by Roni Sarig
While Chance soon departed to form his own no wave group, the Contortions, Lunch, Field, and a rotating cast of bass players continued bashing out what Lunch described as “aural terror.” Featuring Field’s one-drum percussion with Lunch’s noise / slide guitar and tortured vocals, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks songs like The Closet and Red Alert lasted little more than a minute or two, but offered a lifetime of emotional release. Dedicated to a “less is more” principle, Lunch’s band became known for its 10-minute live shows. Similarly, Teenage Jesus offered only minimal recorded work. In its four-year existence, the band put out two singles and an EP (produced by Robert Quine of Richard Hell & the Voidoids) and contributed four songs to the crucial no wave compilation, No New York.
Concurrent with her time in the Jerks, Lunch also played in a short-lived band called Beirut Slump. By 1980, though, Lunch was ready for a change in direction; disbanding both groups, she embarked on a solo career. In place of the Jerks’ numbing blows, her debut album Queen of Siam offered a mellow and murky cross between the Residents and lounge jazz, with Lunch as a relatively sedate torch (or was it torture?) singer. Though much of the music – including full orchestral pieces – was effective, Lunch’s vocals were not, and within the year Lunch had formed a new, harder-rocking group, called 8 Eyed Spy.
A quintet featuring bassist George Scott (who played with John Cale as well as the Contortions) and Beirut Slump / Jerks member Jim Sclavunos (now in Nick Cave’s Bad Seeds), 8 Eyed Spy presented Lunch as hard rock frontwoman on avant blues originals like Swamp Song and punked-out covers like I Want Candy (before Bow Wow Wow got to it) and Diddy Wah Diddy. With Scott’s heroin overdose in 1980, the band ended before it had released a record, though two posthumous recordings have appeared. Following an even shorter-lived turn in the unrecorded Devil Dogs, Lunch headed west to Los Angeles where she formed yet another group, 13.13.
After collaborating on a book of poetry with X’s Exene Cervenka (they’d collaborate again on a 1995 spoken-word album), the ever-restless Lunch left Los Angeles for Europe, where she recorded with Einstürzende Neubauten and collaborated with the Birthday Party on a number of projects. In addition to recording songs with the group (which later appeared on Honeymoon in Red), Lunch worked with the group’s guitarist Rowland Howard and wrote “fifty one-art plays” with vocalist Nick Cave.
Nick Cave:
She had quite an impact on our lives. Her scope, of doing readings and all of this sort of stuff, and moving out of just strict rock and roll music, had some influence as well.
In 1984, when Lunch was barely 23 years old and had already passed through a half-dozen music projects in nearly as many cities, she returned to New York to start her own company, Widowspeak, so that she could release the spoken-word material that was becoming a major part of her art. Here she entered into an even more intense phase of activity, writing and acting in the gritty East Village films of Richard Kern (The Right Side of my Brain with Henry Rollins, and Fingered) and making music with just about anyone who could catch up with her, including her lover Jim Thirwell (a.k.a. Clint Ruin, a.k.a. Foetus), members of X and Red Hot Chili Peppers, members of Sonic Youth (separately and collectively), Mars (on a soundtrack to one of Kern’s films), Rowland Howard (again), and Nick Cave (again) with Thirwell and Marc Almond (as part of a touring group called the Immaculate Consumptives).
In the ‘90s, though Lunch has continued to write (books, comics, and plays), teach classes, and, relatively recently, make music again, it is in her spoken-word performance that her creative fires have burned brightest. Through her live monologues and spoken-word recordings such as The Uncensored Lydia Lunch, Oral Fixation, and Conspiracy of Women, Lunch rips out her own blood and guts and puts them on display for anyone to see. In her stories, confessions, damnations, and tirades she can be alternately shocking, hilarious, and admittedly often a nag. But it’s here, at her most naked, where Lunch’s true voice emerges, and where the implications of her message are clearest. As she says in an interview for the book, Angry Women, “I’m only using my own example for the benefit of all who suffer the same multiple frustrations: fear, horror, anger, hatred. And the stories aren’t just personal – often they’re very political.”
Will Oldham, Palace:
On the Uncensored cassette, the kinds of stories she told and the way she modulated her voice in telling the story, she inspired discomfort in the listener and built it very well even before the really brutal aspects of the piece came around. I listened to that tape a lot, and I learned some things from her about understatement in expressing morbid or confrontational ideas. As a writer and a speaker.
DISCOGRAPHY
TEENAGE JESUS & THE JERKS
(Various Artists) No New York (Antilles, 1978); the band contributed four tracks to the Brian Eno-produced no wave compilation.
Teenage Jesus & the Jerks (Pink) EP (Migraine / Lust/Unlust, 1979); this pink vinyl release collects the group’s singles.
Pre-EP (Ze, 1979); Lunch’s earliest recording, featuring TJ&J’s original lineup with James Chance on sax.
Everything (Atavistic, 1995); a reissue containing all of the band’s recorded material.
8 EYED SPY
Live (ROIR, 1981); a document of the band’s 1980 live performances.
8 Eyed Spy (Fetish, 1981; Atavistic, 1997); a part live, part studio album released after the band had broken up.
SOLO AND COLLABORATIONS
Queen of Siam (Ze, 1980; Widowspeak, 1985); a subdued solo debut, heavy on the noir-jazz numbers.
13.13 (Ruby, 1982; Widowspeak, 1988); recorded with an LA.-based band of the same name.
(w/ Birthday Party) The Agony is the Ecstasy EP (4AD, 1982); a live Lunch gig in London appears on one side of this EP, while the other features the Birthday Party’s Drunk on the Pope’s Blood.
(w/ Michael Gira) Hard Rock (Ecstatic Peace, 1984); a spoken-word cassette that also features the Swans’ leader.
(w/ Lucy Hamilton) The Drowning of Lucy Hamilton (Widowspeak, 1985); an instrumental soundtrack to The Right Side of My Brain, a film starring Lunch,
In Limbo EP (Doublevision, 1984; Widowspeak, 1986); a six-track record featuring Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, reissued together with Lucy Hamilton in 1989 as Drowning in Limbo.
Hysterie (Widowspeak / CD Presents, 1986); a double album compilation featuring the best of Lunch’s past bands, as well as some collaborations.
Honeymoon in Red (Widowspeak, 1987; Atavistic, 1996); an album recorded in ‘82 and ‘83 as a Birthday Party collaboration, remixed and featuring Thurston Moore.
(w/ Thurston Moore) The Crumb EP / (w/ Clint Ruin) Stinkfist EP (Widowspeak, 1988; Atavistic, 1996); two EPs collected onto one CD.
(Harry Crews) Naked in Garden Hills (Widowspeak, 1989); a project with Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon.
The Uncensored Lydia Lunch / Oral Fixation (Widowspeak, 1989); two spoken-word albums, the first originally from 1985, collected on one CD.
(w/ Henry Rollins, Hubert Selby Jr., Don Bajema) Our Fathers Who Aren’t in Heaven (Widowspeak, 1990); a spoken-word double album, split with three other writer/poets, including former Black Flag vocalist Rollins.
Conspiracy of Women (Widowspeak, 1991); another spoken-word album.
(w/ Roland S. Howard) Shotgun Wedding (Triple X, 1991); a collaboration with the former Birthday Party guitarist.
Crimes against Nature (Triple X, 1993); a three-CD box set of Lunch’s spoken-word material.
Universal Infiltrators (Atavistic, 1995); further spoken-word adventures.
(w/ Exene Cervenka) Rude Hieroglyphics (Rykodisc, 1995);a spoken-word collaboration with X’s lead singer.
(w/ Glyn Styler) The Desperate Ones (Truckstop / Atavistic,1997); a three-song return to music recordings.
X-RAY SPEX
Jean Smith, Mecca Normal:
I thought [X-Ray Spex singer] Poly Styrene was such a great singer. Her songs were really full-flight, with soaring vocals. The topics just mystified me, like W
arrior in Woolworths, the weird alliteration of this loopy kind of line, with her accent and this rich flowing vocal. That was really a stylistic attraction. That would’ve been my ideal, but physical limitations prevented me from it. I just connected with the power and energy and determination and tried to bring it out of myself, and what came out of me I realized was as valid as what came out of anyone. I really trusted that.
Though X-Ray Spex produced only one album of note, it was enough to inspire entire movements. Though her time in the group was short, Lora Logic’s blaring saxophone would prove a notable precursor to future female-led, sax-driven bands of the ‘80s such as Romeo Void and the Waitresses. But X-Ray Spex’s main contributions came from their lead singer, Poly Styrene. With her combination of youth and awareness, girlishness and nasty wit, strength and joyousness, Styrene realized punk’s potential for expressing the frustrations and displaying the intelligence of girls, just as it had for disaffected boys. Her voice – bursting with enthusiasm and giddy shrieks – provided a model for female punk singers everywhere.
Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill:
[People said] “Oh, you sing just like Poly Styrene.” And I was like, “Yeah! Great!” A lot of girls had never heard of Poly Styrene; maybe they’ll hear me and then buy an X-Ray Spex record... I don’t care if I sound like Poly Styrene – I think Poly Styrene is great! [from Angry Women In Rock]
While the first rumblings of England’s punk-rock explosion were led by white males, they effectively empowered social misfits of all sorts to express themselves. Among the scores of kids inspired to action after seeing a Sex Pistols gig was a chubby, brown-skinned (half-Somali), 15-year-old girl with braces named Marion Elliot. What she lacked in rock star looks made her a perfect antihero, while her muscular pipes and precocious wit made her a compelling new voice in punk. After putting out a little-noticed solo single, Elliot adopted the nom-de-punk Poly Styrene – an expression of dual interests, in mass culture and artificiality – and set about forming her very own punk band.
Along with an all-male back-up band consisting of guitarist Jak Airport, bassist Paul Dean, and drummer B.P. Hurding, Styrene recruited another powerful female presence in skronky 16-year-old saxophonist Lora Logic (Susan Whitby). Named for a kitschy toy Poly received from her cousins in America, X-Ray Spex hit their stride very quickly; by their second gig, the group was playing London’s top punk club, the Roxy. When a song from this show was included on the 1977 compilation Live at the Roxy, X-Ray Spex began to receive press attention, which led to their recording a studio version of the song and releasing it as a debut single. Oh Bondage! Up Yours! – a powerful statement of girl rebellion delivered fearlessly by an actual teenager – became a huge punk hit. With its defiant opening line – ”Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard. I say, Oh bondage! Up yours!” – and the sarcastic submissiveness of the lyrics, Styrene virtually invented riot grrrl attitude.
Alec Empire, Atari Teenage Riot:
X-Ray Spex influenced us a lot, especially [ATR singer] Hanin Elias. She was influenced a lot by the way Poly Styrene sings and the energy. When Hanin and I had our first punk bands in the ‘80s we wanted to do things like X-Ray Spex.
With follow-up singles such as The Day the World Turned Day-Glo and Identity, Styrene began to confront topics only hinted at with Bondage: the devastating effects of consumer culture on girls’ self-images and the artificiality of the everyday world. In early 1978, Lora Logic quit to return to school (she later formed her own band, Essential Logic) and was replaced by Rudi Thompson. By fall, X-Ray Spex had released their debut, Germfree Adolescents. The record, whose cover showed band members dressed in day-glo, trapped inside large test tubes, was an early manifestation of the bright colors and futuristic imagery that would carry over into new wave. And though the music was catchy and fun enough to compete with the best pop, its heart was undeniably punk. Full of bratty intelligence and wit, songs like Art-I-Ficial, Warrior in Woolworths, I Am a Poseur, and I Am a Cliché tempered Styrene’s articulate search for identity with the screaming glee of youth and freedom.
Kate Schellenbach, Luscious Jackson:
The fact that they had a 15-year-old girl singer with braces was really appealing and exciting as a teenager, to think I could do this too, and make these incredible statements. To hear her singing with this incredible confidence and voice was so inspirational. Listen to Bikini Kill and it’s like a carbon copy of X-Ray Spex.
As quickly as they had risen, though, X-Ray Spex came undone. As Styrene matured (though still barely 18!), she felt uncomfortable continuing with the brashness and squealing intensity that had defined her. Not only did she want to move the band toward slower, more acoustic songs, she was searching for a more stable – and in her eyes, more meaningful – existence. The release of their Highly Inflammable single marked the end of the band.
While Styrene thought she’d found some peace through joining the Hare Krishnas and leaving the music business, she returned to singing in the ‘80s with sporadic solo records and guest appearances on albums by Boy George and the Dream Academy. The other former X-Ray Spex members continued to make music, and Paul Dean (believe it or not) formed Canadian ‘80s cheese rockers Loverboy. Following a 1991 reunion show in London, the original band – featuring Styrene, Dean, and Lora Logic – re-formed and in 1995 released a new album. Though few noticed their return, Germfree Adolescents (finally made available in the U.S. in 1992) had by then become essential listening for girls (and boys) in revolt.
DISCOGRAPHY
Germfree Adolescents (Blue Plate / EMI, 1978; Caroline, 1992); the one and only X-Ray Spex album in its original incarnation, a Brit punk classic.
Live at the Roxy (Receiver [UK], 1991); recorded at a live show that predates their debut album, this import features Lora Logic on sax.
Conscious Consumer (Receiver [UK], 1995); a new record by a reunited X-Ray Spex, featuring Poly, Lora, and Paul Dean.
THE SLITS
Kate Schellenbach, Luscious Jackson:
When I first saw them I was in the Beastie Boys, and Adam Yauch [of the Beasties] had a Slits poster on his wall. We were all really into them, but it was extra – special for girls. Cut is still in my all-time top ten, I would never want to be without it. If they came around now, people would understand them so much better. They brought out the dub bass and scratchy guitar, which was originally Luscious Jackson’s approach. For me, Jill [Cuniff], and Gabby [Glazer, in Luscious Jackson], they were seriously heroes. When some girls would be playing Barbie, we would play dress-up like the Slits.
With a name that evoked both punk’s violence and – in the crudest terms – womanhood, the Slits offered a female version of first-generation British punk bands that appeared in the late ‘70s. But as they came into their own musically, the group transcended punk and shaped an adventurous post-punk sound that celebrated femininity in more abstract and complex ways. In a short career that produced only two studio albums, the Slits presented a unique musical vision. And, along the way, they inspired musicians across the entire spectrum: from riot grrrls, with their feminist polemics, to P.J. Harvey and Mecca Normal, with their more metaphysical approach, to anyone – regardless of sex – interested in pushing the boundaries of punk.
Before forming, members of the Slits had been part of the inner clique of British punk kids surrounding bands like the Sex Pistols and the Clash. Fourteen-year-old Arianna Forster had recently left boarding school to move to London with her mother, a German heiress named Nora, who through her daughter’s punk connections would meet and eventually marry the Pistols’ Johnny Rotten. Forster befriended Paloma Romero (renamed Palmolive by Clash bassist Paul Simonon), a 22-year-old Spanish woman who’d been living with the Clash’s Joe Strummer. Before they’d even tried to play their instruments, would-be guitarist Arianna – renamed Ari Up – and drummer Palmolive recruited guitarist Kate Korus and bassist Suzi Gutsy to form the Slits.
In the time between forming and actually pla
ying a gig, Korus and Gutsy were replaced by Viv Albertine and Tessa Pollit, two young punks who’d spent some time in Sid Vicious’s pre-Pistols band, Flowers of Romance. Like many of the punk bands forming in 1976 and ‘77, the early Slits were more of a social unit that called themselves a band than an actual music group. Appropriately, they appeared at the time in Derek Jarman’s punk fantasy film Jubilee as a street-roaming girl gang. And their lack of ability was made even more clear when they debuted as the Clash’s opening act in March of 1977. A sort of punk version of the Shaggs, the early Slits teetered at the brink of falling apart with songs like A Boring Life and Once upon a Time in a Living Room. Live, the band banged along in cacophonous abandon while members stopped occasionally to yell at each other.
Amy Rigby:
They were just a mess, and I really like that about them. The way they dressed, and covered themselves with mud and were naked on the cover of their record. They were very powerful females and they weren’t afraid of flaunting their attractiveness, but it was in a way they wanted to do it and to their own purposes. It wasn’t some art director who took them and said it would be a cool idea.
