Alan Vega

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Alan Vega
Birth name Boruch Alan Bermowitz
Born (1938-06-23) June 23, 1938 (age 85)
Brooklyn, New York City
Genres Protopunk, punk, electronic, experimental, minimalism, no wave, industrial, synthpop, rockabilly, post-punk
Occupation(s) Musician, sculptor, painter
Instruments Vocalist
Years active 1966–present day
Labels ZE Records
Associated acts Suicide, The Sisterhood

Alan Vega (born Boruch Alan Bermowitz on June 23, 1938)[note 1] is an American vocalist, primarily known for his work with the electronic protopunk duo Suicide. He is also an established sculptor.

Biography and career

Alan Bermowitz was raised in a Jewish household in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.[note 2] In the late 1950s, he attended Brooklyn College where he studied both physics and fine art under Ad Reinhardt and Kurt Seligmann[1] and graduated in 1960.[2] In the 1960s, he became involved with the Art Workers' Coalition, a radical artists group that harassed museums and once barricaded the Museum of Modern Art.[3] In 1969, funding from the New York State Council on the Arts made possible the founding of MUSEUM: A Project of Living Artists—an artist-run 24 hour multimedia gallery at 729 Broadway [4] in Manhattan. Calling himself Alan Suicide, he graduated from painting to light sculptures,[note 3] many of which were constructed of electronic debris. He gained a residency at the OK Harris Gallery in SoHo where he continued to exhibit until 1975.[1] Barbara Gladstone continued to show his work well into the 1980s.

Seeing The Stooges perform at the New York State Pavilion in August 1969 was an epiphany for Vega.[note 4] In 1970, he met and befriended Martin Reverby. Together, the two began experimenting with music and formed the band Suicide along with guitarist Paul Liebgott. The group played twice at MUSEUM before moving on to the OK Harris Gallery. Calling himself "Nasty Cut", he used the terms "Punk Music" and "Punk Music Mass" in flyers to describe their music,[5] which he adopted from an article by Lester Bangs.[6] In 1971 the group dropped Paul Liebgott and added Mari Reverby on drums,[7] though she didn't play in their live performances. With Bermowitz finally settling on Alan Suicide as a working name, they began to play music venues. Suicide went on to perform at the Mercer Arts Center, Max's Kansas City, CBGB and ultimately, achieve international fame.

In 1980, Vega released his eponymous first solo record. It defined the rockabilly style that he would use in his solo work for the next several years, with the song "Jukebox Babe" becoming a hit single in France. In 1985, he released the more commercially viable Just a Million Dreams, but was dropped from his record label after its release. The album originally was set to be produced by Ric Ocasek as a follow-up to the critically acclaimed Saturn Strip (1983), but production switched over to Chris Lord-Alge and Vega ran into several difficulties during the recording sessions.[8] Vega later lamented, "They took all my songs and turned them into God knows what."[9]

Vega teamed up with Martin Rev and Ric Ocasek again in the late eighties to release the third Suicide album, A Way of Life (1988). Visual artist Stefan Roloff produced a music video for the song Dominic Christ which was released by Wax Trax! Records. Shortly thereafter, Vega met future wife and music partner Elizabeth Lamere while piecing together sound experiments that would evolve into his fifth solo album, Deuce Avenue (1990). Deuce Avenue marked his return to minimalist electronic music, similar to his work with Suicide, in which he combined drum machines and effects with free-form prose. Over the next decade he would release several more solo records as well as perform with Suicide.

In 2002, he constructed Collision Drive, an exhibition of sculptures combining light with found objects and crucifixes.[3] Vega's tenth solo album, Station, was released on Blast First Records in 2007 and was described by his colleagues as "his hardest, heaviest album for quite a while, all self-played and produced."[10] In 2008, British label Blast First Petite released a limited edition Suicide 6-CD box set and monthly tribute series of 10" Vinyl EP's, to mark the occasion of Alan Vega's 70th birthday[11] Musicians who contributed to the tribute series included The Horrors, Lydia Lunch, Primal Scream, and Miss Kittin.[12]

In 2009, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Lyon, France, mounted Infinite Mercy – a major retrospective exhibit of Vega's art.[13] This included the screening of two short documentary films: Alan Vega (2000) by Christian Eudeline, and Autour d’Alan Vega (extraits) (1998) by Hugues Peyret.[14]

On Vega's religious views, he was raised Jewish. He shares the views of Spinoza, the pantheist philosopher.[15]

Myth

Prior to the announcement of the 70th birthday release in 2008, Vega was thought to have been ten years younger. The 2005 book Suicide: No Compromise lists 1948 as his birth year and quotes a 1998 interview in which Vega talks about watching Elvis Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show (1956) as a "little kid".[9] A 1983 Los Angeles Times article refers to him as a 35-year-old.[16] Several other sources also list 1948 as his birthdate.[17][18]

Two 2009 articles confirm the 1938 birth date, one in Le Monde about the Lyon exhibit[19] and one in the magazine Rolling Stone.[20]

Vega also long claimed to be half-Catholic, but later, in a 2008 interview with The Jewish Chronicle, admitted he lied to "fuel the myth".[21]

Discography

For recordings made with Suicide, please see Suicide discography.

Albums

Compilations

Books

  • Cripple Nation – 2.13.61 (1994)
  • 100,000 Watts of Fat City – Editions Anna Polerica (2000)
  • Alan Suicide Vega – Infinite Mercy? Let U$ Pray!. Copeland, Mathieu ed. (2010). Dijon, France: Les presses du réel.

Notes

  1. For several years other sources stated that he was born in 1948 – see 'Myth' section
  2. Vega has claimed a Catholic mother – see 'Myth' section
  3. "I started as a painter. The first time I did a light piece was when I was working on a very big purple painting. There was one light bulb in the room and as I walked around I noticed how the painting acquired different aspects. I wanted it to be one color so I said, "Fuck this, man!" I took the light out of the ceiling and really stuck it on the painting." Alan Vega, 1993 – 100,000 Watts of Fat City Anna Polerica.
  4. "It showed me you didn't have to do static artworks, you could create situations, do something environmental. That's what got me moving more intensely in the direction of doing music. Compared with Iggy, whatever I was doing as an artist felt insignificant." Reynolds, Village Voice.January 29, 2002

References

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  17. Buckley, Peter (2003) The Rough Guide to Rock, Rough Guides, ISBN 978-1-84353-105-0, p. 1131
  18. Thompson, Dave (2000) Alternative Rock, Miller Freeman Books, ISBN 0-87930-607-6, p. 667
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  21. "Suicide: How the godfathers of punk kept the faith", Paul Lester, The Jewish Chronicle, October 10, 2008.

External links