Alan Vega, the visionary frontman of the American electronic musical duo Suicide, has died at 78. Henry Rollins broke the news via his website, with a statement from Vega’s family.

“Alan passed peacefully in his sleep last night, July 16,” the statement read.

“Alan was not only relentlessly creative, writing music and painting until the end, he was also startlingly unique. Along with Martin Rev, in the early 1970s, they formed the two-person avant band known as Suicide.

“Almost immediately, their incredible and unclassifiable music went against every possible grain. Their confrontational live performances, light years before punk rock, are the stuff of legend. Their first, self-titled album is one of the single most challenging and noteworthy achievements in American music.”

Alan Vega was a minority, he created with an angle unnoticed by most and carved grooves in places they simply did not belong. On a fixed speed of 100 miles per hour, the New York-born musician was unflinching in his ambition and utterly uncompromising in his output, never settling for mediocrity. From that pulse-racing Ghost Rider riff, to the palpable electronics of Wipeout Beat and through the startlingly beautiful Dream Baby Dream, Vega’s output was nothing less than relentless.

Alongside partner in crime Martin Rev, the duo terrorised audiences with their visceral and confrontational live performances, as Rev threw down industrial synth beats, Vega would cut himself onstage, lunge at his audience and brandish a length of motorcycle chain. Suicide were the band punks thought were too wild.

A true musical pioneer who dedicated his life to his art, Vega realised his vision with an innate passion that challenged musical convention and forged progressive sounds that changed music forever. His is a legacy that inspired the likes of Jesus And Mary Chain, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, New Order, LCD Soundsystem, MIA and Bruce Springsteen, who once declared, “If Elvis came back from the dead, I think he would sound like Alan Vega.”

This writer, for one, will always cherish his prolific and unerring output. Whenever the world seems numb, simply place the needle on Suicide’s eponymous debut record and let it unnerve you, allow it to hit you like a bolt of lightning, and be sure to lap up every intensely vivid second of it.

Thanks for all the noise, Alan Vega. The world just became a far duller place.

“It’s the music for the people.
 The people of today.”  – Wipeout Beat (1983)