It was my absolute honour and privilege to talk to Martin Rev for Clash about the making of the first Suicide album. Released in 1977, Suicide was a shock to the system for anyone expecting New York’s punk music to conform to any particular mould.

The roots of Suicide go right back to a pre-punk Manhattan of the late Sixties and early Seventies, years of hard slog of playing gigs in art galleries before the likes of Max’s Kansas City and CBGB had embraced the burgeoning punk scene that Suicide were at the centre of. It is a story of friendship, pivotal decisions over how a band should be presented, Elodie Lauten’s Farfisa and a rhythm machine made by a manufacturer more used to very different industries; of chance events, label rejection, the occasionally violent reaction of fans, and an album whose status has only become more legendary in the forty years since it was originally released.

Suicide was reissued by BMG / Mute earlier in July as a special edition red vinyl LP, forming part of their Art Of The Album series.

My interview with Martin Rev, with additional contributions from the album’s producer Craig Leon, can be found here.

(c) 2019 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence for Clash