Lydia Lunch...Where to begin? Wikipedia describes her as a "singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker". That's one way to put it. Or you can say "provocator", which seems to cover it all. Since the late 70's - working as a teenage stripper in the seediest part of New York, fronting her noise/punk band Teenage Jesus And The Jerks (could she be more offensive?), stealing food to feed her starving underground artist friends (whence the nickname Lunch) - seems all she did was to spit on the face of moralists...Clips from her early "art films" can be found in porn sites and let me tell you, album titles like "Oral Fixation" and "Stinkfist" are very literally descriptive of some of her film work. She was central in the avant-garde No Wave movement, a reaction to the selling-out of New York punk/new wave acts like The Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads etc. That's how she came to collaborate with some of the most interesting underground artists of the time, like Sonic Youth, The Swans and Birthday Party. The latter were at the time one of the world's most extreme and darkest acts, featuring an out-of-control Nick Cave in his junkie period who exhibited the combined self-destructive drive of Iggy Pop and Jim Morrison. The band's guitarist Rowland S. Howard was responsible for most of the band's sonic terrorism. After guesting (together with Cave and others) in Lunch's "Honeymoon in Red" LP, he hooked up with her for a whole album, called "Shotgun Wedding" (typical Lunch, doing the honeymoon before the wedding). Rowland wrote the music, she provided the lyrics and Foetus (another noise/industrial music experimentalist) produced the album. The result is, surprisingly, very listenable. Dark, yes...Gothic, even. Noisy, at parts. Arty...for sure. But, you know...In a good way. Opener "Burning Skulls" sounds great, like fellow New Yorkers Sonic Youth backing Patti Smith. "In My Time Of Dying" is an atmospheric folk-goth reading of that old blues chestnut. It's erroneously credited to Led Zeppelin, because Plant and Page had that annoying habit of putting their names under other people's songs, to avoid paying royalties. Only recently have they begun giving credit where it's due. For the history, Blind Willie Johnson was actually the first to record that song back in 1927. The remaining tracks are more experimental, with buzzsaw guitar and defiant singing. "Solar Hex" is somewhat grungy post-punk and "Pigeon Town" mutant hard rock. "Endless Fall" has Lunch sharing vocal duties with Howard, who reminds me of Gun Club's Jeffrey Lee Pierce. A few slower tracks, mostly with spoken word vocals, follow ("What Is Memory", "Cisco Sunset", "Incubator") and the album ends with a cover of Alice Cooper's "Black Juju". It's most definitely not Heavy Metal; loud and aggressive absolutely, but in a chaotic Birthday Party manner. Overall, "Shotgun Wedding" makes for a good introduction to both artists. Rowland Howard unfortunately succumbed to cancer in a young age, but Lunch is alive and in rude health, swapping NY for Barcelona and playing her Greatest Hits (lol) for audiences worldwide with her new band Retro-Virus. Check them out in the clip below.
**** for Burning Skulls, In My Time of Dying
*** for Solar Hex, Endless Fall, What Is Memory, Pigeon Town, Black Juju
** for Cisco Sunset, Incubator
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