THE S/T INTERVIEW: Alan Vega of Suicide (Part I)

Alan Vega, looking back through old Suicide bootlegs Who was my girlfriend? What was happening? Where was I? What was I thinking? How the fuck did I even dress like that?

[SUICIDE L to R: Martin Rev, Alan Vega]

By Aaron Richter

“These recordings are not for the fainthearted or casual fan” warns the back of Suicide: Live 1977–1978, a limited-edition six-disc box set out now on Blast First Petite. The collection documents the tour following the release of Suicide’s classic self-titled debut. It includes rough recordings of full shows at New York City venues CBGB’s, Max’s Kansas City and The Palladium, as well as brutal sets from a European tour with Elvis Costello and the Clash.

Riots were incited. Bottles were thrown. Faces were cut with glass. The punks were royally fucked with. For singer Alan Vega and keyboardist Martin Rev, instigation and agitation were vital and necessary. Although it’s a difficult, monotonous listen, this box set (limited to only 3,000 copies) captures an anger, a frustration and an oppressive, pulsating sound that truly pissed people off. Here, Vega speaks candidly with self-titled about the death of punk, the art of confrontation and his biggest fear. Part two of our unedited interview—the one with the ax-wielding fan anecdote—will run tomorrow morning.

“Ghost Rider (live)”

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self-titled: What do you like about this box set?
It’s a blast from the past. It was a great time, I remember, opening for the Clash in those days, ’78. That tour was unbelievable. The riots. The nightly riots. I had to listen to a lot of the stuff over again, and that was kind of difficult.

What was difficult?
It was a long time ago. I’ve done so much since then. You gotta remember that was the tour for the first album with Suicide. Since then I’ve had 21, 22 new albums. I’m using the word “albums”—I’m an old guy. It was like going back to something, like, “Oh, shit. I wish I did that this way, or this that way.” You can’t change all that, which is why it’s kinda great in a way, too. Every album is… Or every record… Or whatever you call them these days… You don’t even call them CDs anymore.

You mean “Collection of MP3s.”
Right. Exactly. Outer space [laughs]. Yeah, it’s like a diary. Everything’s like a diary. I could listen to this album and zoom back in time. Who was my girlfriend? What was happening? Where was I? What was I thinking? How the fuck did I even dress like that?

Where did the recordings come from?
A shitty little tape recording from someone sitting in the balcony or something. That’s why it sounds like it sounds. We used to do our own recordings, prior to making records: We used to record on a one-track tape recorder, use two sides of an amp—those Fender amps—one side for the vocals and one side for the keyboard.

Everything featured in this collection is unrefined from the original tapes. Why keep it so rough?
I hate when people re-master stuff. The other day I just had to buy a Rolling Stones record. What was it? One of the famous ones. Beggars Banquet. I was really looking forward to listening to the Stones. But I bought such a re-mastered thing—it sounded so fucking terrible.

I think my mom bought me that same version this past Christmas. It’s like the Super-CD format, and it sounds awful.
Right? I was so disappointed. Remember that thing, “Where’s the beef?” I mean, where was the music? What did they do to this thing? It wasn’t the Rolling Stones. With vinyl, you’ve got all the scratches and bumps. You get used to listening to it that way. I listened to this one time and said, “Where’s the banquet?”

“Dream Baby Dream”

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Even though you don’t alter the recording quality of these live performances, you do bleep out a word that you used to introduce “96 Tears” when you performed the song in Liverpool. What did you say, and why did you choose to censor yourself now?
I always loved that song. When I was a kid, I used to come home and turn on Dick Clark’s show. It used to be on between 3 and 4. All that horrible pop shit. I don’t know why, but I’d come home, and before I’d start my homework, I used to watch this program to just see what the fuck was going on. It was total garbage. But one day, these four guys, all in black leather and chains, come on. They hit this song with the Farfisa. I’ve always loved the Farfisa organ. That sound! And then, “Cry, cry, cry.” I think I’d heard it on the radio and thought, “Wow, this is cool,” but I never expected them to be what they were. On Dick Clark! Such a Wonder Bread show. And here’s these guys.

Right. But what did you censor out of the performance recording?
Maybe I shouldn’t say it. I said something in adoration of these guys. I used a word. In this day and age, it would be considered inflammatory or politically incorrect, and it would have been misinterpreted. At first we wanted to keep it in out of respect for these guys. I don’t want to say what it is. I don’t want to start this all over again because we spent months arguing about it. It would have started all over again. Old wounds would reopen. I knew it would be taken out of context. You gotta remember, this was like ’78. That’s fuckin’ centuries ago. The word was meant differently in those days. Now, I’m a dad. I don’t want my son to be listening and going, “What the fuck did he say?”

Did getting booed ever hurt your feelings?
No. I used to aspire to it. They’d yell, and I’d say, “I can’t hear you.” When they were throwing shit all over, I knew things were going pretty good. I knew we were agitating somebody, which is what Suicide was supposed to be. We were on tour with Elvis Costello, and then we went with the Clash in England, and we got shit, man. I thought it was gonna be better than Elvis, but it got worse. We were out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Then Suicide got its own seven or eight shows in England, Wales and Scotland. The first one was Edinburgh, Scotland. Marty and I are playing to a big disco hall—probably a couple thousand people. It was all dark. You couldn’t see the audience, but there was a big globe—one of those old disco globes. They’d shoot some light on it, and the thing would be turning, and it would blast squares of light all over the place. So anyway, around the third or fourth song, I noticed that people were starting to mill around, starting to move. I went back to Marty and said, “Watch out. The shit’s about to come.” [Laughs] “Just watch out. Two o’clock. Three o’clock. Incoming!” All the sudden the lights went on, and I looked out there, and everyone’s fucking dancing! I go, “Wait a minute. What the fuck?” I walk back to Marty and go, “Marty, I’m finished. Our days are over. I’m turning into an entertainer. They’re dancing man.”

And then you moved to Vegas to become a lounge singer.
I got the name. Just add an S.