“We almost got killed. I love that reaction,” Mr. Vega once reminisced about Suicide’s debut at the Boston nightclub the Rat. “I’d say one half wanted to kill us and one half loved us.”

A notorious 23-minute show recorded in Brussels in 1978 turned into a riot; Suicide released a recording of it. Suicide’s music would later be more widely tolerated, recognized as a precursor of electronic dance music and industrial rock.

Alan Vega, the singer in the minimalist, proto-punk, proto-electro, proto-industrial two-man band Suicide and a prolific musician and visual artist on his own, died on Saturday.