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Artist:

Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch

Born:
1959 in Rochester, New York

  • Birth Name: Lydia Koch
  • Genre: Rock
  • Active: '70s - 2000s
  • Instrument: Vocals

Biography

After leaving the seminal New York no wave outfit Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, poet/actress/vocalist Lydia Lunch (b. Lydia Koch) embarked on a solo career marked by frequent collaborations and band changes, plus an attitude of confrontational nihilism expressed in both her sound and her often violent and/or sexually oriented subject matter. Upon leaving Teenage Jesus, Lunch first formed Beirut Slump, but departed after one single. Her solo debut, 1980's Queen of Siam, proved to be one of her most acclaimed efforts, as was her next band, the funk-inflected 8 Eyed Spy. However, that band broke up due to the death of bassist George Scott, and Lunch went back out on her own. After 1982's 13.13, which featured former members of the Weirdos, Lunch began a rash of collaborations, working with the Birthday Party on the EP The Agony Is the Ecstasy, as well as Einstürzende Neubauten, Die Haut, Sort Sol, Swans' Michael Gira, and members of Sonic Youth. Lunch founded her own Widowspeak label in 1985, immediately delving into spoken word with the EP The Uncensored Lydia Lunch and reissuing much of her back catalog, including a two-CD retrospective, Hysterie, in 1986. Her next collaboration was the first of several with Jim "Foetus" Thirlwell, who remixed a shelved project with Birthday Party members from 1982-1983; it was issued as Honeymoon in Red in 1987. The two also released the Stinkfist EP under Thirlwell's Clint Ruin alias in 1989. That same year, Lunch teamed with Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon in Harry Crews, a one-off, all-female noise rock band, for the LP Naked in Garden Hills. Aside from an EP with ex-Birthday Party guitarist Rowland S. Howard in 1991, Shotgun Wedding, plus her acting career in underground films, Lunch has concentrated on the spoken word arena into the '90s; a three-CD retrospective of this aspect of her career, Crimes Against Nature, was issued in 1993, and Lunch has continued her activities throughout the decade. Much of her Widowspeak output was reissued by other independent labels in the mid-'90s. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide

Representative Songs:

"Lady Scarface," "Spooky," "Some Velvet Morning"

Representative Albums:

Queen of Siam, 8 Eyed Spy, Widowspeak

Similar Artists:

Alan Vega, These Immortal Souls, Diamanda Galás, Bush Tetras

A Member of the Group:

Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, 8 Eyed Spy

Performed Songs By:

Lucy Hamilton, Lee Hazlewood

Followers:

Black Ice, Glass Candy, Lucid Nation, Jack Off Jill, Demolition Doll Rods, Die Haut
 
 
Actor:

Lydia Lunch

  • Born: 1959
  • Occupation: Actor, Director
  • Active: '80s, 2000s
  • Major Genres: Drama, Theater
  • Career Highlights: Vortex, The Offenders, The Gun Is Loaded
  • First Major Screen Credit: Beauty Becomes the Beast (1980)

Biography

Often compared with history's most infamous sexual deviants from Henry Miller to the Marquis de Sade, Lydia Lunch has expressed her unique ideas through several artistic mediums. Predominately a musician, writer, and spoken word performer, she brings a challenging and confrontational presence to her work in visual arts as well. Her film credits include writing, composing, directing, and acting, though she mostly appears as "Herself." In short experimental films and videos, she has worked with innovative filmmakers such as Beth B. and Nick Zedd since the late '70s. Several of Lunch's spoken word performances have been made available on video, most notably in 1988's The Gun Is Loaded and the documentary The Wild World of Lydia Lunch. In the mid '90s, she was a presenter at the Whitney Museum of Art's Underground Film Festival, personally appearing in several of the screenings. She collaborated with director Richard Kern for The Right Side of My Brain and Fingered, two short films investigating ideas of sex and violence. In the late '90s, Lunch was the creative consultant for the film Shadow Hours. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide

 
Wikipedia: Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch
LydiaLunch.jpg
Background information
Birth name Lydia Koch
Born June 2 1959 (1959--) (age 48)
Origin Rochester, New York
Genre(s) No Wave
Experimental Rock
Alternative Rock
Occupation(s) Singer, songwriter
Instrument(s) Vocals, guitar
Years active 1979 - present
Associated
acts		 Teenage Jesus and the Jerks
8-Eyed Spy
Harry Crews

Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Koch on June 2, 1959 in Rochester, New York) is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress.

Biography

After arriving in New York City at the age of 16, Lunch moved into a large communal household of artists and musicians in NYC, including Kitty Bruce, daughter of Lenny Bruce. Soon after she earned the surname "Lunch" by regularly stealing lunches for her (often starving) artist friends. After befriending the 'godfathers of punk' Suicide at Max's Kansas City, she founded the short-lived but influential No Wave band Teenage Jesus & the Jerks in 1976 with her artistic partner, No Wave punk-funk-jazz musician James Chance. Both appeared on the seminal No Wave compilation No New York. Lunch later appeared on two songs on Chance's album Off White (credited to James White and the Blacks; Lunch used the pseudonym "Stella Rico") in 1978.

She appeared in two films directed by the husband and wife film-making team of Scott B and Beth B; In the short film Black Box (1978) she played an unnamed torturer, and in the feature length, neo-noir thriller Vortex (1983) she played a private detective named "Angel Powers". During this time, she also appeared in a number of films by Vivienne Dick, including She Had her Gun All Ready (1978) and Beauty Becomes The Beast (1979), co starring with Pat Place.

In the mid-'80s she formed her own recording and publishing company called "Widowspeak" on which she continues to release a slew of her own material from songs to spoken word.

A self-avowed 'confrontationalist' identified by the Boston Phoenix as "one of the 10 most influential performers of the '90s", Lunch's solo career featured collaborations with musicians such as J. G. Thirlwell, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, Billy Ver Plank, Steven Severin, Robert Quine, Sadie Mae, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Gira, The Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sonic Youth, Die Haut and Black Sun Productions. She also acted in, wrote, and directed underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker and musician Richard Kern (including several films such as Fingered in which she performed unsimulated sex acts), and more recently has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, again collaborating with such artists as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby Jr., and Emilio Cubeiro, as well as authoring both traditional books and comix (with award-winning graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).

Simon Reynolds, author of Rip It Up and Start Again : Postpunk 1978-1984, wrote: "And although 'affection' is possibly an odd word to use in reference to a bunch of nihilists, I do feel fond of the No Wave people. ... there are great moments throughout Lydia Lunch's long discography." [1]

Selected quotations

I'm nihilistic, antagonistic, violent, horrible - but not obliterated, yet.

I would be humiliated if I found out that anything I did actually became a commercial success.

There’re enough happy assholes out there, why should I be another one in the line...

It seems to me, that for over two thousand years now; mad-men, maniacs, and would be messiahs have been pilfering, have been pillaging, have been plundering, and have been raping the entire planet; and the way I see it, Mother Nature is getting pretty pissed off.

No pornography exploits women. It exploits men. It’s the men that are made to look stupid, silly and ridiculous, chasing after the golden elixir. Women look beautiful, do what they wanna do and get paid for it.

Discography

Music

Spoken word

  • Better An Old Demon Than A New God, Giorno Poetry Systems comp. f/ William S. Burroughs, Psychic TV, Richard Hell and others (1984)
  • The Uncensored, solo (1984)
  • Hard Rock, solo (split cassette w. Michael Gira / Ecstatic Peace, 1984)
  • Oral Fixation, solo (12", 1988)
  • Our Fathers who Aren't in Heaven, w. Henry Rollins, Hubert Selby Jr. and Don Bajema (1990)
  • Conspiracy of Women, solo (1990)
  • South of Your Border, w. Emilio Cubeiro (1991)
  • POW, solo (1992)
  • Crimes Against Nature, solo spoken-word anthology (Tripple X/Atavistic, 1994)
  • Rude Hieroglyphics, w. Exene Cervenka (Rykodisc, 1995)
  • Universal Infiltrators, (Atavistic, 1996)
  • The Devil's Racetrack (2000)

Filmography

Actress

  • She Had Her Gun All Ready, directed by Vivienne Dick (1978)
  • Guerillere Talks, directed by Vivienne Dick (1978)
  • Black Box, directed by Scott and Beth B (1979)
  • Beauty Becomes the Beast, directed by Vivienne Dick (1979)
  • The Offenders (1979-1980)
  • Liberty's Booty (1980)
  • Subway Riders, directed by Amos Poe (1981)
  • The Wild World of Lydia Lunch, directed by Nick Zedd (1983)
  • Like Dawn to Dust, directed by Vivienne Dick (1983)
  • Vortex, directed by Scott and Beth B (1983)
  • Submit to Me, directed by Richard Kern (1985)
  • The Right Side of My Brain, directed by Richard Kern (1985)
  • Fingered, directed by Richard Kern (1986)
  • Submit to Me Now, directed by Richard Kern (1987)
  • Mondo New York (1987)
  • Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread (1987)
  • Penn & Teller's BBQ Death Squad (198?)
  • Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends (1990)
  • The Road to God Knows Where (1990)
  • Thanatopsis, directed by Beth B (1991)
  • Visiting Desire (1996)
  • Power of the Word (1996)
  • The Heart is Deceitful Above all Things (2004)
  • Kill Your Idols (2004)
  • Psychomentsrum (unreleased)

Writer

  • The Right Side of My Brain (1985)
  • Fingered (1986)

Composer

  • The Offenders (1980)
  • Vortex (1983) (W/John Lurie, Adele Bertei, Pat Place, Beth B and Scott B)
  • The Right Side of My Brain (1985)
  • Goodbye 42nd Street (1986)
  • Fingered (1986)
  • I Pass for Human (2004)

Subject

  • Rome 78 (1978)
  • The Wild World of Lydia Lunch (1983)
  • Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends (1987)
  • Put More Blood into the Music (1987)
  • The Gun is Loaded (1988-1989)
  • The Road to God Knows Where (1990)
  • Malicious Intent (1990)
  • The Thunder (1992)
  • Totem of the Depraved (1996)
  • Paradoxia (1998)
  • Kiss My Grits: The Herstory of Women in Punk and Hard Rock (2001)
  • DIY or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist (2002)
  • Kill Your Idols (2004)

Narrator

  • American Fame Part 1: Drowning River Phoenix (2004) Cam Archer

American Fame Part 2 (2004) Cam Archer Wild Tigers I Have Known Cam Archer )2005)

Plays

(both written, acted, directed and produced with Emilio Cubeiro)

  • South of Your Border (1988)
  • Smell of Guilt (1990)

Bibliography

  • Adulterers Anonymous (1982 with Exene Cervenka)
  • Incriminating Evidence (1992)
  • Paradoxia; a Predator's Diary (1997)

Comicography

Miscellany

  • Featured as the Ace of Hearts in Post-Modern Pin-Ups: Pleasure Activist Playing Cards by Annie Sprinkle (1995)

External links


This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

 
 

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Copyrights:

Artist. Copyright © 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ® , a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Actor. Copyright © 2006 All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Lydia Lunch".  Read more

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