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March 29, 2024, 03:25:34 PM

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Alan Vega

Started by Monsieur Verdoux, March 04, 2020, 05:57:05 PM

Previous topic - Next topic
Too fucked up to do a good post but the man's first three solo albums are the absolute tits and Cubist Blues and New Raceion are fucking excellent too. Last album It is a wall rattling masterpiece, a hand grenade thrown from a coffin. Let's see some love for this crazy motherfucker, a true original with sharp cheekbones and a voice that started off like Sun-era Elvis on pills and looking for a scrap and ended up as rumbling fire emerging from a new York subway. The fucking greatest

Sebastian Cobb

I liked that Luka one what he done.

Johnboy

my favourite thing to watch on youtube is vega and marty doing their thing

bgmnts


Later Suicide albums like Why Be Blue also stellar, what a fantastic body of work

alan nagsworth

Can't remember the specifics to be able to find the video, but the footage of him as the support act for some punk band just stood there on his own crooning and gyrating about as the dickhead crowd gets really fucking irate and chucks stuff at him while he gets more and more antagonistic and eventually starts spitting at them is fucking excellent


alan nagsworth

Haha fuck yes, absolutely. Someone in the comments saying this was support for The Cars?

Brundle-Fly

So wonderfully odd that clip. You can understand why people would hate this though.

Gregory Torso

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on March 05, 2020, 05:55:34 PM
That's probably this classic: https://youtu.be/KPNO5f4yO_g

Fearless. Amazing.

I've always loved the track he did with Mercury Rev (way back when they were good (although not as good as the song they did with Robert Creeley (way back when they were good)))

My favourite Suicide song, about as far away from how you might expect Suicide to sound, but taken as a love song to the void, close to suicide with a small escaping ssssssss,  Surrender.

Quote from: alan nagsworth on March 05, 2020, 06:09:22 PM
Haha fuck yes, absolutely. Someone in the comments saying this was support for The Cars?

That tracks, as Ocasek was a huge supporter. Most likely the Shake It Up tour

Quote from: Gregory Torso on March 05, 2020, 07:38:53 PM
My favourite Suicide song, about as far away from how you might expect Suicide to sound, but taken as a love song to the void, close to suicide with a small escaping ssssssss,  Surrender.

It is lovely, I've always loved this clip of Vega miming it on French television in the late 80s, double-chinned and a few beers in, smoking and not giving a shit but also achieving an odd kind of gracefulness: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OyHBDLcshxU

Gregory Torso

I love it. When it cuts to the sunglasses smoking cigarette french couples waltzing underneath his balcony, good god, so good.

Egyptian Feast

I saw Suicide supporting The Stooges years ago and was impressed by how they could still wind up a crowd. There was a bunch of mouthy banterlads next to me and Suicide absolutely enraged them. They were still bitching about it (and James Brown live at the Apollo playing over the PA, for fuck's sake) when The Stooges came onstage. I hope they had a rotten night.

alan nagsworth

The irony is Suicide doing their thing (Vega especially), is supremely punk rock. To me at least. Absurdist subversion, brutal smug repetition, fucking FUN and catharsis. John Maus does exactly the same thing for me, doubtless Vega is an enormous influence on that howling mad cunt.

the science eel


Goldentony

The album with Wipeout Beat on it is fucking fantastic. Ric ocasek and one of Ministry worked on it, didn't they? Explains the Cars support slot.

That video is one of the later "fucking hell" moments in music for me. Everything about it is great. The shite, weak rockabilly loop, the dancing, no band, no fuck all, mad insane cunt shouting HEY YA FUCK FACES. Should be as well known as the Brussels show.

Similar to the earlier confrontational clip is a tense appearance on Spanish television in which Vega tries in vain to get a thoroughly unimpressed audience to dance to Wipeout Beat while mumbling only about half the words, staring them down and screaming https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf3GCkmLVB0

It is of course excellent

And the Ric Ocasek connection runs deep, he produced 3 out the 5 Suicide studio albums (which is most of them) and two of Alan Vega's best studio albums, Saturn Strip and New Raceion. The latter is underrated and worth checking out by people who enjoyed Saturn Strip. Might as well post a highlight, Keep It Alive

Cuntbeaks

Saw Suicide at the opening night of the CCA in Glasgow, the most anticipated gig of my life at that point.

It was absolutely fucking dreadful, and not in a knowing way, not in a "its so bad it's good" way. It was just abysmal.

lots of later shows where Rev throws out shitty sounding house beats while Vega just kind of gurgles

Norton Canes

Did two magnificent tracks with DJ Hell on NY Muscle, one of my favourite 00's albums

Listen To the Hiss | Meet the Heat

hummingofevil

#22
The back and forward between Suicide and Springsteen is probably the one thing in music that makes me feel so satisfied. The layers of irony where the Punks seemed to genuinely hate them for being too iconoclastic (fucking idiots); the fact that 23 minutes over Brussels actually works as a piece of audio - it fucking funny, but forget about what is the act and what is the ambient noise - take the two as one and it is glorious just a recordig and MOREOVER the fact that Springsteen's Nebraska revealed that ultimately Suicide, for all the one-note synths, are just a great fucking rock and roll blues act.

I adore Rev and Vega. And Springsteen for that matter (Nebraska was my gateway drug).


Edit: Just watched that French TV clip and am now thinking of Serge too. The sad , genius fuck that he was.

Edit edit: I also have a 12" of that track he did with Pan sonic when they were still Panasonic. It might be worth something if I hadn't scratched the fuck out of it DJing with it using it as fucking ashtray.

Edit Edit edit: Oh man. The YouTube algorithm has just took me onto Mika Vainio stuff. It's so incredible. I was lucky enought to see him live in the Sage a few years back and I genuiely went into a trance (I am the least TRANCEY person you could image - either bored or hyper). It did shit to my brain where I felt like I was asleep standing up and then snapped out of it. Only thing that ever came close was Stephen O Malley solo live (the first time - second time was utter wank). It's music that is undescribably amazing  - as someone who spends a large proportion of his music listening time listen to Taylor Swift. :)

Edit edit edit edit: I have been listening to Chart Music podcast. Can we trace back Mika Vainio's sound to ABBA's cold influence. I'm off to try.

Laters guys.

bgmnts

Just chucked some of this lad's first album on.

Quite good I must say, i'm not a huge rockabilly fan but I liked it.

chveik

#24
I'm quite surprised by the praise for mediocre albums like New Raceion or Why Be Blue.

I'm afraid I don't have much love for their post-Suicide's 2nd album career. I dunno exactly what, but something terrible happened during the eighties for a lot of musicians.

and sadly the Vega/Pan Sonic collab is underwhelming.


edit: bit cunty of me to shit on your enthusiasm though

hummingofevil

Quote from: chveik on March 07, 2020, 02:20:52 AM
I'm quite surprised by the praise for mediocre albums like New Raceion or Why Be Blue.

I'm afraid I don't have much love for their post-Suicide's 2nd album career. I dunno exactly what, but something terrible happened during the eighties for a lot of musicians.

and sadly the Vega/Pan Sonic collab is underwhelming.


edit: bit cunty of me to shit on your enthusiasm though

It's okay - shit away. :) As someone who has been a total ABBA agnostic for all my conscious life I am currently listening through everything on YouTube and having something of an epiphany rigth now (I never really liked the Vega Panasonic track at the time anyway).. but that was my gateway to the joys of the minimalist techno of Vainio. That the same process has happened 20 years later tonight via Vega and Vainio and got me into ABBA is quite the joy. :)

Someone (I don't know it was a mate or someone more famous) said about The Smiths and Dylan: it's not that their music is shit; it's just waiting for you when you ready for it (I stil don't really get either but the principle holds) :)

Quote from: chveik on March 07, 2020, 02:20:52 AM
I'm quite surprised by the praise for mediocre albums like New Raceion or Why Be Blue.

I'm afraid I don't have much love for their post-Suicide's 2nd album career. I dunno exactly what, but something terrible happened during the eighties for a lot of musicians.

and sadly the Vega/Pan Sonic collab is underwhelming.


edit: bit cunty of me to shit on your enthusiasm though

I think Vega was like Gainsbourg in that the cheesy 80s production coalesced into something kind of confrontationally kitschy that loops back round to being good again. At least that's what I'm hearing at the moment, there's a fair chance that I'll listen again in a month or so and think I was fucking mad. I must say that the Vega discography from 1990 onwards is VERY ropey and that New Raceion is probably only sounding good compared to the dreck that surrounds it

the science eel

Quote from: hummingofevil on March 07, 2020, 02:41:58 AM
It's okay - shit away. :) As someone who has been a total ABBA agnostic for all my conscious life I am currently listening through everything on YouTube and having something of an epiphany rigth now (I never really liked the Vega Panasonic track at the time anyway).. but that was my gateway to the joys of the minimalist techno of Vainio. That the same process has happened 20 years later tonight via Vega and Vainio and got me into ABBA is quite the joy. :)

Someone (I don't know it was a mate or someone more famous) said about The Smiths and Dylan: it's not that their music is shit; it's just waiting for you when you ready for it (I stil don't really get either but the principle holds) :)

Possibly true of Dylan but not of the Smiths, I would have thought

hummingofevil

Quote from: Monsieur Verdoux on March 07, 2020, 03:20:39 AM
I think Vega was like Gainsbourg in that the cheesy 80s production coalesced into something kind of confrontationally kitschy that loops back round to being good again. At least that's what I'm hearing at the moment, there's a fair chance that I'll listen again in a month or so and think I was fucking mad. I must say that the Vega discography from 1990 onwards is VERY ropey and that New Raceion is probably only sounding good compared to the dreck that surrounds it


You make a great point about loops. I read Serge's biography last year and it is a fascinating book. You start off rooting for him (and we all love his musical output that is the constant thread that holds it all together).

But, at first when you read about his smoking and drinking and love of women (the general idea was that he wasn't unfaithful but that he had genuine, passionate relationships that just didn't last very long until he moved on - his muses all speak very highly of him even if he moved on)but then as the story loops it becomes more desperate and sad. A young man living life to the full is exciting; by the end of the book a man who is gravely ill who can't give up the booze, the cigs and the companionship of beautiful young women just becomes very tragic. You pity him and the women bounded to him.

Don't get me wrong, most of us would swap our lives for him but the feeling is that he was as trapped by his lifestyle as anyone else. It's actually a really sad story.

That he kept his musical output sounding fresh in its reinventions is awesome in itself but it's something to ponder when we think about the influence of these renegades. For me I think Johnny Rotten is the closest to getting it about right.

Fuck the ideology and sell butter.

Johnny Yesno

Quote from: hummingofevil on March 07, 2020, 01:59:11 AM
Edit edit: I also have a 12" of that track he did with Pan sonic when they were still Panasonic. It might be worth something if I hadn't scratched the fuck out of it DJing with it using it as fucking ashtray.

Edit Edit edit: Oh man. The YouTube algorithm has just took me onto Mika Vainio stuff. It's so incredible.

Vega also did two albums with Pan Sonic: Endless, which is great; Resurrection River less so.

Mika Vainio did some amazing solo music and I was so sad when he died. However, A is head and shoulders my favourite example of his work. It's the first album Panasonic released under the moniker Pan Sonic after they were threatened with legal action by the Panasonic corporation.

Quote from: chveik on March 07, 2020, 02:20:52 AM
and sadly the Vega/Pan Sonic collab is underwhelming.

No. It's patchy but it's not underwhelming.


Vainio Väisänen Vega - Red Lights Down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAEjr0BIQFs

Vainio / Väisänen / Vega ‎– Endless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZJ4GY3fd2o

Vainio / Väisänen / Vega | Sick Sick USA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdtAxjL4OsA

Vainio / Vaisanen / Vega - Disgrace: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHR3JravcTk


Sellin' My Monkeys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc-YwrqZdO8

Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeLQiEKWe3M

It's Violence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nQxAl-SETQ