I first saw the flyer for the show presented below in Other Music in early May and got excited. Not only was it Lydia in musical mode (as opposed to a book signing or a spoken word gig), but it was with a band of equally nefarious luminaries, specifically Sonic Youth/Pussy Galore/Bewitched drummer Bob Bert, beefy SWANS/Of Cabbages and Kings veteran Algis Kizys on bass and the endearingly named Weasel Walter, an avant-jazz-punk freakster, on guitar. But, as fate would have it (and as is so often the case), I wasn't able to make the late Wednesday night show. Luckily, there's YouTube.
Today is actually Lydia Lunch's birthday. In addition to this gig at the Bowery Electric, Lydia also appeared last week at the Pyramid for a spoken-word showcase, and two of my colleagues from work went to check it out. As I've scribbled here before, I'm a huge fan of Lydia's, but I don't need to see her read/speak again. I thrill to her caustic bile, but I'm not sure I'd be able to stand through several other sets of others' spoken-word, self-indulgent gobbledegook to get there.
In any case, we were trying to describe Lydia to a younger colleague who hadn't heard of her. The usual key words like "punk," "hellion," "exhorter" and "antagonist" were cited. I tried to draw a comparison to another artist, but honestly -- Lydia has so few genuine contemporaries who can match her signature brand of vitriol (vintage Johnny Rotten, maybe?) My colleague Jane did a quick Google image search and showed our younger colleague a photo of Lydia in 2013. While Lydia's not exactly your orthodox "celebrity," it's worth noting that she stands well apart from other public figures of her generation in the sense that she is gloriously unapologetic about aging, and seems completely content to let it happen naturally. Lydia doesn't give a fuck. Never has. Never will.
Age-wise, Lydia's only a year apart from Madonna -- a fellow veteran of a vanished NYC downtown scene who followed a very different path. I wonder if they've ever met? They must have been this point, right? Like Lydia, Madonna is also still performing music, but in a markedly different capacity. But back in the day, the two women almost resembled each other (or at least until they spoke or sang, at which point their differences become abundantly clear).
With the odd exception, most of Lydia's music goes out of its way to irritate and offend. This show is not an exception to that rule. Herein, she re-visits a few moments from her sprawling oeuvre, appending a powerhouse cover of Suicide's "Frankie Teardrop" along the way. Crank it and raise a glass to the birthday lady.
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