Thursday March 28th 2024

SUICIDE

suicide

SUICIDE

 

Suicide is an American electronic protopunk musical duo, intermittently active since 1970 and composed of vocalist Alan Vega and Martin Rev on synthesizers and drum machines. They are an early synthesizer/vocal musical duo.
Never widely popular amongst the general public, Suicide are highly influential: critic Wilson Neate argues that Suicide “would prove as influential as The Clash. Listening to their self-titled 1977 debut from the vantage point of late 2002, it’s all so obvious: The synthpop, techno, and industrial dance sounds of the ’80s and ’90s, and now the new New Wave of electroclash, all gesture back to that foundational album.”
In a November 1970 flyer the band was the first ever to use the phrase “punk music” to advertise a concert. (From Wikipedia)

I was a bit hesitant to feature Suicide, another band like The Screamers without any guitars; just a synthesizer player and a singer. I have a hatred of duos, it seems, maybe growing up with seventies radio pop like Seals & Croft, Loggins & Messina, Captain & Teneille and others. Thrash N Bang is a perfect example. I can only hope, for your sake, you’re unfamiliar with them but my point is- if there’s only two of you don’t call yourself a fucking band; your Billy and his buddy, you don’t get the privilege of calling yourselves “The Toilets” or whatever; you’re two people. Currently, my experience with running into these types of bands is terrible and White Stripes is a perfect example.

But here is a duo who formed in 1970 with one guy who “sings” or does some Elvis Presley rockabilly thing while the other plays synth, (not cool, only bands like Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Genesis used synthesizers back then), and a drum machine, (not cool, only local old farts singing Frank Sinatra in cocktail lounges used them).

So what were these guys thinking?

I can’t even begin to guess but it was just as strange for me hearing their album as much as the Ramones first album. This was, after all, in the days of Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers.

They were clearly the influence for all the electronic English bands of the eighties, industrial, electronica that followed. Bands like Jesus & Mary Chain obviously, copped some of their vibe. No one sounded like them at the time and I don’t think anyone really has since.

Suicide’s influential- big deal, The Greatful Dead are, also. But what Suicide creates are stark urban nightmares sketched upon your psyche. There are no “have a nice day” feelings in theses tracks. Like the genius who linked up the movie “Taxi Driver” with one of their tunes- this is New York City; this is its smells and tastes, fears and dreams, hopes, reflections and regrets.

“Ghost Riders In The Sky,” is one of my favorite old country tunes. It’s a real eerie tune for country- “Yippie-Yi- Yo, Yippie- Yi- Yay”- then in an ominous tone, “Ghost riders in the sky.” “Riders On The Storm” by The Doors was created while they were jamming on that song.

“Ghost Rider,” is the lead off track to Suicide’s first album. “America, America is killing its youth.” This video uses scenes from one of my favorite movies, the aforementioned “Taxi Driver,” just like Scorsese they were putting down the essence of the streets of New York. “Ghost rider, motorcycle hero, Baby, baby, baby, baby he’s a blazing away, he’s a-screaming the truth.” The synth sounds like paranoid insects wailing against the screen of a door where satanic sacrificial offerings are taking place inside. “Ghost rider, go- Boo!”

SUICIDE
Ghost Rider

 
Echo-y, shadowy vocals- like some creep in a trench-coat lurking behind the corners of streets in alleys. Then some vibrating keyboards meet the automatic drone of the beat. “It’s doomsday, doomsday….Uhh!” It’s like rockabilly and surf mixed in with German electronic music; Elvis Presley jamming with Rammstein. It’s doomsday, doomsday, speeding out on the sky-way, 100 MPH- crash

SUICIDE
Rocket USA

 
When I was a young boy I lived a block away from Rocket Cleaners. When you looked out the back window from the bathroom at night, on the second floor, you could see the neon light in red, blinking on and off, shaped like a rocket above the store. My father told me that at night, a monkey would get in that neon rocket-ship and ride it into the sky above. I stayed up late one night, after being put to bed, so I could see the monkey flying the neon rocket-ship around the sky. I peered out the window and I didn’t see it. I’m not saying my father was wrong, I’m just saying Suicide got the story right.

“Cheree” wants to be a sweet pop song with chiming synth notes like little droplets of rain on a car window but comes off as a lurking stalker, desperate for love, leaning against telephone poles in the rain while the worried female calls the police (once again). Rain slick city streets at night, with neon glow upon them and eerie strange pleas decorate the scene for me.

SUICIDE
Cheree

 
It starts like a fifties song that’s been supplanted into a video game. “Ja-ja-Johnny, Johnny,” the vocal stutters, “Ah, Johnny…hmm, hmm.” The music growls and moves along mechanically along in direct contrast to the vocals good-timey fifties vibe. “He’s looking so mean, he’s feeling so tough.” Sounds like a tough, gay hustler to me. Ersatz cocktail music collides with rock’n’roll and electronic music. “Cruising the night, looking for love.”

SUICIDE
Johnny

 
“Oh, girl. You turn me on,” a boss a-nova beat with brooding Doors like keyboards arriving on the horizon. This is like some black and white film where the dialogue is slurred. “You know how. Oh touch me so.” Lust and pleading and total lack of dignity, of subjugation, of giving in completely to another. Horniness glides along the tracks like a knife to hot butter and not a dry lap in the house

SUICIDE
Girl

 
The foghorn bleats out across the ocean at night, the fog is rolling up along the boardwalk. The sea smell is in the air, young people loiter. Cigarette butts and beer bottles are lined up where the tide ended before it pulled out. “I remember the neon night, I remember the wonderful flight, I remember how free we were, I remember our incredible love.” The synthesizer croaks along, the rhythm moves along like resolving tides, waves crashing out toward the moon. “I remember your tv screen, I remember the red light dream, I remember your x-ray eyes, I remember your moonlight cries, I remember incredible love.”

SUICIDE
I Remember

 
“Che” stagnates and erupts at the same time, and sounds like peering into some middle ages torture chamber. “Che Che, Am I right?’ The keyboards spin and collide, “And when I’ve died.” The insects buzz, the fog moves in, death is approaching but it has a smile on its lips. “Hooray, hooray.”

SUICIDE
Che

 
Imagine, while he was still alive, if Elvis Presley became a drug addict and was reduced to playing Holiday Inns and was unable to afford a drummer or hardly any musicians, just a rhythm machine. And imagine if it turned out really good!

SUICIDE SUICIDE
Las Vegas Man
Ghost Rider

 
I ended up working at Rocket Cleaners about twenty years after I unsuccessfully looked for the monkey. I drove a van for them for about a year. The neon sign was still there but it didn’t light up anymore. The owner was color blind; only saw in black and white which is probably why he didn’t mind my dyed blond hair at the time. Never did ask him about the monkey.

(Slimedog)

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