Deathblog:

Alan Vega

(1938-2016)

 Ghost Rider, motorcycle hero.

America, America’s killing its youth.

Cheree, Cheree.

Frankie, Frankie.

Dream, baby, dream.

Of course, Alan Vega will be remembered for what he brought to Suicide’s first album; it would be foolish to try to claim otherwise.

Words (and delivery thereof) as simple, as striking, as dangerous, as lustful, as otherworldly as anything that emerged from the ‘50s/’60s rock n’ roll / rhythm & blues culture he obviously admired so much, and just as much of an indelible part of American culture (or at least, the segments of it that matter) as a result.

Forty years on, you cannot reduce these songs, or laugh them off. You cannot play them on the radio without getting complaints; you cannot play them in the car with friends or relatives without breaking a sweat. “Punk”? “Avant Garde”? Posturing? Stupidity? Success? You tell me. Love them or hate them, once you’ve heard them, they will be with you forever.

You’d have to be a pretty unhinged individual to have owned and enjoyed everything Mr. Vega has put out over the years (in fact for a long time I had a record shopping rule that whilst solo/collaborative discs bearing Martin Rev’s name should be purchased immediately, anything involving Vega should be treated with extreme caution), but I’ve been undertaking somewhat of an accidental reassessment of his post-’77 oeuvre of recent, and am hopefully in the process of gaining a greater appreciation of the uniqueness of his voice, and of the perverse, compelling artistry that ran through all of his work, even when (as was often the case) he was making records that sounded like most listeners’ idea of hell.

The way I like to look at it is: if the still much missed Lux Interior (Satan rest his soul) summed up his stage persona as “half Elvis Presley, half Frankenstein’s Monster”, Vega – consciously or otherwise - took the idea behind this combo far further, developing a style that sounds like the wandering, unquiet spirits of Presley and Roy Orbison being evoked through some sort of unholy electronic séance, issuing tormented, incoherent fragments of rock n’ roll jive and damning indictments of the culture they see decaying around them, channelled seemingly at random through Vega’s reverb-drenched tonsils. Ghosts of an old America, crawling from the bricks, the pavement and the recording consoles, passing baleful spectral judgement on the weaponised bummer of a country that now surrounds them, crying out in weird, leather-clad despair.

Whilst some of Vega’s best moments saw him indulging in straight narrative and street level reportage, more often than not he went in for what sounds like a wholly improvisational, almost unconscious, approach that, once you get a taste for it, proves kind of extraordinary.

It’s like rock n’ roll as reduced to a series of desperate, garbled exhortations from another plain, related over a grinding, ritualistic back-beat, presented like an ancient incantation whose precise meaning has long been lost to the ages, but that can still occasionally melt without warning into pools of pure, shimmering tenderness, with Vega’s ghosts rising to the occasion in response. (“Finally, this I understand!”, the hazy greaser apparition declares, pulling a comb through his hair as he enters full seduction mode, lost in some Lynchian velvet dream of the perfect moment of love, until the stentorian reminder of modernity intrudes again via Rev’s juddering drum machine (or nearest available equivalent), forcing him into another tirade of swaggering, subway stalkin’ confusion.)

And… I could probably continue in this vein for some time. For now, let it simply be noted that, hare-brained and unapproachable though it may often seem, I believe that Vega’s body of work holds depths and mysteries that very few of us have yet managed to get a handle on. Take a deep breath and throw the dice the next time you see his name on some weird looking 7", and maybe one day we’ll catch up with him.

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Whilst writing this yesterday, I threw together a quick Mixcloud effort in tribute to Alan Vega. Perhaps it will help illuminate some of my blather above, perhaps not. Selections are somewhat limited by the lack of stuff I currently have in mp3 format (I would have liked to include something from Suicide’s bleak post-911 comeback album ‘American Supreme’, but can’t find it right now, whilst other bits and pieces are trapped on vinyl), but whatever – if you want to dig in, it’s here. Track listing and time codes as per below.

 Viva La Vega

1. Suicide – 23 Minutes Over Brussels (excerpt) [0:00]

2. Alan Vega / Alex Chilton / Ben Vaughn – Fat City [4:45]

3. Suicide – 96 Tears (Radiation) [CBGBs, 1978] [13:00]

4. Suicide – Diamonds, Fur Coats, Champagne [16:45]

5. Alan Vega / Alex Chilton / Ben Vaughn – Too Late [20:00]

6. Suicide – Frankie Teardrop [25:40]

7. The Gories – Ghostrider [35.53]

8. Suicide – Keep your Dreams [CBGBs, 1978] [39.37]