. All I can do is echo and re-emphasise Chris Brazier's sentiments in MM of two issues ago: the Clash are ...

Requiem For A Scream: Suicide's 'Punk Mass'

Live Review by John Calvert, The Quietus, 16 July 2015

IN HIS PRE-SHOW ADDRESS, frothy punk minotaur Henry Rollins is telling a story, which of course he's pretty good at. A formidable, not to mention ...

Suicide: The Leadmill, Sheffield

Live Review by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 24 December 1988

SUICIDE'S dispassionate sheet ice of sound is a freezed-up fusillade, a remorseless puncturing of steel-hard cymbals by a psychotic, pneumatic drill. Entirely emptied of the ...

Alan Vega, 1938-2016

Obituary by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 18 July 2016

Co-founder and frontman of the confrontational electronic band Suicide ...

Suicide: Punk Rockers Who Don't Self-Destruct

Interview by Michael Goldberg, San Francisco Chronicle, 15 November 1981

A group "dripping blood and spit" ...

Suicide: ManRay, Boston MA

Live Review by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 20 July 1992

Suicide casts a deep, dark spell ...

A King Has Passed: Alan Vega Remembered

Retrospective by Tim Cooper, The Quietus, 18 July 2016

BY THE SUMMER of 1978, punk rock had lost the power to shock. The revolution that had shot an amphetamine rush into a moribund music ...

The Concise NME Guide To Electronic Music & Synthesised Sound

Guide by Andy Gill, New Musical Express, 5 January 1980

"Progress in the physical and mechanical sciences determines a progress in art." — Carlos Chavez, 1957 ...

Traditional Discs: Is It R.I.P. FOR R.P.M.?

Report and Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 15 May 1982

IS THE phonograph record on its deathbed? Neil Cooper, who runs a record company that doesn't sell records, thinks so. "Within five years, vinyl will ...

Viva Alan Vega!

Interview by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 13 March 1982

Still controversial, still reviled — and still unsuccessful, Alan Vega discusses life after Suicide, politics and rock. ...

A Tribe Called Quest: Subterania, London

Live Review by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 3 December 1994

IN MANY ways. A Tribe Called Quest are one of hip-hop's best-kept secrets. Their debut album, People's Instinctive Travels... remains one of the defining moments ...

Suicide: Garage, Highbury, London

Live Review by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 9 March 1998

LEAVING THE house shrieking with manic glee at the sound of a band being booed off stage 20 years ago for 23 minutes straight, walking ...

The Suicide Club

Interview by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 24 June 1978

NEW YORK/NEW WAVE NO INTRODUCTION ('COS OUR AUTHOR DIDN'T WRITE ONE) ...

Alan Vega: Journey Through America 1985 — Part One

Interview by Edwin Pouncey, Sounds, 23 November 1985

During the '70s ALAN VEGA switched New York on to a different wavelength. Ten years on, and he's seemingly blown a fuse with a 'commercial' ...

Suicide: Suicide: Alan Vega and Martin Rev (Ze)

Review by Kris Needs, ZigZag, April 1980

TEN YEARS ago in a dingy New York loft two blokes were whipping up formidable walls of sheer, pulverising sound using just a set of ...

Suicide: Camden Palace, London

Live Review by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 8 November 1986

A LITTLE hipper than they were when Clash fans bottled them a decade ago, the cult New York duo Suicide have reformed for some select ...

Suicide: Trash, London/David Bowie: Hammersmith Apollo, London

Live Review by Simon Price, Independent on Sunday, October 2002

ALAN VEGA WEARS a beret, like Saddam Hussein, Frank Spencer, and the French. He wears sunglasses on a rope, like Dame Edna. He wears leather ...

Suicide's Mission

Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 17 July 1992

SINGER ALAN VEGA has been explaining how the moniker of his progressive synth-rock duo, Suicide, was never intended to have a negative or personal connotation. ...

Alan Vega: '77 Suicide Strip

Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 10 September 1983

A VEGA PERSPECTIVE ON GHOST RIDERS, KUNG-FU COWBOYS, AYLER WAILERS AND LIFE AFTER SUICIDE. ...

Invisible Jukebox: Suicide

Interview by Edwin Pouncey, The Wire, March 1998

Every month we play a musician a series of records which they're asked to identify and comment on — with no prior knowledge of what ...

New Albums: Best at the Theft — Suicide Outclasses Blondie

Review by Howard Wuelfing, Unicorn Times, March 1978

AMONG OUTSIDERS, the paramount issues of the punk/new wave movement revolve around stuff like clothing styles, politics, and the effect of massive success on a ...

Suicide: Suicide (Red Star RS1, import)

Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 21 January 1978

Suicide is a solution ...

Bent on Suicide

Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 11 March 1978

Colin Irwin reports on New York's latest cult success: a weird duo called Suicide ...

In New York City, Rock has Created Things that Reach from Obscenity to Musical Vomit

Report by Roy Hollingworth, Melody Maker, 21 October 1972

New York Report by Roy Hollingworth ...

Suicide: Dingwalls, London

Live Review by Jane Solanas, New Musical Express, 17 September 1988

THE THING about this alarming trend of 'rock comebacks' is that the term can mean anything from the return of a bankrupt geriatric to the ...

Suicide: Hot Footing Through Edge City

Interview by Toby Goldstein, Creem, April 1981

THE ATMOSPHERE at most performances of Suicide is not unlike that which I imagine permeates a power plant in the midst of a nuclear accident. ...

Suicide: Ground Zero, Cambridge, MA

Review by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 18 June 1990

Suicide's Minimalistic Songs Have A Sexy, Dangerous Sound ...

Suicide: Half Alive/New York Dolls: Lipstick Killers — The Mercer Street Sessions (Both ROIR import cassettes)

Review by Chris Bohn, New Musical Express, 2 January 1982

Tart, amoral, stupid, crass, vulgar… and nearly very famous ...

Suicide: The Third International Science Fiction Festival, Metz, France

Live Review by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 17 June 1978

METZ: SOURCES inform it to be located some 20 miles east of Paris, France. Or two hours of sky from Luton, England, as it proved ...

Various Artists: Live At CBGB's/Max's Kansas City 1976

Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 27 November 1976

YOU KNOW what these albums remind me of: The This Is Mersey Beat collections that Oriole put out after the first wave of Liverpool bands had gotten ...

Various Artists: Dawn Of Electronica

Review by Stephen Dalton, Uncut, July 2000

Founding fathers of technopop come together in electro land ...

Suicide: Live 1977 - 1978 Box Set

Review by Luke Turner, The Quietus, 6 August 2008

IT'S RARE to find live albums from canonical acts that don’t come swathed in mythology or creaking under the weight of their own self importance. ...

Suicide

Interview by Lisa Jane Persky, New York Rocker, May 1976

Suicide Note: "The thought of suicide is a great consolation; with the help of it, one has got through many a bad night."– F. Nietzsche ...

Suicide: Dingwalls, London

Live Review by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 17 September 1988

SUICIDE, ALAN Vega more than Marty Rev, have drawn some flak for looking/being old. Vega, his black, tightly-curled pompadour resembling a cheap hooker's wig, lets ...

Alan Vega

Retrospective and Interview by Jeremy Gluck, unpublished, 1988

NOTE: Another unpublished piece for Bucketful of Brains from the prolific pen of Mr Jeremy Gluck, this time on Suicide's Alan Vega, written in 1988 ...

Alan Vega

Interview by Chris Campion, Dazed & Confused, July 2002

IT'S TAKEN 30 years for Alan Vega to make the transition from surly street punk and art world agitator to New York institution. Better known ...

The Clash, Suicide: The Music Machine, London

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 5 August 1978

TIME HAS come today. Third of four Music Machine gigs and – surprise! – the ritual bottling of Suicide appears to have been omitted for ...

The Marty Thau Interview

Interview by Jeremy Gluck, Bucketfull of Brains, March 2009

"I've always believed there is a fine line between abstract and pure accessibility and that is what I've always looked for ... an artist who ...

Suicide: Suicide As A Way Of Life

Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 5 July 1980

"I THINK," breathes the camp dwarf in the sweatshirt and stubble, "that people should only write songs about economics and sex, because that's all everybody's ...

Suicide: How the Godfathers of Punk Kept The Faith

Interview by Paul Lester, Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, 10 October 2008

New Yorkers Alan Vega and Marty Rev were punks before punk was invented, known in the '70s for their violent gigs and raging synth rock. ...

Suicide

Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, MOJO, November 2007

JULY 26, 1978: The Clash are on the third out of four nights at Camden's Music Machine during their chaotically-successful On Parole tour. Suicide, here ...

Suicide

Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, May 1980

NEW YORK'S a lonely town when you've never been there before, and you really don't know too many people (although being there is a problem ...

Suicide: Darkness Visible

Interview by David Stubbs, Uncut, May 1998

Before the Chemical Brothers, before Ministry, before even Soft Cell, there was SUICIDE, the original electro-duo. DAVID STUBBS meets the synth-terrorists whose noise still provokes ...

Suicide: Suicide

Review by Jon Savage, Sounds, 4 February 1978

SUICIDE? PERHAPS; rather life at one remove, through a one-way mirror. Or wilful withdrawal from the sea of impossibility... ...

Suicide: Martin Rev interviewed

Interview by Blake Gumprecht, Alternative America, Winter 1983

ALAN VEGA (vocals) and Martin Rev (instrument) formed Suicide in 1972 in New York City. After years of gaining infamy while gigging the Max's Kansas ...

Suicide Commits Itself

Profile by Roy Trakin, New York Rocker, May 1980

EVERY NOW and then, we critics drop our objectivity – believe it or not – become emotionally involved with a band. For slightly over a ...

ZE Night: Hurrah, New York City

Profile by Roy Trakin, New York Rocker, June 1980

THE RICH ARE different from you and me, my friends. While we content ourselves with free promos and an occasional "plus-one" at a local bistro, ...

Suicide

Profile and Interview by John Tobler, ZigZag, August 1978

IT IS TO BE hoped that some of you lemmings may have taken a little time out from adoration of the Clash on their current ...

Suicide: Suicide

Review and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, April 1998

2-CD set coupling the electro-duo’s 1977 debut with the infamous 23 Minutes Over Brussels flexi-disc and an unreleased 1978 live set from CBGBs. ...

Suicide

Interview by Simon Reynolds, The Observer, 19 February 1989

"NEW YORK IS getting dull," says Suicide's Alan Vega. "The downtown New York of the Seventies has gone. But there's still something here, an electricity, ...

Suicide Is Not The Answer

Interview by Paul Rambali, New Musical Express, 17 June 1978

Form a band instead and drive others to it. PAUL RAMBALI Checks Out The Odd Couple From The Big Apple ...

Suicide: A Matter Of Life And Death

Interview by Ralph Traitor, Sounds, 21 January 1989

It’s midweek, midday, underneath Times Square, aboard a filthy express subway train. ...

see also Alan Vega

see also Martin Rev

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