Lydia Lunch

Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch; June 2, 1959) is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker.

Lunch was born on June 2, 1959, in Rochester, New York, and is of German and Italian descent.

She moved to New York City at the age of 16 and eventually moved into a communal household of artists and musicians.

After befriending Alan Vega and Martin Rev at Max's Kansas City, she founded the short-lived but influential no-wave band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, with James Chance.

Both Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and the Contortions, Chance's subsequent band, played on the no wave compilation No New York, produced by Brian Eno.

Lunch later appeared on two songs on James White and the Blacks album, Off-White.

Her career began during the 1970s New York City no wave scene as the singer and guitarist of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks.

Her work typically features provocative and confrontational noise music delivery, and has maintained an anti-commercial ethic, operating independently of major labels and distributors.

During this time, she also appeared in a number of films by Vivienne Dick, including She Had Her Gun All Ready (1978) and Beauty Becomes The Beast (1979), co-starring with Pat Place.

She was in two other short lived bands before launching her solo career in 1980, Beirut Slump and 8 Eyed Spy.

In the mid-1980s, she formed the recording and publishing company "Widowspeak Productions" (also known as just "Widowspeak"), on which she continues to release her own material, from music to spoken word.

The Boston Phoenix named Lunch one of the ten most influential performers of the 1990s.

Her collaboration with Sonic Youth called "Death Valley '69" was named one of "The 50 Most Evil Songs Ever" by Kerrang!

In 1997, Lunch released Paradoxia, a loose autobiography, in which she documented her early life, sexual history, substance abuse and mental health problems.

Time Out New York gave it a favorable review, while Bookslut ambiguously concluded "It's to the reader to determine whether Lunch's study goes deeper than that, or if instead, it's a kind of literary and philosophical repetition compulsion, a reprisal of greatest hits from male nihilists, sexual adventurers and chroniclers of deviance."

She released her studio album Smoke in the Shadows in November 2004, through Atavistic Records and Breakin Beats, after a six-year break from music.

Nels Cline, the lead guitarist of alternative rock band Wilco, was featured on the album.

Smoke in the Shadows was met with positive reviews by Allmusic, PopMatters, and Tiny Mix Tapes.

In 2009 Lunch formed the band Big Sexy Noise.

The group features Lunch on vocals, James Johnston (guitars), Terry Edwards (organ, saxophone), and Ian White (drums).

Johnston, White and Edwards are members of the British band Gallon Drunk.

A six-track eponymous EP was released on June 1, 2009, through Sartorial Records, and included a cover of Lou Reed's song "Kill Your Sons," as well as "The Gospel Singer", a song co-written with Gordon.

The debut, self-titled album, Big Sexy Noise, was released in 2010, followed by Trust The Witch in 2011.

For both albums, Lunch and her band completed tours throughout Europe.

In 2010, The Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project launched We Are Only Riders, the first of a series of four albums featuring Pierce's previously-unreleased works-in-progress.

The album features interpretations of Pierce's work by friends, collaborators, and admirers, including Lunch.

In 2011, Lunch appeared in Mutantes: punk, porn, feminism, a film directed by Virginie Despentes, also featuring Annie Sprinkle and Catherine Breillat.

She also wrote, directed, and acted in underground films, sometimes collaborating with underground filmmaker Nick Zedd and photographer Richard Kern.

Lunch has recorded and performed as a spoken word artist, collaborating with artists such as Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Don Bajema and Hubert Selby Jr.. as well as hosting spoken-word performance night "The Unhappy Hour" at the Parlour Club.

Lunch also contributed to the second album from the project, The Journey is Long, which was released in April 2012.

Although the Pierce Sessions Project's third and final album, The Task Has Overwhelmed Us, was due for release in late 2012, the schedule was changed after the release of the second installment.

Two albums published by Lunch's label were released in 2013: Collision Course & Trust The Witch, by Big Sexy Noise (released on Cherry Red), and Retrovirus (released on Interbang Records); both albums are by Lunch's musical projects.

Lunch released the album Retrovirus (also the name of the band Lunch has played with since then) in 2013 on Interbang Records and ugEXPLODE (the vast majority of the album tracks are published by Widowspeak).

Together with band members Weasel Walter, Algis Kizys, and Bob Bert, Lunch performed a show following the album's release at the Bowery Electric venue in New York City, in May 2013.

In March 2022 the Center for Popular Music (CPM) at Middle Tennessee State University named her the recipient of the CPM Fellows Award.

The only previous recipients of this honor were Barry Gibb and Lamont Dozier.

She appeared in two films by directors Scott B and Beth B.

In Black Box she played a dominatrix, and in Vortex she played a private detective named Angel Powers.

Glitterhouse Records, the label producing the collection, instead released a third album titled Axles & Sockets in May 2014, on which Lunch performs "The Journey Is Long" with Pierce's recordings.

The label explained that the third album has become the "penultimate" full-length release of the Project, but did not name the final album, or its release date.