Lunch was born on June 2, 1959, in Rochester, New York, and is of German and Italian descent. She moved to New York City at the age of 16 and eventually moved into a communal household of artists and musicians.[citation needed] 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.[9] 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 was in two other short lived bands before launching her solo career in 1980, Beirut Slump and 8 Eyed Spy.[10] In the mid-1980s, she formed the recording and publishing company "Widowspeak Productions" (also known as just "Widowspeak"), on which she continues to release her own material, from music to spoken word. Two albums published by Lunch's label were released in 2013: Collision Course & Trust The Witch, by Big Sexy Noise (released on Cherry Red), and Retrovirus (released on Interbang Records); both albums are by Lunch's musical projects.[11]
She released her studio album Smoke in the Shadows in November 2004, through Atavistic Records and Breakin Beats, after a six-year break from music.[12][13]Nels Cline, the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco, was featured on the album.[14]Smoke in the Shadows was met with positive reviews by Allmusic,[15]PopMatters,[12] and Tiny Mix Tapes.[16]
In 2009 Lunch formed the band Big Sexy Noise. The group features Lunch on vocals, James Johnston (guitars), Terry Edwards (organ, saxophone), and Ian White (drums).[17] Johnston, White and Edwards are members of the British band Gallon Drunk.[18] A six-track eponymous EP was released on June 1, 2009, through Sartorial Records,[19] and included a cover of Lou Reed's song "Kill Your Sons," as well as "The Gospel Singer", a song co-written with Gordon.[14] The debut, self-titled album, Big Sexy Noise, was released in 2010, followed by Trust The Witch in 2011. For both albums, Lunch and her band completed tours throughout Europe.[20]
In 2010, The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project launched We Are Only Riders, the first of a series of four albums featuring Pierce's previously-unreleased works-in-progress. The album features interpretations of Pierce's work by friends, collaborators, and admirers, including Lunch.[21] Lunch also contributed to the second album from the project, The Journey is Long, which was released in April 2012.[22]
Lydia Lunch performing in 2012
Although the Pierce Sessions Project's third and final album, The Task Has Overwhelmed Us, was due for release in late 2012,[23] the schedule was changed after the release of the second installment. Glitterhouse Records, the label producing the collection, instead released a third album titled Axles & Sockets in May 2014, on which Lunch performs "The Journey Is Long" with Pierce's recordings. The label explained that the third album has become the "penultimate" full-length release of the Project, but did not name the final album, or its release date.[24]
Lunch released the album Retrovirus (also the name of the band Lunch has played with since then) in 2013 on Interbang Records and ugEXPLODE (the vast majority of the album tracks are published by Widowspeak).[25] Together with band members Weasel Walter, Algis Kizys, and Bob Bert, Lunch performed a show following the album's release at the Bowery Electric venue in New York City, in May 2013.[26] In March 2022 the Center for Popular Music (CPM) at Middle Tennessee State University named her the recipient of the CPM Fellows Award. The only previous recipients of this honor were Barry Gibb and Lamont Dozier.[27]
In 1997, Lunch released Paradoxia, a loose autobiography, in which she documented her early life, sexual history, substance abuse and mental health problems.[33]Time Out New York gave it a favorable review,[34] 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."[34]PopMatters called it a "brutal but boring and predictable circus, about which Lunch shows no emotions. Only fatigue seems to have given her pause."[35]
Additionally, Lunch has authored both traditional books and comix (with graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).
Other work
In 2013, Lunch ran self-empowerment workshops in locations such as Ojai, California, US and Rennes, France. In regard to the Rennes workshop, her inaugural self-empowerment event, Lunch recalled: "Every day people would come in that would have to get a hug. I felt like mother India."[2] In April of that year, Lunch said that she is the producer of the Emilio Cubeiro album Death of an Asshole. In 2014 Lunch shot a series of photographs with Austin, Texas-based artist, Darla Teagarden.
In 2019 Lunch started the podcast The Lydian Spin. Lunch hosts each weekly episode with bassist Tim Dahl.[36]
In 2020, Lunch appeared on the album Against All Logic "2017–2019", by producer Nicolas Jaar.[37]
Personal life
In 2004, she left the United States to live in Barcelona.[38] She returned to the United States in 2017 and lives in Brooklyn.
X is an American punk rock band formed in Los Angeles. The original members are vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist-bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer D. J. Bonebrake. The band released seven studio albums from 1980 to 1993. After a period of inactivity during the mid-to-late 1990s, X reunited in the early 2000s and continued to tour. In June 2024, X announced a final album and farewell tour.
Mars were an American, New York City-based no wave experimental noise rock band, formed in 1975 when China Burg and artist Nancy Arlen (drums) brought Mark Cunningham (bass) and vocalist Sumner Crane together to talk about music. They were joined briefly by guitarist Rudolph Grey of Red Transistor. The band played one live gig under the name China before changing it to Mars. They played a mixture of angular compositions and freeform noise music jams, featuring surrealist lyrics and non-standard drumming. All the members were said to be completely untrained in music before forming the band.
Robert Bertelli, better known professionally as Bob Bert, is an American rock drummer.
Exene Cervenka is an American singer, artist, and poet. She is best known for her work as a singer in the California punk rock band X.
Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were an American no wave band, based in New York City, who formed part of the city's no wave movement.
James Sclavunos is an American drummer, multi-instrumentalist musician, record producer, and writer. He is best known as a drummer, having been a member of two seminal no wave groups in the late 1970s. He is also noted for stints in Sonic Youth and the Cramps, and has been a member of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds since 1994. Sclavunos has led his own group the Vanity Set since 2000.
Weasel Walter is an American composer, improviser, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and founder of ugEXPLODE Records. Walter's work has been informed by techniques and traditions of music including Avant-garde, experimental, no wave, free jazz, extreme metal, punk jazz, hardcore punk, noise, new music and free improvisation. He coined the term "brutal prog" to describe the aggressively dissonant strain of prog played by groups like his band the Flying Luttenbachers.
Stinkfist is a collaborative EP by Clint Ruin and Lydia Lunch. This outing from the ex-Immaculate Consumptive bandmates was originally released as a 12" in 1987 on Lunch's Widowspeak label.
Jeffrey Lee Pierce was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and author. He was one of the founding members of the band The Gun Club, and released material as a solo artist.
Gordon Stevenson was an artist, actor, musician and filmmaker who died of AIDS in 1982, one of the East Village art community’s first casualties of the AIDS epidemic.
Honeymoon in Red is a concept album by a band of the same name, released in 1988, primarily written by Lydia Lunch and Rowland S. Howard. Honeymoon in Red is sometimes referred to as a band or alternately as a collaboration between Lydia Lunch and members of The Birthday Party.
Gallon Drunk were an English alternative rock band formed in London in 1988. Their sound contains a variety of influences, from noise to blues and jazz, and is noted for its dark subject matter.
Terry Edwards is an English musician who plays trumpet, flugelhorn, saxophones, guitar and keyboards.
Cheryl Lane Lyndsey is an American singer–songwriter and musician best known as touring member of alternative rock band The Breeders. She is noted as guitarist for Exene Cervenka's solo band and contributed to Exene's 2011 album The Excitement of Maybe. She was declared "One of LA's Best" by LA Weekly.
Tim Dahl is a professional electric and double bass player, vocalist, keyboardist and composer living in New York City. He is best known as the bass player of the noise-rock band Child Abuse and Lydia Lunch Retrovirus. He also writes and performs for the jazz ensemble Pulverize The Sound.
Scott B and Beth B were among the best-known New York No Wave underground film makers of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
No Trend was an American noise rock and hardcore punk group from Ashton, Maryland, formed in 1982. They were considered anti-hardcore, with the members, especially guitarist and lyricist Frank Price, vehement about their abhorrence towards the punk youth subculture. The band was known for their confrontational stage performances, which normally involved aggressively baiting their punk audience. They were influenced by Public Image Ltd. and Flipper.
Nancy Arlen was a cast polyester resin sculptor and drummer for the no wave band Mars.
Skating Polly is an American rock band formed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States, in 2009. The band was founded by multi-instrumentalist step-siblings Kelli Drew Mayo and Peyton Mckenna Bighorse, who were 9 and 14 years old respectively. Kelli's brother Kurtis Lee Mayo joined the band on drums in 2017 so that Peyton and Kelli could focus on guitar and bass respectively. The band is noted for their alternating instruments among each member, poetic lyrics, intense live shows, melodic arrangements, and an eclectic array of songs that vary in style from riot grrrl to grunge to piano-based indie pop.
Suzie Stapleton is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist who lives in Brighton, UK. She has released two EPs and an album, We Are the Plague, that combine alternative rock with gothic blues and dark folk.
References
Citations
1 2 3 Martin Charles Strong. The Great Indie Discography. 2003, page 85
1 2 Hectic, Gerry (June 27, 2009). "Lydia Lunch– Big Sexy Noise". Fly. Archived from the original on November 20, 2012. Retrieved October 3, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
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