Martin Rev Interviewed on Sincerity, July 21st

On Tuesday, July 21st @ 10pm ET, listen to a Martin Rev interview conducted alongside a selection of tracks from his career by Jay Hough for Sincerity on East Village Radio.

From his early days growing up in the Bronx, his adolescent years in Jamaica, Queens studying Jazz with Lennie Tristano, to his chance meeting with Alan Vega after an audition for his first group Reverend B, we discuss Martin’s decision to fuse his rock & roll roots with his time improvising with an electric keyboard after forming Suicide in 1970. Initially playing drums in Suicide’s short-lived trio version with guitarist Paul Liebgott, Martin acquired an electric organ and started playing both, before getting a drum machine in 1975 and cutting an acetate of “Rocket USA” to put on the Max’s Kansas City jukebox. The rest is history.

This interview and mix focuses largely on his solo career, beginning in early 1980 with his album for Charles Ball’s Infidelity imprint, Suicide’s trio of albums made with Ric Ocasek, the “TV Tapes” which wound up being his 3rd LP Cheyenne, to the unearthing of rare cassette recordings made between 1973-85 by the German label Bureau B, and an ongoing collaboration with the French video artist Divine Enfant.