3/31/07

"Dream Baby Dream"

Suicide is ALAN VEGA AND MARTIN REV A mainstay of the New York rock underground since the early 1970s (thereby prefiguring Soft Cell and all the other synth-based duos as well as an entire subsequent generation of droney noisemongers), Suicide mixed Alan Vega's blues-styled vocals and Marty Rev's synthesizer (originally a broken-down Farfisa organ they couldn't afford to repair). Escaping the dingy clubs of Manhattan, Suicide went on to cause riots in Europe while on tour supporting Elvis Costello and later provided the soundtrack for Werner Fassbinder's film In a Year with 13 Moons. Often confrontational in nature, they always provoked extreme reactions by producing a unique, obsessively American electronic music of enormous and enduring influence. From Trouser press "Dream Baby" I think is on their 2nd Lp which was produced super slick by Ric Ocasek. (how else would he do it?) 'The Boss' actually covered this song on his solo tour. Imagine how bad that was? 80's Springsteen butchering everything good about the track, I'll bet. Reminds me that I'll podcast this Alex Chilton Alan Vega LP I got to the 'Bugnoise' channel.