Lydia Lunch

by Lydia Lunch

In these uncensored, easy-to-read yet not dumbed-down interviews, Lydia Lunch spiritedly discusses her personal history and some of the many creative collaborations that have spiced up her life, art and travels. A master of cutting through creative gordian-knots, she discusses how she evolved her unique style of guitar-playing and song-writing. Simplicity and originality are the hallmarks of her recent Teenage Jesus and the Jerks concert performance tours. Lydia has not only survived but thrived as she has traveled the world making art, music, performance and installations -- always on her own terms. An incarnation of female Nietzschean will, Lydia Lunch continually surprises, provokes and evokes dark laughter in these "you-are-there" transcribed conversations. Hopefully, after reading this book, every reader will be inspired to make art, create blasphemous thoughts, and change the world...

Genres: Music

112 pages, Paperback

First published December 11, 2012

About the author

Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Koch) is an American singer, poet, writer, and actress.

In the mid-'80s, Lunch formed her own recording and publishing company called "Widowspeak" on which she continues to release a slew of her own material from songs to spoken word.

Later, she was identified by the Boston Phoenix as "one of the 10 most influential performers of the '90s", Lunch's solo career featured collaborations with musicians such as J. G. Thirlwell, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, Marc Almond, Billy Ver Plank, Steven Severin, Robert Quine, Sadie Mae, Rowland S. Howard, Michael Gira, The Birthday Party, Einstürzende Neubauten, Sonic Youth, Die Haut, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, Black Sun Productions and french band Sibyl Vane who put one of her spoken words into music. She also acted in, wrote, and directed underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker and photographer Richard Kern (including several films such as Fingered in which she performed unsimulated sex acts), and more recently has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, again collaborating with such artists as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Don Bajema, Hubert Selby Jr., and Emilio Cubeiro, as well as authoring both traditional books and comix (with award-winning graphic novel artist Ted McKeever).

In 1997 she released Paradoxia, a loosely-based autobiography, in which she candidly documented her bisexual dalliances, substance abuse and flirtation with insanity.

Reviews

[Karah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had anticipated that this book would exceed 200 pages. Just 140 pages...pocket sized!!!! Nonetheless, Lydia Lunch schools the reader on her multiple philosophies and from what we must save ourselves. I valued these sections: The Field; Philosophy & DNA; and Tech & Politics.

This book provides a small taste of her opinions.

[E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jam-packed with goodness, yet delightfully brief (and truly pocket-sized!). If you want to learn a bit more about what Lydia Lunch is doing (and has done), this is a good resource. But what's really great about it is how Lydia lays out her philosophy of artistic creation: that she prefers to move laterally, connecting deeply with smaller audiences rather than expanding them, going bigger and bigger. That's how she wants to operate: moving frequently, and making whatever art she needs to however she can. It was what I needed to hear. Plus, she's whip-smart and seems to read constantly. I got loads of good book recommendations from reading the interviews.

Long live Queen Lydia and the Counterculture King of San Francisco, V Vale!

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of extended interviews between Lydia and V.Vale. Always interesting and entertaining, the only reason this didn't get 5 stars is the editing could've been a bit tighter - or conversely the book could've been a little longer to include the bits that were clearly cut out ;)
Still a wonderful read and a must for fans of Ms. Lunch or RE/Search press.