I suspect it's every music writer's worst nightmare: A gaping void in musical knowledge. I know more than a fair amount about music, but was wrong footed when our reviews editor called me out of the ether to go and review SUICIDE.
Of course I'd heard of them mentioned along side other bands considered cultish in certain quarters. Suicide are a band that are forever cross-referenced, but have remained on my ‘to investigate’ list for far too long. I had heard of Suicide but never heard Suicide apart from in the influences of other bands - and half the time I hadn't realised. I'd heard stories of chairs being torn up, chains being swung and the band being gobbed off stage. What to wear at an event such as this...waterproofs? My friend suggested that I opt for leather jacket and aviator sunglasses - I wasn’t so sure. What ever, I approached my night out at Camden’s Electronic Ballroom with more than a little bit of trepidation. You see I’m a fairly conventional indie kid at heart.
Suicide were ignored by the scene they spawned, but 30 years later their influence is still resonating and influencing the best of contemporary music. A fact that is either depressing or astonishing (or perhaps both) depending on which way you look at it. For those of you who like me who were/are unacquainted with the sound of Suicide their influence is everywhere. You WILL hear their sound in Primal Scream, especially the best parts of Evil Heat, some of which directly lifts from Suicide. You WILL hear it in LCD Sound System. You MAY hear it in Daft Punk and Soft Cell. You MIGHT be reminded of Mark E Smith, even some of the pseudo-experimentation of Michael Stipe and REM. You WILL have heard it in advertising (unless you don’t own a telly) - the trend amongst many to move into a darker and more abstract territory in recent years. If you have an interest in any of this you need to investigate Suicide
So how does there music survive when it's brought back to the now, some 30 years after their debut album and support slots with the likes of The Clash Elvis Costello and just as Mute re-release their third and fourth albums, "Why Be Blue?" and "A Way of Life." Alan Vega (Crooner) and Martin Rev (Electronics) come on wearing art house leather and peculiar sunglasses: “Get on / White man” sings Vega, fist in the air, croon distorted as he sounds like he's hitting his best Rat pack impression, through a device custom made for the poor soul who's suffered the after effects of a particularly violent operation on their throat.
It is mad and intense, the bursts of vaguely psychedelic-electronica keyboards bursting above the mix with Vega posing, hands on hips with a purposefully statuesque pose offset wonderfully by the art school sweatband adorning his head. And Rev looks as though he is schizophrenically stalking, throttling and murdering his keyboard, whilst being taunted by it and trying to get away from it. The strobe lighting and the audience comprised of suitably edgy individuals only adds to the effect. This is not music for the masses. Rev, originally a free-jazz pianist, taking his free-forming to its logical and twisted conclusion. Without wanting to be accused of conjecture you can imagine people being murdered to this music.
Suicide's music is textural and layered. The songs, art installations, that have Guardian critics pissing their pants with tails of minimalist electronica. The sound Suicide make is often discordant, unlike anything you have probably heard. Sometimes nightmarish with a darkness to it that creates a visceral vision of the seedy neon glow of an LSD trip through the darker part of a New York night, it reverberates through your head, unsettles you, challenges you and occasionally it will surprise you with tags of knowing humour.
This is all underpinned with beats of sorts (think Aphex Twin and Future Sound of London circa Lifeforms), more often than not what can only be referred to as rhythm tracks; little more than amplified electronic pulses, footsteps, or knocks; sometimes they sound like they're plucked straight off a Casio keyboard and hooked up for a Lynchian cabaret act. Yes it is FUCKED UP. The music is always filmic like pop music for Blade Runner. The vocals delayed and echoed, sometimes scary and sounding like an Elvis of a distant and gloomy future. Surprisningly it can often be beautiful, flashes of keyboard sounding like the burning Vietnamese sun of Apocalypse Now; sometimes twinkling like electronic stars through the smog …to nail down the sound of Suicide is troublesome, elusive, but all the more interesting for that.
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Next up and we are vibrated by some deep bass lines that your darkest drum 'n' bass crew would cry if they heard. These baselines are splattered with more seemingly random explosions of keyboards, that although discordant, are underpinned with a twisted melody that lets you know this is a duo who haven't just simply switched keyboard on and hit the samba beat. Their dancing is suitably manic and only serves to add to the spectacle. Next up is a song that opens up with Hip Hop beats, beats that put a bazaar smile on to the face of Alan Vega singing that some poor someone made "The wrong decision" - and you believe him especially as Rev is karate chopping his keyboard which is now producing magic roundabout like flourishes of kaleidoscopic noise.
As they high-5 each other you see that they are touched by humour too. The vocals are often distorted beyond the point whereby you can reasonably hear what Vega is singing about - it doesn't matter. You here what counts such as the lament that "you're gonna get fucked", his speed freak robot dancing and mime artist cross movements perplexing him as he picks up the setlist as if it were a rag covered in shit.
Five songs in and Vega lets us know that "now we're gonna start" and you wonder if the previous four songs actually happened, though "Cheree" sounds almost like good time 50s Rock and Roll, the cabaret beats and twinkling effects "I love you baby / i love you / Cheree, Cheree" proving that Suicide are not just about life’s abstracts. "Ghost Rider" beeps and whistles into life, Vega tangled up in his mic lead, like a mental patient escaping from a strait jacket and "Frankie Teardrop"is simply as disturbing as it is on record. A song dedicated to the Sex Pistols - "Crazy" and you wonder if they might even be taking the piss a little. The finale is the biggest techno-rock and roll finish you will ever hear, leaving blood dripping from our ears.
Midway through their set Vega goes on an anti-consumerist rant telling us that "we are the ones ...[that we] don't need to consume...stop buying that crap" - Thanks for the advice, but i really don't think Suicide need any sort of ideological agenda, especially since there music has been used to advertise product. And anyway the music is more than enough. As they encore with a song “like the Village People or the Bee Gees” you realise just how influential this duo have been: "Staying Alive/ You got to have your dream / Staying alive". Indeed.
Live they lose some of some of the minimalism, but gain in ferocity; it is possible to dance to but it will still leave you shattered into little pieces and not knowing quite what to make of it and how to react to it. It's very likely to leave you emotionally drained, exhilarated in places, but very definitely both entertained and even amused. Suicide live is a force to be reckoned with, the old boys never looking tired or bored by what they do, but you can't help but wonder what these songs would have sounded like 30 years ago when they were originally written. However, questioning the relevance or validity of these songs is ridiculous since so many artists feed off them even now. Suicide is far from dead.
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