Lydia Lunch

Lunch performing in 2005. Photo by Starphuk. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Lydia Lunch
Birth name	Lydia Anne Koch
Born	June 2, 1959 (1959-06-02) Rochester, New York
Genres	No Wave, post-punk, industrial, avant-garde, spoken word
Occupations	Singer, songwriter, actor
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1976–present
Labels	ZE Records
Associated acts	Teenage Jesus and the Jerks 8-Eyed Spy Big Sexy Noise Harry Crews Sonic Youth My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult

Lydia Lunch (born June 2, 1959} is an American poet, singer, prose writer, and actress whose career was spawned by the New York No Wave scene.

Her work typically features provocative and confrontational delivery and has maintained an anti-commercial ethic, operating independently of major labels and distributors.

Life

Youth

Lunch was born Lydia Anne Koch in Rochester, New York. She moved to New York City from Rochester at the age of 13 in 1973 with what she described as having nothing but "a small red suitcase, a winter coat, and a big fucking attitude."

Lunch moved into a communal household of artists and musicians in NYC, including Kitty Bruce, daughter of Lenny Bruce(Citation needed). Soon Willy DeVille gave her the name "Lunch" because she often stole lunches from The Dead Boys.

Career

After befriending Alan Vega and Martin Rev at Max's Kansas City, she founded the short-lived but influential No Wave band, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, with James Chance. Both Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and The Contortions, Chance's subsequent band, played on the No Wave compilation No New York, produced by Brian Eno. Lunch later appeared on two songs on James White and the Blacks album, Off-White.

She appeared in two films by directors Scott B and Beth B. In the Black Box (1978) she played a dominatrix, and in 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-1980s she formed her own recording and publishing company called "Widowspeak" on which she continues to release her own material, from music to spoken word.

Lunch's solo career featured collaborations with musicians such as J. G. Thirlwell, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Billy Ver Planck, Steven Severin, Robert Quine, Sadie Mae, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Gira, The Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sonic Youth, Oxbow, Die Haut, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Black Sun Productions, and French band Sibyl Vane, who put one of her poems to music. She also wrote, directed and acted in underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker and photographer Richard Kern and more recently has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, again collaborating with such artists as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Juan Azulay, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby Jr., and Emilio Cubeiro, as well as hosting spoken-word performance night The Unhappy Hour at the Parlour Club. Additionally, she has authored both traditional books and comix (with award-winning graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).

Lunch released her studio album Smoke in the Shadows in November 2004 through Atavistic Records and Breakin Beats after a six-year break from music. Nels Cline, lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco, was featured on the album. Smoke in the Shadows was met with positive reviews by Allmusic, PopMatters, and Tiny Mix Tapes.

In 2007, Lydia appeared on a viral video that was recorded backstage after a Joe Rogan comedy show, in which she attacked Rogan for making jokes about "dumb women" in his comedy act.

In 2009, Lunch formed the band Big Sexy Noise. The group features Lunch on vocals; James Johnston on guitars; Terry Edwards on organ, saxophone and guitar; and Ian White on drums. Johnston and Edwards were previously members of the band Gallon Drunk). A 6-track eponymous EP was released on June 1, 2009 through Sartorial Records. The EP included a cover of Lou Reed's song "Kill Your Sons" and "The Gospel Singer", a song co-written with Kim Gordon. In 2010 she released, with Big Sexy Noise, their first album. In 2011, they released Trust The Witch, her 2nd album with Big Sexy Noise. For both albums, Lydia Lunch and her band have made concert tours around the world.

In 2010, the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project launched We Are Only Riders, the 1st in a series of 3 albums featuring Pierce's previously-unreleased works-in-progress. The album features interpretations of Pierce's work by friends, collaborators and acolytes, including Lydia Lunch. Lunch also contributed to the next album from the project (The Journey is Long, released in April 2012) and the project's 3rd and final album, The Task Has Overwhelmed Us (due for release in late 2012).

In 2011, Lunch appeared in Mutantes: punk, porn, feminism, a film directed by Virginie Despentes, also featuring Annie Sprinkle and Catherine Breillat.

Writing

In 1997, Lunch released Paradoxia, a loose autobiography, in which she documented her early life, sexual history, substance abuse and mental health problems. Time Out New York gave it a favorable review, while Bookslut ambiguously concluded "It’s to the reader to determine whether Lunch’s study goes deeper than that, or if instead, it’s a kind of literary and philosophical repetition compulsion, a reprisal of greatest hits from male nihilists, sexual adventurers and chroniclers of deviance." PopMatters called it a "brutal but boring and predictable circus, about which Lunch shows no emotions. Only fatigue seems to have given her pause." Other reviewers praised Lunch's candor while expressing reservations about her prose.

Recognition

The Boston Phoenix named Lunch "one of the 10 most influential performers of the 1990s."

Publications

Poetry

• Adulterers Anonymous (with Exene Cervenka). New York: Grove, 1982; San Francisco: Last Gasp, 1996.

Novel

• Paradoxia: A predator's diary. London & Staten Island, NY: Creation Books, 1999; New York: Akashic Books, 2007.

Comix

• Bloodsucker (illustrated by Bob Fingerman). Seattle, WA: Eros Comix, 1992.
• As-Fix-E-8 (with Nick Cave; illustrated by Mike Matthews). San Francisco: Last Gasp, 1993.
• Toxic Gumbo (illustrated by Ted McKeever). New York: DC, 1998.

Non-fiction

• Will Work for Drugs. New York: Akashic Books, 2009.
• The Need to Feed: Recipes for developing a healthy obsession with deeply satisfying foods (with Marcy Blaustein). New York: Universe / Rizzoli, 2012.
• Lydia Lunch (with V. Vale). San Francisco: RE/Search, 2013.

Collected editions

• Incriminating Evidence: The collected writings of Lydia Lunch. San Francisco: Last Gasp, 1992.
• The Gun is Loaded (poems, prose, & photos). London: Black Dog, 2008.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

Plays

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

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

Audio / video

Film

Actress

• She Had Her Gun All Ready, directed by Vivienne Dick (1978)
• Guerillere Talks, directed by Vivienne Dick (1978)
• Rome '78, directed by James Nares (1978)
• Black Box, directed by Scott & 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)
• Mondo New York (1987)
• Invisible Thread, directed by Bob Balaban (1987)
• Penn & Teller's BBQ Death Squad (198?)
• Penn & Teller's Cruel Tricks for Dear Friends (1990)
• Kiss Napoleon Goodbye, directed by Babeth vanLoo (1990)
• The Road to God Knows Where, directed by Uli M. Schüppel (1990)
• Thanatopsis, directed by Beth B (1991)
• Visiting Desire, directed by Beth B (1996)
• Power of the Word (1996)
• The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, directed by Asia Argento (2004)
• Kill Your Idols, directed by Scott Crary, also known as S.A. Crary (2004)
• Psychomentsrum (unreleased)
• Godkiller: Walk Among Us (2010) (Voice Role)
• Mutantes: punk, porn, feminism, directed by Virginie Despentes(2011)
• Autoluminescent, directed by Richard Lowenstein (2011)
• Blank City, directed by Celine Danhier (2012)

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)
• Flood stains (2010)

Subject

• 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)
• Lady Lazarus: Confronting Lydia Lunch (2000)
• 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, dir. Cam Archer (2004)
• American Fame Part 2: Forgetting Jonathan Brandis, dir. Cam Archer (2005)
• Wild Tigers I Have Known, (Scenes Deleted), dir. Cam Archer (2006)

Discography

Lydia Lunch-This Is My Murder

Spoken word

Lydia Lunch. Touch my evil

• 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)
• Flood Stains, w. Juan Azulay (2010)

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks

Lydia Lunch & Teenage Jesus and The Jerks

• No New York, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (compilation Antilles 1978)
• Babydoll b/w Freud In Flop, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (7" / Lust/Unlust, 1979)
• Orphans b/w Less of Me, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (7" / Migraine, 1979)
• Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (LP / Migraine, 1979) originally released on pink vinyl
• Pink, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (12" / Lust/Unlust, 1979)
• Pre-Teenage Jesus, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (12" / ZE, 1979)
• Everything, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks (CD re-issue/ Atavistic, 1995)

8-Eyed Spy

8 Eyed Spy - Run Through The Jungle

• Diddy Wah Diddy b/w Dead Me You B-Side, 8-Eyed Spy (7" / Fetish, 1980)
• 8-Eyed Spy, 8-Eyed Spy (LP / Fetish, 1981)
• Live, 8-Eyed Spy (cassette / ROIR, 1981)
• Luncheone, 8-Eyed Spy (CD re-issue/ Atavistic, 1995)

Solo

Lydia Lunch - Atomic Bongos

• Queen of Siam, solo (LP / ZE, 1980)
• 13.13, solo (LP / Ruby Records, 1981)
• Drunk on the Pope's Blood/The Agony Is the Ecstacy, solo (split 12" EP w. The Birthday Party / 4AD, 1982)
• In Limbo, solo (12" EP / Widowspeak, 1984)
• Hysterie, compilation of recordings 1976-1986 (LP, 1986 / Widowspeak Records)
• Honeymoon in Red, solo (LP, 1987)
• Unearthly Delights, solo (7", 1992)
• Twisted, solo (7", 1992)
• No Excuse b/w A Short History of Decay, w. Lee Ranaldo) (7" / Figurehead, 1997)
• Matrikamantra, solo (CD, 1997)
• Widowspeak, solo best-of compilation (2CD / NMC, 1998)
• Smoke in the Shadows, solo (CD / Atavistic, 2004)
• Big Sexy Noise, w. James Johnston, Terry Edwards, Ian White (CD / Sartorial Records, 2009)
• Trust The Witch,w Big Sexy Noise (CD / Le Son Du Maquis, 2011)

Harry Crews

• Naked In Garden Hills, Harry Crews (1987)

Collaborations

Lydia Lunch - Some Velvet Morning

• Some Velvet Morning, w. Rowland S. Howard (12" EP / 4AD, 1982)
• The Drowning of Lucy Hamilton, w. Lucy Hamilton aka China Berg of MARS (12" EP / Widowspeak, 1985)
• The Crumb, w. Thurston Moore (12" EP / Widowspeak, 1987)
• Stinkfist, w. Clint Ruin (12" EP, 1987)
• Don't Fear the Reaper, w. Clint Ruin (12" EP, 1991)
• Shotgun Wedding, w. Rowland S. Howard (CD, 1991)
• Transmutation + Shotgun Wedding Live in Siberia, w. Rowland S. Howard (CD, 1994)
• The Desperate Ones, w. Glyn Styler) (CD EP / Atavistic, 1997)
• Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & Lydia Lunch, w. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (EP / Willie Anderson Recordings 2007)
• Lydia Lunch & Philippe Petit – (In Comfort, Vinyl, 12", Picture Disc, cz007 Comfortzone, 2011)

Appears on

Lydia Lunch and Thurston Moore, "Breaking Open The Head"

• Try Me b/w Staircase, Beirut Slump (7" / Lust/Unlust, 1979)
• Off White, James White and the Blacks (LP / ZE, 1979; also credited as Stella Rico)
• Der Karibische Western, Die Haut (12" EP, 1982)
• Thirsty Animal, Einstürzende Neubauten (12" EP, 1982)
• Boy-Girl, Sort Sol (7", 1983)
• Dagger & Guitar, sort Sol (LP, 1983)
• Death Valley '69, w. Sonic Youth (7", 1984)
• A Dozen Dead Roses, No Trend (LP, 1985)
• Heart of Darkness, w. No Trend (10" EP / Widowspeak, 1985)
• Death Valley '69, w. Sonic Youth (12", 1986)
• King of the Jews, w. Oxbow (LP/CD, 1991)
• A Girl Doesn't Get Killed by a Make Believe Lover...'cuz its Hot!, w. My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult (CDS, 1991)
• Head On, Die Haut (CD / Triple X, 1992)
• Sweat, Die Haut (CD / Triple X, 1992)
• Unhealthy, w. Lab Report (CD / Invisible Records, 1994)
• York (First Exit To Brooklyn), w. The Foetus Symphony Orchestra (CD, 1997)
• Brooklyn Bank, w. Here (CD / Invisible Records, 1998)
• OperettAmorale, w. Black Sun Productions, compilation tribute album to Bertolt Brecht, featuring Lunch's interpretation of "The Ballad Of Sexual Dependency" (CD, Divine Frequency, 2005)
• The Impossibility of Silence, w. Black Sun Productions (Double CD, Black Sun Productions, 2006)
• We Are Only Riders, The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project (Compilation CD/ Double LP / Glitterhouse Records, 2010)
• The Journey Is Long, The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project (Compilation CD/LP, Glitterhouse Records, 2012)
• The Task Has Overwhelmed Us, The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project (Compilation CD/LP, Glitterhouse Records, due for release in late 2012)

  

  Lydia Lunch-This Is My Murder-0

See also

• List of U.S. poets
• List of English-language songwriters

External links

Poems

• Three poems by Lydia Lunch at 3:am magazine
• Lyrics

Prose

• Lydia Lunch, Built for Abuse at The Outlaw Poetry Network

Audio / Video

• "This is My Murder"
• Lydia Lunch at YouTube

Books

• Lycia Lunch at Amazon.com
• Lydia Lunch: Bibliography at From the Archives

About

• Biography of Lydia Lunch on ZE Records
• Lydia Lunch at the Internet Movie Database
• Lydia Lunch Official website
• Lydia Lunch archives
• Lydia Lunch interview at Perfect Sound Forever, 1997
• The Need to Feed: Lunch goes 'Martha Stewart' with a decadently delicious new cookbook' interview, 2013.