Suicide formed in 1971, from New York City and always with the avant-garde, they made the sound of New York... They were part of that "pre-punk era" with all that bands from Max Kansas City and CBGB's (Velvet Underground, the New York Dolls, Ramones, Blondie, Dead Boys, Wayne/Jayne County, Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch, ... cf. compilations) and today, they are venerated by any Techno-CowBoy which respects himself. Few bands (Velvet Underground, Suicide, the Stooges...) had and still have such an impact on the others (as diverse as OMD, Human League, Spiritualized, Orbital, Pulp, Soft Celle, Nick Cave, Jesus & Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Chemical Brothers, Luna, Foil, Bloodstar, etc etc).

Alan Vega (a.k.a. Alan Bermowitz) was born in Brooklyn, New York, and Martin Rev (a.k.a. Martin Reverby) grown up in the Bronx. Alan Vega started as a sculptor. In 1974 he opened a small gallery in the lower Manhattan, where he put up the Project of Living Artists, pluri-artistic place (like Andy Warhol's Factory, but much smaller), where they tried any kind of happening or artistic attempts. That enabled him to meet a jazz band Reverend B, with certain Martin Rev on piano (electric). It was the first step of an adventure of (more) 30 years : they recently gave a gig at CCCP, Barcelona, Spain (june 1999), for the SONAR festival of techno music, with such comments as "deliberate demonstration of sounds provocation and irreverent toward assistence".