"Debbie Harry Asked Me to Join Blondie!"

Calling themselves 'Punk Music' in 1970, Suicide channelled the danger, artistic revolutions and Vietnam rage of beleaguered New York City into coruscating electronic onslaughts that were later hailed future blueprints. For keyboard magus Martin Rev it was part of the creative journey that started in the 50s with doowop then jazz and continued in the wake of Alan Vega's 2016 passing with the idiosyncratic solo albums he began unleashing 44 years ago. "I'm still searching, and I'm still being surprised," he tells long-term UK press champion Kris Needs.

- By Kris Needs

Suicide’s astonishing story has been told many times since the world finally embraced their confrontational electronic future portents in the late 90s, from their beginnings 54 years ago as New York’s most vilified band to Alan Vega’s 2016 death, which brought down the curtain on the group.

In 2024, the mysterious figure in shades who extracted rhapsodic street cacophonies from his self-hotwired keyboards still acknowledges the trailblazing enormity of what Suicide achieved but prefers to focus on the parallel solo career, now numbering nine albums, that started in 1980. Away from the tales of hostile crowds and music industry ignorance, Martin Rev’s own remarkable story loomed again on last year’s The Sum Of Our Wounds (Cassette Recordings 1973-85), collating early sketches from his large tape archive. In a rare stretch of heightened profile, the set interrupted Rev’s ongoing reissue programme through Hamburg’s Bureau B label that resumes in March with 1980’s self-titled solo debut as he chisels at the new album that’s been a work in progress since 2017. If Suicide’s catalogue, also being reissued, seems part of electronic music’s circuitry, Rev’s finely crafted solo output has tended to fly a more wayward path under the radar, and not through choice (I’m looking forward to redressing the balance later this year, writing his NY-related musical history).

Maybe The Clash’s violence-strewn 1978 UK tour wasn’t the likeliest place to start a friendship but watching nightly as Suicide faced mindless abuse, I saw they deserved support. And so began a lifelong mission as one of their few press champions, ignited by their mind-blowing 1977 debut album.