Hello, those arrogant politico's from Brussels and Washington have been teasing that Russian bear and look what it got them, a somewhat impoverished Russia and a country that is preparing to strike back and not with boycotts but with their latest toys 'unstoppable' nukes! Now i suspect a majority of the global population would rejoice with the destruction of Washing tron, New York, London, Brussels and that sick center of gayness Hollywood, but but why stop there ? I could do without Mecca, Jerusalem, Karachi, Rome to name some....hmm yes well if only...
Today an American vocalist, born Boruch Alan Bermowitz on June 23, 1938, primarily known for his work with the electronic protopunk duo Suicide. He is also an established sculptor.... N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Alan Bermowitz was raised in a Jewish household in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. In the late 1950s, he attended Brooklyn College where he studied both physics and fine art under Ad Reinhardt and Kurt Seligmann and graduated in 1960. 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. 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 in Manhattan. Calling himself Alan Suicide, he graduated from painting to light sculptures, 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.Barbara Gladstone continued to show his work well into the 1980s. The Project (of Living Artists) served as a stomping grounds for the likes of the New York Dolls, Television and Blondie as well as the 15-piece jazz group Reverend B., which featured a musician named Martin Rev on electric piano.
Seeing The Stooges perform at the New York State Pavilion in August 1969 was an epiphany for Vega. 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, which he adopted from an article by Lester Bangs. In 1971 the group dropped Paul Liebgott and added Mari Reverby on drums, 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.
Suicide disbanded after 2 albums in 1980, and both Vega and Rev undertook solo careers. 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. His later that year second effort Collision Drive continued to explore the fractured rockabilly identity he had established in his earlier work. 1983's Saturn Strip, produced by longtime fan Ric Ocasek and Suicide II producer, marked Vega's debut for Elektra Records; corporate relations soured in 1985, when 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, but production switched over to Chris Lord-Alge and Vega ran into several difficulties during the recording sessions. Vega later lamented, "They took all my songs and turned them into God knows what."
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. 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." 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 Musicians who contributed to the tribute series included The Horrors, Lydia Lunch, Primal Scream, and Miss Kittin.
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.
Alan Vega used to say that as beeing basically a sculptor, music was secondary for him. Was that just another provocation? Alan Vega is anyway a true legend (a romantic hero or a deamer for some), joining for any kinds of obscure or more visible projects. He actually induces what Legs McNeil calls the astonishment, a mixture of fascination, made of repulsion and admiration: otherwise, how can one continue to adulate somebody who is ok with just a 30 minutes act (sometimes less, sometimes more) without any communication with the assitance? He's probably one of the original punks actors of the CBGB.....
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Alan Vega used his first solo album to distance himself from the music made by his pioneering synth-punk duo Suicide. Where Suicide deliberately used cheap, loud synthesizers to generate a cold, crude sound, Vega hired a guitarist and made, for all intents and purposes, a rockabilly album. "Lonely" is Vega's homage to "Heartbreak Hotel," and it's as full of yelps and pleading as the original, as Vega does his best Elvis impression. The gorgeous "Ice Drummer" may be Vega's best solo track, a beautiful shiny pop gem. Only "Bye Bye Bayou," a misguided attempt to fuse '50s rock and Vega's extended performance art pieces, falls flat. Still, golden pop moments like "Ice Drummer" are good reminders of why Vega, for all his eccentricities, remains a musician worth caring about.
Alan Vega - Alan Vega (flac 180mb)
01 Jukebox Babe 4:48
02 Fireball 3:55
03 Kung Foo Cowboy 3:27
04 Love Cry 4:43
05 Speedway 2:34
06 Ice Drummer 4:23
07 Bye Bye Bayou 8:36
08 Lonely 2:42
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Collision Drive continues the trend started on the first Alan Vega album of incorporating Vega's love of '50s rock and R&B. "Ghost Rider," which sounded cold, sleek, and mechanical on Suicide's first album, now becomes an upbeat rockabilly rave-up. Vega covers Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula" and plays it mostly straight (although he does throw in his trademark howls and yelps, along with some synthesizers). The two versions of "Magdalena" aren't really different enough to justify their presence, although the song itself is likable. The track that stands out the most, however, is the 13-minute "Viet Vet," an extended poetic rant in the pattern of Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop." It will either seem like a brilliant piece of performance art, or it will sound unbearably self-indulgent, depending on a listener's tolerance for Vega's excesses. For the most part, though, rollicking tracks like "Raver" and "Rebel Rocker" are enjoyable and exciting enough to offset any of the less successful experiments. Collision Drive may be uneven, but at its best, it will definitely provide more than enough smart art pop to chew on.
Alan Vega - Collision Drive (flac 215mb)
01 Magdalena 82 3:03
02 Be Bop A Lula 2:22
03 Outlaw 3:31
04 Raver 2:46
05 Ghost Rider 4:31
06 I Believe 5:24
07 Magdalena 83 2:56
08 Rebel 2:47
09 Viet Vet 12:46
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The Wounded Bird label can be credited with keeping a number of beloved records in print, even if the profit potential in almost every case has been way south of high -- 1983's Saturn Strip and 1985's Just a Million Dreams -- Alan Vega's two mainstream-seeking records for Elektra -- are combined here. They'll never get as much attention as the Suicide records, but they're both significant parts of Vega's career.
By the time of his third solo album, Suicide frontman Alan Vega had decided he wanted to escape the art punk ghetto he had been confined to and seek the mainstream success that had eluded Suicide. So, for Saturn Strip, Vega signed to a major (his first, Elektra) and pulled out all the stops to accomplish stardom. He utilized Suicide producer and fan Ric Ocasek to produce the album, but with as much polish and sheen as any album released by Ocasek's much more successful band, the Cars. He also brought on a then-unknown aspiring synth-pop musician named Alain Jourgensen (who would later earn infamy as the creative force behind Ministry) to add a sleek synthesizer sound. What's more, Vega condensed all of his song ideas into concise, straightforward four-minute pop songs instead of the extended art pieces that dominated his first two albums and his Suicide work (such as "Viet Vet" or "Frankie Teardrop"). There's even a straightforward disco cover, Hot Chocolate's "Every 1's a Winner." It may seem that such a move would be a gross betrayal of his previous artistic direction, but, in fact, it results in simply the best album of his career, one that even occasionally tops his Suicide oeuvre. By dropping his self-indulgent tendencies and focusing on simple song structures, Vega's talent for evocative lyrics and clever melodies comes across clearly, and his vocals, always charismatic and exciting, are at their best here. Unfortunately, the album was nowhere near the commercial success it was crafted to be, and Vega eventually returned to willful obscurity. Still, compared to most other synth-pop albums of the era, Saturn Strip is every bit as impressive as it was upon its release, and fans that want to dig deeper to appreciate a truly lost gem of the era, or are seeking an introduction to Vega's unique talents, should definitely seek it out.
Just a Million Dreams was Alan Vega's second shot at mainstream stardom on a major label, but whereas his previous album, Saturn Strip, was an impressive distillation of his best ideas, Dreams is an unconvincing disappointment. The sleek production sounds dated rather than fresh and vibrant as it did before. The energetic playing and singing can't conceal the fundamental weakness of the material. None of the songs are truly bad, but they are a deeply misguided attempt at mainstream stardom that, this time, sounds forced and contrived. Though Vega once again shed his experimental tendencies on Dreams, this time, it's to no end, since he replaced them with surprisingly drab lyrics and banal melodies. Worst of all, the material, lacking any compelling hooks, fails even as an attempt at mainstream synth pop. The result was the second commercial flop in a row for Vega, who parted ways with Elektra and returned to Suicide and experimental synth-noise. Dreams is not the best introduction to Vega's music, and will be of interest only to hardcore fanatics.
Alan Vega - Saturn Strip + Just A Million Dreams (flac 501mb)
Saturn Strip
01 Saturn Drive 5:40
02 Video Babe 3:18
03 American Dreamer 5:05
04 Kid Congo 2:30
05 Goodbye Darling 2:40
06 Wipeout Beat 5:44
07 Je T'Adore 3:39
08 Angel 5:09
09 Every 1's A Winner 4:10
Just A Million Dreams
10 On The Run 4:18
11 Shooting For You 5:10
12 Hot Fox 3:56
13 Too Late 4:23
14 Wild Heart 4:39
15 Creation 4:26
16 Cry Fire 5:00
17 Ra Ra Baby 4:31
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Today an American vocalist, born Boruch Alan Bermowitz on June 23, 1938, primarily known for his work with the electronic protopunk duo Suicide. He is also an established sculptor.... N'Joy
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Alan Bermowitz was raised in a Jewish household in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. In the late 1950s, he attended Brooklyn College where he studied both physics and fine art under Ad Reinhardt and Kurt Seligmann and graduated in 1960. 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. 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 in Manhattan. Calling himself Alan Suicide, he graduated from painting to light sculptures, 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.Barbara Gladstone continued to show his work well into the 1980s. The Project (of Living Artists) served as a stomping grounds for the likes of the New York Dolls, Television and Blondie as well as the 15-piece jazz group Reverend B., which featured a musician named Martin Rev on electric piano.
Seeing The Stooges perform at the New York State Pavilion in August 1969 was an epiphany for Vega. 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, which he adopted from an article by Lester Bangs. In 1971 the group dropped Paul Liebgott and added Mari Reverby on drums, 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.
Suicide disbanded after 2 albums in 1980, and both Vega and Rev undertook solo careers. 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. His later that year second effort Collision Drive continued to explore the fractured rockabilly identity he had established in his earlier work. 1983's Saturn Strip, produced by longtime fan Ric Ocasek and Suicide II producer, marked Vega's debut for Elektra Records; corporate relations soured in 1985, when 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, but production switched over to Chris Lord-Alge and Vega ran into several difficulties during the recording sessions. Vega later lamented, "They took all my songs and turned them into God knows what."
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. 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." 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 Musicians who contributed to the tribute series included The Horrors, Lydia Lunch, Primal Scream, and Miss Kittin.
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.
Alan Vega used to say that as beeing basically a sculptor, music was secondary for him. Was that just another provocation? Alan Vega is anyway a true legend (a romantic hero or a deamer for some), joining for any kinds of obscure or more visible projects. He actually induces what Legs McNeil calls the astonishment, a mixture of fascination, made of repulsion and admiration: otherwise, how can one continue to adulate somebody who is ok with just a 30 minutes act (sometimes less, sometimes more) without any communication with the assitance? He's probably one of the original punks actors of the CBGB.....
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Alan Vega used his first solo album to distance himself from the music made by his pioneering synth-punk duo Suicide. Where Suicide deliberately used cheap, loud synthesizers to generate a cold, crude sound, Vega hired a guitarist and made, for all intents and purposes, a rockabilly album. "Lonely" is Vega's homage to "Heartbreak Hotel," and it's as full of yelps and pleading as the original, as Vega does his best Elvis impression. The gorgeous "Ice Drummer" may be Vega's best solo track, a beautiful shiny pop gem. Only "Bye Bye Bayou," a misguided attempt to fuse '50s rock and Vega's extended performance art pieces, falls flat. Still, golden pop moments like "Ice Drummer" are good reminders of why Vega, for all his eccentricities, remains a musician worth caring about.
Alan Vega - Alan Vega (flac 180mb)
01 Jukebox Babe 4:48
02 Fireball 3:55
03 Kung Foo Cowboy 3:27
04 Love Cry 4:43
05 Speedway 2:34
06 Ice Drummer 4:23
07 Bye Bye Bayou 8:36
08 Lonely 2:42
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
Collision Drive continues the trend started on the first Alan Vega album of incorporating Vega's love of '50s rock and R&B. "Ghost Rider," which sounded cold, sleek, and mechanical on Suicide's first album, now becomes an upbeat rockabilly rave-up. Vega covers Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula" and plays it mostly straight (although he does throw in his trademark howls and yelps, along with some synthesizers). The two versions of "Magdalena" aren't really different enough to justify their presence, although the song itself is likable. The track that stands out the most, however, is the 13-minute "Viet Vet," an extended poetic rant in the pattern of Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop." It will either seem like a brilliant piece of performance art, or it will sound unbearably self-indulgent, depending on a listener's tolerance for Vega's excesses. For the most part, though, rollicking tracks like "Raver" and "Rebel Rocker" are enjoyable and exciting enough to offset any of the less successful experiments. Collision Drive may be uneven, but at its best, it will definitely provide more than enough smart art pop to chew on.
Alan Vega - Collision Drive (flac 215mb)
01 Magdalena 82 3:03
02 Be Bop A Lula 2:22
03 Outlaw 3:31
04 Raver 2:46
05 Ghost Rider 4:31
06 I Believe 5:24
07 Magdalena 83 2:56
08 Rebel 2:47
09 Viet Vet 12:46
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
The Wounded Bird label can be credited with keeping a number of beloved records in print, even if the profit potential in almost every case has been way south of high -- 1983's Saturn Strip and 1985's Just a Million Dreams -- Alan Vega's two mainstream-seeking records for Elektra -- are combined here. They'll never get as much attention as the Suicide records, but they're both significant parts of Vega's career.
By the time of his third solo album, Suicide frontman Alan Vega had decided he wanted to escape the art punk ghetto he had been confined to and seek the mainstream success that had eluded Suicide. So, for Saturn Strip, Vega signed to a major (his first, Elektra) and pulled out all the stops to accomplish stardom. He utilized Suicide producer and fan Ric Ocasek to produce the album, but with as much polish and sheen as any album released by Ocasek's much more successful band, the Cars. He also brought on a then-unknown aspiring synth-pop musician named Alain Jourgensen (who would later earn infamy as the creative force behind Ministry) to add a sleek synthesizer sound. What's more, Vega condensed all of his song ideas into concise, straightforward four-minute pop songs instead of the extended art pieces that dominated his first two albums and his Suicide work (such as "Viet Vet" or "Frankie Teardrop"). There's even a straightforward disco cover, Hot Chocolate's "Every 1's a Winner." It may seem that such a move would be a gross betrayal of his previous artistic direction, but, in fact, it results in simply the best album of his career, one that even occasionally tops his Suicide oeuvre. By dropping his self-indulgent tendencies and focusing on simple song structures, Vega's talent for evocative lyrics and clever melodies comes across clearly, and his vocals, always charismatic and exciting, are at their best here. Unfortunately, the album was nowhere near the commercial success it was crafted to be, and Vega eventually returned to willful obscurity. Still, compared to most other synth-pop albums of the era, Saturn Strip is every bit as impressive as it was upon its release, and fans that want to dig deeper to appreciate a truly lost gem of the era, or are seeking an introduction to Vega's unique talents, should definitely seek it out.
Just a Million Dreams was Alan Vega's second shot at mainstream stardom on a major label, but whereas his previous album, Saturn Strip, was an impressive distillation of his best ideas, Dreams is an unconvincing disappointment. The sleek production sounds dated rather than fresh and vibrant as it did before. The energetic playing and singing can't conceal the fundamental weakness of the material. None of the songs are truly bad, but they are a deeply misguided attempt at mainstream stardom that, this time, sounds forced and contrived. Though Vega once again shed his experimental tendencies on Dreams, this time, it's to no end, since he replaced them with surprisingly drab lyrics and banal melodies. Worst of all, the material, lacking any compelling hooks, fails even as an attempt at mainstream synth pop. The result was the second commercial flop in a row for Vega, who parted ways with Elektra and returned to Suicide and experimental synth-noise. Dreams is not the best introduction to Vega's music, and will be of interest only to hardcore fanatics.
Alan Vega - Saturn Strip + Just A Million Dreams (flac 501mb)
Saturn Strip
01 Saturn Drive 5:40
02 Video Babe 3:18
03 American Dreamer 5:05
04 Kid Congo 2:30
05 Goodbye Darling 2:40
06 Wipeout Beat 5:44
07 Je T'Adore 3:39
08 Angel 5:09
09 Every 1's A Winner 4:10
Just A Million Dreams
10 On The Run 4:18
11 Shooting For You 5:10
12 Hot Fox 3:56
13 Too Late 4:23
14 Wild Heart 4:39
15 Creation 4:26
16 Cry Fire 5:00
17 Ra Ra Baby 4:31
xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx
