Alan Vega

As punk rock raged in the UK in 1978, one of the really strange sights was experimental New York synth duo Suicide who could be seen trundling around Britain as a support act for The Clash. The agitated crowds were unimpressed by their primitive, electro surges and monotonous drum machine rhythms, and there was a report of an axe being thrown at them one night in Glasgow. Frontman Alan Vega responded by picking up a glass bottle, smashing it over his head and glaring straight back at the baying mob. Born in Brooklyn in 1938, Boruch Alan Bermowitz fell in love with music after seeing Elvis Presley on television as a kid, but studied physics and fine art at college and became involved with the radical modern art scene in the 1960s. Forming Suicide in 1970, the duo grew out of the CBGBs punk scene, but they were always more avant-garde and synth driven than the other bands, and their self-titled 1977 debut album was panned by critics at the time. It would later inspire generations of artists, including The Jesus And Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, Radiohead, MIA and even Bruce Springsteen, identifying Suicide as proto-punk, cult heroes. Alongside a career as a visual artist, Vega started making solo records influenced by rockabilly twang and Americana. After acclaimed early albums Collision Drive and Saturn Strip and the single Jukebox Baby, he later worked with Alex Chilton and Ben Vaughn on Cubist Blues in 1996 and with Lydia Lunch and Throbbing Gristle's Genesis P-Orridge on Re-Up in 1999. He was forced to stop performing after suffering a stroke in 2012 but made his last recording with French singer Christophe before passing away in his sleep in 2016 aged 78.

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