Alan Vega

One half of the seminal electronic duo Suicide, Alan Vega was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1938. He began his career as a visual artist, gaining notoriety for his "light sculptures; " eventually Vega opened his own lower Manhattan gallery space, which he dubbed the Project of Living Artists. The Project 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. Soon, Vega and Rev formed Suicide, whose minimalist, aggressive music — a fusion of Rev's ominous, repetitive keyboards and Vega's rockabilly snarl — helped paved the direction for the electronic artists of the future.
Suicide disbanded in 1980, and both Vega and Rev undertook solo careers. Vega's self-titled 1980 debut and his 1981 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, marked Vega's debut for Elektra Records; corporate relations soured during production for 1985's Just a Million Dreams, however, and at one point the label even attempted to remove the singer from his own studio sessions.