The original plan was to call the band Life, but downtown New Yorkers Alan Vega and Martin Rev were barely hanging onto life as it was. Vega was at the time the custodian of an art venue named the Project of Living Artists, funded by New York State, where he and a whole mess of other musicians, artists, and hangers-on met in a second-story loft to woodshed, swap ideas, perform, hang out, get high, and get by as best they could. It was open around the clock, and everyone took turns making sure the place was kept intact (along with the people in it). When it wasn’t his turn to perform or oversee, Vega would grab what little sleep he could in a pup tent he’d erected in the back of a nearby abandoned lot. Food was a luxury: one Blimpie tuna-fish sandwich a day between the two of them, if they were lucky. Winters were murderous. Friends were all anybody had.