TITLE: "Serpentine"
ARTIST: Clint Ruin & Lydia Lunch
ALBUM: Don't Fear The Reaper e.p.
RELEASE DATE: 1991
I was both bemused and depressed to learn that the incomparable Lydia Lunch is to be performing tonight a few scant blocks away from my home at the decidedly un-pub-like Joe's Pub on LaFayette Street. For those who may not know her, Lydia Lunch was the poster girl and enfant terrible of the No Wave scene of the early 1980s, making a name for herself in bands like Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Beirut Slump and Eight Eyed Spy and for being somewhat ludicrously outspoken and heroically hostile at all times.
I'd first heard of Ms. Lunch via Sonic Youth's Bad Moon Rising in 1985, wherein she sang on that album's finest moment, "Death Valley `69" (a trippy homage to the travails of the Manson Family). I first saw her, meanwhile, on MTV's "120 Minutes" -- of all places -- wherein in a few fleeting seconds of monologue, she managed to vilify everything the channel stood for. It was also Lydia who decried Patti Smith as "nothing but a barefoot hippie." Suffice to say, in exceptionally short order, Lydia Lunch became one of my heroes. That MTV snippet, meanwhile, can be seen in S.A. Crary's somewhat flawed documentary, "Kill Your Idols." There's also a great compilation of her earlier music with her many bands called Hysterie which, though criminally out of print, is well worth searching out. At the very least, one airing of same will frighten all the vermin out of your house. Yes, It's That Good!
After the No Wave era, Lydia went onto perform with a host of similarly inclined artists like Nick Cave, Foetus, Mark Almond, Exene Cervenka, Roland S. Howard and the like. She's also immersed herself in prose, poetry, spoken word performance, photography and film along with her music. To be honest, a lot of her earlier music makes for severely uneasy listening, but Lydia's also entirely capable of being melodic. This track, "Serpentine," is ample evidence of same. Recorded with J.G. "Foetus" Thirlwell (under the pseudonym, Clint Ruin), "Serpentine" is a hushed, sultry duet that owes more to Antonio Jobim and Joao Gilberto than any inaccessible downtown skronk. You could probably play it at your wedding reception (so long as no one payed attention to the lyrics). Enjoy.
Lydia left New York City in 1990 and de-camped to Barcelona. One can only wonder what she thinks of Manhattan now -- a vastly different place from the squalid hotbed she left behind. I'd imagine she'll have something to say about it this evening. Later this month, she'll be releasing Ghosts of Spain, an "intimate home recording lush with psycho-poetic soundscapes." Tonight, meanwhile, she's be performing something called "Hangover Hotel." If you miss out tonight (as I probably will), Lunch will be doing a reading (how respectable!) tomorrow at the Barnes & Noble on Astor Place. She'll presumably be reading from "Paradoxia: A Predator's Diary," a memoir of sorts that has just been re-published. As PAPER Magazine says: "'Paradoxia' reveals that Lunch is at her best when she's at her worst." You don't earn blurbs like that for nothin'.
Long may she reign.
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