Overview

Best known for co-founding the early punk duo Suicide, Alan Vega lived a complex and labyrinthine life, driven by a desire to express himself uncompromisingly through art. From his first sketch in art class at Brooklyn College to the 2021 release of the album Mutator five years after his death, Vega continues to shock and inspire. This first-ever biography of Vega tells the story of the man’s life and art, beginning with his early attempts to live a “normal” life and his epiphanic encounter with Iggy Pop in 1969. Although becoming a performer on stage had been at the bottom of Vega’s list of lifetime ambitions, Iggy changed his mind: he needed music to truly express his vision. Radical Dreams goes on to describe Vega’s many experiments across a variety of media, including the partnership with Marty Rev that became Suicide, which challenged audiences to look deep inside themselves and to not settle for distractions. Written by Vega’s widow Liz Lamere in collaboration with acclaimed musician and author Laura Davis-Chanin, Radical Dreams is a raw but engaging exploration of a man whose artwork, music, and philosophy inspired thousands.

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9781493072484

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"""It's a captivating portrait of a key figure in the 1970s and '80s punk scene."" -- ""Publisher's Weekly"""

Author Information

Liz Lamere was Alan Vega’s wife and long-term creative collaborator. They met in 1985 when she was a corporate lawyer at a major Wall Street firm and played drums in a punk band, SSNUB. She co-wrote, co-produced, and recorded numerous songs with Vega. Now, she spearheads the ongoing release of recordings from the “Vega Vault,” a vast library of unreleased albums, songs, and sound recordings. She oversees the Vega archives of works on paper, extensive writings of lyrics, poetry and fine art Vega created until his passing in 2016. Laura Davis-Chanin is the author of The Girl in the Back: A Female Drummer’s Life with Bowie, Blondie and the ‘70s Rock Scene, which was on Billboard’s top ten music books of 2018 and won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for Excellence in Writing. She is also the co-author of I Am Michael Alago.

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