“Where all the killers are heroes, I'm the queen of
cripples, one-armed bandits, one-eyed jacks and dead cats.” Meltdown
Oratorio. From Lydia Lunch’s 1987 album Stinkfist
As my own hard-working archivist (no one else is going to do
it if I don’t!), I’m endeavoring to gradually get my most noteworthy
interviews online. So far I've uploaded my profiles of John Waters, Marianne Faithfull, The Cramps’ Poison Ivy and the late Christina Amphlett of Divinyls. This time: volatile punk provocateur Lydia Lunch.
The interview below was originally published in the December
1993 issue of hardcore punk zine MAXIMUMROCKNROLL. I first met Lunch in 1990 when
I was still a student in Canada and interviewed her for my university newspaper.
It was after one of Lunch’s spoken word gigs at the Montreal punk club Les Foufounes Electriques. Onstage Lunch was mesmerizingly antagonistic, utilising just
her remarkable wailing, sneering, accusing and emotionally resonant voice to zero
in on the dreams, anxieties and pretensions of her audience. Backstage afterwards
over beers Lunch was even more riveting. I was intoxicated by her. Up-close the
34-year old Lunch was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever encountered. I
was struck by the petal-like perfection of her ivory complexion, red lips out of a Tamara de Lempicka
painting, her perfume (patchouli-based – surprisingly hippie-ish), and her truly
awesome pair of fuck-you black cowboy boots. I was already waiting in her
dressing room when Lunch arrived. When told her I’d been expecting a redhead
(her hair was inky jet black) she replied, “It never stays one colour very
long.” To my horror afterwards my tape recorder’s batteries ran out long before
Lydia did – a mistake I ensured never happened again! The interview I managed
to salvage concluded with me asking Lunch about the cathartic quality of her
work. “Cathartic?” she demurred. “I don’t know. An enema would feel better, I
think. Not an emotional enema, a Scotch enema. Champagne is very nice also. At
least that way you get the real high. An enema to all your readers. Here’s one
for you.”
By 1993 I was living in London. When I learned Lunch would
be in town promoting the release of her book of poetry and essays Incriminating
Evidence I seized the interview to properly interview her again – this time
with a fresh pair of batteries. She gave a spoken word performance at the now-defunct,
much-missed Compendium bookstore in Camden Town, then we headed to the vegetarian
restaurant across the street (also long gone). We were accompanied by her
friend the musician Karl Blake of the band Shock Headed Peters. I remember Lunch
blotting her lipstick before sipping from her cappuccino and the vivid
coral-pink kiss imprint on her napkin afterwards. This is the interview exactly
as it appeared in MAXIMUMROCKNROLL. There was no introduction, it just plunges
straight in.
/ What the original 1993 MRR article looked like /
Graham Russell: Last time I talked to you, you said you were totally uninterested in music, that it was redundant and you’d prefer to work exclusively in the spoken word format. Since then, though, you've put out some music albums …
GR: Melody Maker announced you’d be recording a new LP with
the German band Die Haut later this year.
LL: No, they actually have an album out, that came out last
year actually or the beginning of this year, that I sing a few songs on. So
does Blixa Bargeld and Kid Congo [Powers]. It’s called Head On [1992] but it’s not released in
the States and it’s hard to get. It’s out of Germany .
GR: But you must have a love of making music. You've spent
most of your adult life making it, you do it so beautifully …
LL: Yes, but it depends on the project. I mean, the thought
of music disturbs me. It is redundant. But when those certain special
collaborators … (loses train of thought). I mean, music as a format I despise,
but then there are those special collaborators who make the whole procedure a
pleasure. And with Roland I just decided I would make an album and do a tour because
I had never done that in the past. I had never done a single album and went on
tour in support of it, because I – you know – I don’t see why. But that was
convenient and I thought it was important because the songs did change a lot
from the recorded versions because we’d written them and recorded within six
weeks. Written all the songs, rehearsed them and recorded them. It’s sort of a
dry run. It’s not really a chance for a band to develop but it was fun to do
the live shows, with that format with that band.
GR: Where did you tour with the Shotgun Wedding band?
LL: We did play in London ,
two shows, and we did play in Europe but not
in the States. I can’t afford to tour music in the States. I can barely get any
spoken word shows there.
GR: Why is that?
LL: Because there’s no booking agents. It’s as simple as
that.
GR: You have some songs on the upcoming My Life with theThrill Kill Kult album (The Chicago-based industrial band with whom Lunch has
recorded in the past, most notably contributing snarling backing vocals on “CuzIt’s Hot”).
LL: I have three songs with them. Two I’m just singing
back-up. I mean, they’re friends of mine. It sounded like fun. It’s not really
my style of music, but I love them so much as people. I just did a song I just
sang the lyrics to and there was no music and then they put the music around it,
so that’s kind of interesting. It’s kind of a take-off of “Justify My Love” by
Madonna. Kind of. It’s called “Dirty Little Secrets.”
GR: So you have no other upcoming musical plans?
LL: I do have some musical plans but as of yet they’re under
wraps. Who I’d really like to work with is Mario Caldato Jr who produced the
last Beastie Boys album. We've been meeting and I’d like to do something with
him. The only music I listen to now is death rap. You know: Geto Boys,
Scarface, Paris, the Lynch Mob. Insane Poetry out of Los Angeles . That’s the only kind of music
I’m interested in at the moment because this style of rap is very diverse, it’s
not hypo-techno production, it’s more back to the seventies, very slow, funky
old style grooves. I’m not saying I’m going to make a rap album, but something
that is groovier and very sexy and percussion-oriented, maybe with a Latin
influence. When I say that, take that with a grain of salt …
GR: Well, as filtered through you …
LL: (Agreeing). Filtered through me. And so that’s the kind
of thing I’m interested in doing next. I really love a lot of the tracks that
were on the last Beastie Boys album that were Dr John-influenced. That’s a
style that I’d like to go for.
GR: That’s not such a departure for you. You've done that
kind of vocal style – almost talking over music – in the past, like Queen of
Siam (1980).
LL: Yeah. Yeah. And I am the real Mr Scarface, so he’d
better watch his motherfucking mouth!
/ Queen of Siam, Lunch's stark 1980 death jazz masterpiece, is one of my all-time treasured albums. As Allmusic.com succinctly puts it: "Her laconic slur of a voice has never sounded sexier, and her off-key rendition of "Spooky" is so lazily erotic that it nearly sucks the life out of you. A putrid classic of style and substance." /
GR: Some pretty major things have happened to you since we last spoke three years ago. You moved to
LL: Isn't that beautiful?
GR: I think it is.
LL: Thank you.
GR: You’re know as a sort of fixture of the New York Lower
East Side art/punk scene. Why’d you move to New Orleans ?
/ A study in badittude. Note Lunch's little white vinyl go-go boots /
LL: Because I didn't know a single person there. Because there was no independent music scene. No bands ever play there. I thought that was a perfect thing. And I also just wanted to go to a place that I could afford to live. It’s one of the cheapest cities in
GR: You just don’t know where exactly yet?
LL: I don’t know and I don’t care.
GR: What’re you looking for?
LL: Isolation. I don’t want to have to wake up and have to
look at people walking down the street. In my work as it is I have to deal with
so many people every day in every city that when I’m not doing that all I wanna
do is read and write. I don’t wanna have to deal … I don’t wanna have to
communicate. Communication by phone, or maybe by pager. I may not even have a
phone. For me, it’s also time to stop. I've done enough. Certainly I need to
appreciate for myself what I've already accomplished. When I think of what I've
done in my life, I don’t look at my discography and say, Oh yeah – 32 records,
42 books, 62 whatever. It doesn't add up in my own mind because I need time to
understand what I've already done. Like I said tonight, a lot of times I write
things and I don’t completely understand them until months later. I do all of
my writing in an automatic style. I agitate myself for 90% of the time and then
I sit and write it and what it says is what it says and then I try to figure it
out. It’s just my technique.
/ Cinema of Transgression auteur Nick Zedd and Lunch were briefly romantically involved. He documented the fall-out in the odd, melancholy short film The Wild World of Lydia Lunch (1983). Lunch - who looks devastating with her punk bouffant haystack of dyed-black teased hair - is certainly convincingly pissed-off and depressed throughout. Her bad mood reaches a kind of crescendo at 14:45, where she sits on a child's swing with the most impossibly sullen and contemptuous expression on her face /
GR: Tell me about your life in
LL: I never go out of the house. I never go to bars or clubs
or discos or plays. I don’t even go to movies because they’re all lousy. I
might rent an occasional video. I basically lead a very peaceful existence
there, just reading as much as possible and escaping from the rest of my life.
Escaping from duties and responsibilities. As I said, New Orleans is architecturally therapeutic.
Basically I was just boning up for this next move. And when you’re creating at
this rate of expulsion you have to have a place that is basically calm, because
otherwise you’re just creating out of frustration and irritation, which I've
created enough of out of those modes. That’s another reason to move on.
GR: So you think over the next few years there’ll be a
change of tone in your work?
LL: Well hopefully I’ll be able to cover other subjects. I
think I've espoused enough about pain and abuse and trauma and death and now it
might be time to talk about something else. Whatever that may be, I don’t know.
GR: I think there is an empathy and compassion in your stuff now that as a 17-year old in Teenage Jesus and The Jerks you couldn't have had.
LL: Yeah, I would say so. And I've also been able to vent an
incredible amount of my own inner poison onto others. I've had that opportunity
– self-made opportunity, I might add. Basically all I've ever tried to do is
articulate the frustrations of everyone else. I've said all I can on those
subjects. I really feel that.
GR: Your father died recently.
LL: Both my parents died. It’s a great relief. It’s a
beautiful relief that they’re both dead. Even though I hold no grudge against
them, although they’re responsible for the condition I've had to fight 33 years
to escape from. It’s just a relief that they’re dead. It’s a relief that my
mother’s dead, that she doesn't have to suffer anymore. And it’s a relief that
my father’s dead, that he doesn't have anyone to torture anymore. Perhaps now
he’s being tortured. We can only hope.
(Lunch frequently alludes to her abused childhood in her work, most specifically on the spoken word piece “Daddy Dearest.” It originally appeared on 1984’s The Uncensored Lydia Lunch and details her incestuous relationship with her father. Lunch was born Lydia Koch in 1959 inRochester , New York
(Lunch frequently alludes to her abused childhood in her work, most specifically on the spoken word piece “Daddy Dearest.” It originally appeared on 1984’s The Uncensored Lydia Lunch and details her incestuous relationship with her father. Lunch was born Lydia Koch in 1959 in
/ Lydia Anne Koch as a child /
GR: I read that they never really knew about your music career or your spoken word career.
LL: No. My father always thought I was a comedienne. I think
he was the only one who got it.
GR: They never actually came into contact with any of your
work, then?
LL: No, I would send them things.
GR: Whenever you would do that, what were you hoping? That
they would understand?
LL: Oh I think my mother did understand. She encouraged me
from the time I was 12, when I started writing. Even when I was writing things
like “Kill Your Parents.” She always encouraged me. I mean, I’m happy for some
of the things my father taught me, in spite of the way he had to teach me. He
taught me to be self-sufficient, not give a shit, get by with whatever, be a
con artist, not take any shit. But then there were a lot of lessons that he
taught me I had to unlearn, too. Which I’d rather not go into.
GR: If you ever listen back to the music you made when you
were 17, 18, 19, can you still relate to that person, or have you moved on so
much that person is like a stranger?
LL: No, I can still relate but I don’t go back and listen to
them. I know what they sound like, I like the effect. I’m glad those documents
exist.
/ Early notoriety: very young teenage bad girl Lunch at a 1977 Dead Boys concert, explaining that their song "I Want Lunch" is about her. And what she intends to do with her used tampons. (Lunch is also immortalized in another Dead Boys song - "Caught with the Meat in Your Mouth"). /
GR: Tell me about growing up in
LL: It was a lot of muscle-bound boys with fast cars, so I
actually had a very good time.
GR: So why’d you run away, then?
LL: I guess for skinny boys with dyed hair!
GR: What were you hoping to find in New York ?
LL: Myself. I was just hoping to go into myself, surrounded
by like-minded people. I did have an impact on New York because a lot of the people I
busted upon like the Voidoids, they couldn't really get me: I was too
aggressive, too young. They just didn't get where I was coming from. And that
was enjoyable, of course.
/ I Was a Teenage Jesus: Lunch as No Wave Death Kitten /
GR: What exactly was the sound you were aiming for with Teenage Jesus?
LL: That sounded like the words felt. To me, the music made
perfect sense to compliment the words and everything is based around the words.
/ No Wave royalty: Lydia Lunch and James Chance. Chance played saxophone in the original Teenage Jesus and the Jerks line-up before forming James Chance and The Contortions /
GR: When you were a teenager in
LL: Lou Reed’s Berlin .
That was probably the most influential record. That was about ’74. (Lunch’s
admiration for Berlin
is revealing. While highly regarded as perhaps Lou Reed’s finest post-Velvet
Underground solo album, it’s also recognized as one of the most suicidally
bleak albums ever made. While most people would describe the LP as
“depressing”, Lunch finds it “beautiful”). I was also a big fan of The Man Who
Sold The World, the original heavy metal album by Bowie . Basically because it was all
lyric-based. The Stooges, same as everyone else. But it was the New York Dolls
that actually made me run away to New
York .
GR: Did you get to meet them and hang out with them before
they split up?
LL: Yeah. Johnny Thunders almost ran me over one time. See
where it got him. (Johnny Thunders died in 1991).
/ Portrait of a Teenage Jesus: beautiful photo of 17-year old Lunch in the early days of Teenage Jesus and The Jerks. Via /
GR: Speaking of
LL: (Laughs) No!
GR: No? That would be so much fun if you did.
LL: It would be so much fun; it’s such a beautiful album.
But I think it was completely perfect the first time. It really was.
GR: What do you make of the Velvet Underground reunion?
LL: I don’t know. I haven’t heard it. I guess it’s a good
way to make money. I think it’s kind of pathetic but if it sounds good, fine,
let ‘em go. I think it’s great they’re boycotting the States.
GR: It’s so true, though – the States never helped them out.
LL: No. I think it’s great. Let ‘em boycott. I boycott it
too for the most part.
GR: I was reading you’re friends with Lesley (Rankine) from Silverfish these days. (Lunch reportedly met and befriended Rankine, the tough as nails Scottish singer of London-based band Silverfish when Foetus produced the band’s Organ Fan album in 1991. Rankine has recalled how she never knew how to dress onstage, usually wearing jeans and a “HipsTitsLipsPower” t-shirt, and that Lunch gave her some hand-me-down dresses).
LL: (A bit suspicious). Uh-huh. Where’d you read that?
GR: In some American music magazine.
LL: Was she talking about it?
GR: I think the reporter was more talking about it. It just
sounded sweet, a sort of big sister deal.
LL: Big sister? She ain't that much younger than me, honey!
Hang on!
GR: (Cautiously) Well, relatively older big sister …
LL: Big. She’s quite a big girl. Yeah, Lesley’s good. Those
Scots. I like the Scots.
GR: And you've been giving her your old cast-off dresses …
LL: (Bemused) Have I? I don’t know that. That sounds like
the Courtney Love story to me.
GR: Let’s talk about Courtney, then. In every interview
she’s done almost it mentions how you two once shared a house together in San Francisco or something
…
LL: She’s full of shit. Absolutely not. She’s a liar. She
uses my name like she uses everybody else’s. I've never been a friend of hers.
I never could stand her. I've never said twenty words to her.
GR: That’s insane.
LL: Well, she is, isn't she? Don’t blame me for her crimes.
GR: She rips you off majorly.
LL: (Dismissive) Well, that’s her problem, isn't it?
GR: Do you hear your influence? Do you see it?
LL: I don’t listen to her music. Of course I know she rips
me off. What do I care? I just wish she did a better job.
GR: The story goes you two lived together in San Francisco …
LL: I've never lived in San Francisco . She’s such a crock of shit.
Every word that comes out of her mouth is a lie. She’s a pathological liar.
GR: Amazing.
LL: Not really. If you don’t have an interesting reality you
might as well create one. She’s a spoiled little rich bitch. Always has been
rich. Let her go.
GR: Everyone’s going on about “this new style of dressing.”
Jesus Christ …
LL: Grow up, that’s all I can say. That’s why I like to wear
suits now, you know. To look as conservative and business-like as possible.
Because I’m quite sick of 1977 myself.
(This needs to be qualified somewhat: Lunch was wearing a highly uncharacteristic, conservative beige “power blazer” with shoulder pads, but accessorized it with the more familiar rat’s nest of dyed red hair, cleavage, stiletto-heeled calf-length black leather boots and second-skin black leggings. The effect wasn't exactly Nancy Reagan).
(This needs to be qualified somewhat: Lunch was wearing a highly uncharacteristic, conservative beige “power blazer” with shoulder pads, but accessorized it with the more familiar rat’s nest of dyed red hair, cleavage, stiletto-heeled calf-length black leather boots and second-skin black leggings. The effect wasn't exactly Nancy Reagan).
/ A wasted-looking Lunch during her stint in the mighty No Wave jazz/punk band 8-Eyed Spy (you can tell by the song titles on the set list safety-pinned to her jean jacket) /
GR: I remember Foetus saying the motivation behind you two recording a version of The Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was because so many of your friends have died over the past few years. (Lunch and Foetus [aka J G Thirlwell, Lunch's romantic and musical partner at the time] released a four song EP called Don’t Fear the Reaper in 1991).
LL: Yeah. It’s kind of my pro-AIDS song. Don’t be afraid,
just die. We’re all gonna die. What’re you waiting for?
GR: You've known lots of people who've died from AIDS?
LL: Absolutely. At least ten. All men, too.
/ Punk pieta: Lunch and Foetus (J G Thirlwell) in 1986 /
GR: Whatever happened to your screenplay Psychomenstrum? (Psychomenstrum is the proposed film whose screenplay Lunch had been working on for years. In it, a female biology student with chronic PMS (to be portrayed by Lunch herself) begins experimenting with hormone injections which lead to violent fantasies in which she kills deserving male figures).
LL: I hope to publish it by the end of this year. I actually
was approached by a psychiatrist who’s been studying hormones for 30 years and
has an incredible list of credentials out of Phoenix, Arizona who has worked
with transsexuals for the past eight years and who wants to do a collaboration
with me. I’m thinking this script is perhaps the perfect thing for her. But I
want to publish it.
GR: But aren't you actually going to film it?
LL: I can’t chase it as a movie. If the book is out, maybe
someone will want to film it. I just can’t chase-out the Hollywood
money for it, because it needs a big budget. If I can’t have a big budget, I’m
not going to do it on a shoestring.
GR: For a while Deborah Harry was attached to the project.
LL: Yeah she’d down for the part of the psychiatrist. The
psychiatrist who wrote to me actually looks incredibly like Debbie Harry. That
beautiful. It’s phenomenal. She’s 53.
GR: And what about your autobiography My Father’s Daughter?
LL: That’s what I hope to accomplish in my sabbatical. (My
Father’s Daughter, the proposed autobiography, is another project that’s been
cited in Lunch’s interviews since at least 1987).
GR: You talk about yourself and your past a lot in your
work, but in a more impressionistic way, not in a prose style. Is this going to
be a more straightforward autobiography?
LL: Yeah, I’d like to write a novel. Obviously writing for
monologues or stories or rants is a much different format than writing a novel.
So I think I’ll undertake that format next.
/ Lunch's eerie interpretation of the 1941 Billie Holiday jazz standard "Gloomy Sunday" from her album Queen of Siam (1980). The video feels influenced by the tormented Catherine Deneuve in Roman Polanski's 1965 psychological horror film Repulsion /
GR: When you first started it was rare for performers to deal with their childhood problems so publicly. What do you make of the whole rash in the past few years of performers like Axl Rose, Roseanne Arnold, Sinaed O’Connor, etc coming forward?
LL: Of course it’s a good thing. I think we were all abused
as children, whether or not it was physical, emotional, psychic or
psychological. The power structure on which the family unit is based is such a
ridiculous concept that anyone’s bound to be abused. Originally when there was
still the time of the tribes women would chose the biological sperm donor but
he would not be the guardian of the child and I think that’s a good concept.
Absolutely. The family structure is just a microcosm of the government, anyway,
of God. And I don’t believe in God. So I don’t believe in the father.
GR: Have you read much of Camille Paglia?
LL: Not really.
GR: She would love you, though, if she knew who you were.
LL: Well maybe she needs to read my books, then. I mean, I’m
aware she’s another woman with a big mouth and I've read her interviews but I
haven’t dealt with her book because I’m not really interested in her version or
take on pop culture. It doesn't interest me, to be quite frank. Maybe you
should send her a copy of my book. (In fact Paglia wrote a chapter about the Marquis de Sade in her 1990
book Sexual Personae that Lunch herself would
probably appreciate).
GR: I’d love to. Hey, I can’t even get a copy of your book,
what are you talking about!
(Prior to our interview Lunch made an appearance at Compendium Books where she was meant to read from and autograph her newly-released book of poetry, short stories and rants Incriminating Evidence. The shipment of books didn't arrive at the book store in time, though, because they were seized by British customs and the book’s release was in jeopardy. This was no news for Lunch: her films with Richard Kern had also been banned in theUK
and her 1987 Stinkfist album almost met the same fate due to its cover photo of a
naked Lunch and Foetus mock fornicating on the ground).
(Prior to our interview Lunch made an appearance at Compendium Books where she was meant to read from and autograph her newly-released book of poetry, short stories and rants Incriminating Evidence. The shipment of books didn't arrive at the book store in time, though, because they were seized by British customs and the book’s release was in jeopardy. This was no news for Lunch: her films with Richard Kern had also been banned in the
LL: There you go. Neither can I.
GR: You talk about reading a lot. What’re you reading these
days that’s inspiring you?
LL: What I've been reading is Madness and Civilization by
Foucault and The Rebel by Camus, which I’d never read before. And basically
anything that talks about the Marquis de Sade I’m immediately attracted to.
GR: You share his birthday, don’t you? [2 June]
LL: That’s right. And his quote is on my new CD. (Cryptic).
He visited me this year, too. It was beautiful …
GR: Tell me about this!
LL: (Evasive) No, that’s OK. (I laugh and she imitates it).
The Marquis de Sade is with me at all times.
(The Marquis de Sade quote on the cover of
Lunch’s 1993 Crimes Against Nature CD: “What I should like to find is a crime
the effects of which would be perpetual, even when I myself do not act, so that
there would not be a single moment of my life even when I were asleep, when I
was not the cause of some chaos, a chaos of such proportions that it would
provoke a general corruption or disturbance so formal that even after my death
its effects would still be felt.” This could be seen as a MO that Lunch herself
shares in her own career).
GR: What is it about him that appeals to you so much?
LL: His philosophy.
GR: Of cruelty …
LL: The argument that nature is the one responsible, that
nature is to blame for all sins and all guilt and all acts of madness. That
impresses me. It’s the philosophy rather than the extremity of his sexual depictions,
which are secondary. And it’s the beauty and fluidity of his writing, and the
fact he would write 600 pages while incarcerated for four months. He was so
prolific. God knows how many of his journals and discourses were burned. So
much was salvaged but who knows he compiled that was destroyed? I’m so thankful
for those Grove Press editions. He’s just such a beautiful writer.
GR: That’s one of the things that separates you from so many
of the post-punk / post-feminist contingent. I don’t want to talk about the
Riot Grrrl scene because I’m sure you’re thoroughly bored with it …
LL: I refuse to accept responsibility for the crimes of
others.
GR: Exactly. What separates you from them is that you
actually celebrate ambivalence and ambiguity …
LL: I guess so … (Laughs).
GR: You’re not a politically correct person.
LL: No, I’m not and neither is anybody. There is no correct
solution, anyway. There’s no answer. Other than annihilation.
GR: But you’re not truly misanthropic. You have
relationships and friendships.
LL: I love people individually and I have great patience and
generosity of spirit and soul with them -- really incredible patience,
considering how easily agitated I am. But I will wade through rivers of shit to
get to that one golden nugget that only I can see in someone. So in that sense
it is a strange dichotomy that I suffer under, because the human race I despise
but individuals I do adore.
/ Wonderfully macabre: "Dance of the Dead Children" from Lunch's 1982 album 13.13 /
GR: When I last saw you perform in
LL: I don’t carry a gun but I have a gun and have take a gun
training course. My favorite part was shooting in the dark. I have a 357
Magnum. You have to have one in Louisiana
because burglary and rape are the highest crimes. Until about three years ago
they had the John Wayne Law in New
Orleans which meant you could carry a gun as long as
it was exposed. But I guess they knew I was coming and they took that off the
books. I think all women should have guns in their home. Not to promote
carrying guns but a woman has got to at least feel safe in her own home. I’m
sorry, you've got to. It’s an obligation. When I lived in Los Angeles I was in a constant state of
panic that someone was going to break the door down. And consequently someone
down the block did and raped a woman for six hours. He didn't leave ‘til he had
to go to work the next day and then talked so much he got arrested. I dare you
to come into my house. I got a 93 in my final test. Shooting in the dark (grim
laugh) …
/ Bad Girls Get Spanked: Lydia Lunch and genuinely creepy and disturbing leading man Marty Nation (her real-life boyfriend at the time) in the Richard Kern film Fingered (1986) /
GR: I understand you want to work with Richard Kern again on another film in which you’ll play the wife of a cop or something … (Lunch was a prime mover in the anti-social early 1980s New York Super 8 underground film-making movement known as the Cinema of Transgression, which was closely linked to the city’s No Wave punk music scene. As an actress Lunch appeared in the films of its key figures: Scott and Beth B, Vivienne Dick and Nick Zedd (who’s written of his love affair with Lunch in his autobiography Bleed, Part 1). She has most frequently – and notoriously – worked with Kern, though, starring in and co-writing the screenplays for the sexually explicit, misanthropic films The Right Side of My Brain (1984) and Fingered (1986). She’s also featured in his Submit to Me (1985),
LL: Yeah, that’s coming. A black cop. It’s a film about
racism and pathological lying. It’s going to be split into three sections with three
main characters: myself, a black cop and my brother. I set him up (the cop) for
crimes I've committed and run off to my brother and then he comes looking for
me and every step of the way he’s insulted, assaulted and harassed but he’s the
only dignified character in the film. I want to make a point about racism by
showing some huge powerful karate expert black cop who’s ultimately in control
while everyone else is degenerate around him. I hope I can pull it off. It’s a
very sticky issue but I think it’s a point that has to be made. And also to
show the opposite of what you’re telling. It’s the first film I’ll be doing
with Kern that deals with fiction, so we’ll see how that goes. It’ll possibly
be feature-length. I've been very inspired by three films in the past few
years: Reservoir Dogs, Bad Lieutenant and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. The
reason I think they worked was the incredible amount of charisma. With Henry it
didn't matter if he was watching TV or picking his feet, you couldn't take your
eyes off that. I think that’s one thing Kern can capture, this incredible
charisma, although he doesn't do that in his other films …
GR: Yeah, exactly.
LL: Yeah, well but then we know what that problem is. (In
fact I’m not sure what we’re agreeing on here: I assumed we were agreeing that
Kern’s films without Lunch are nowhere near as effective or purposeful (their
films together are shot through with her subjectivity). She seems though,
possibly, to be referring to Kern’s heroin addiction and its effect on his
work).
/ Fingered (1986), admiringly described by John Waters as "the ultimate date movie for psychos" /
GR: You’re talking about your own charisma …
LL: Yeah, absolutely. (Lunch is not being remotely arrogant
here: her insolent performances in the Kern films are truly screen-scalding). Interracial
stories are rare. I loved One False Move, too. I thought that was a great film.
/ For me, the opening of Submit to Me (1986) represents Lunch at the height of her beauty. If you're feeling brave and you aren't too squeamish, watch the whole film on Vimeo /
GR: You’re one of the few from your peer group left not to get any above-ground / mainstream recognition (e.g. Henry Rollins, Sonic Youth and the recent grunge commercial breakthrough; also the success of second generation Lydia-derived acts like Hole and Babes in Toyland.) It’s almost to an extent something you've chosen.
LL: Absolutely. I don’t want the responsibility ad I don’t
want to have to play the same songs for ten years and I don’t want to have to
do three hour spoken word shows or 300 shows a year. (Lunch seems to be
referring obliquely to ex-Black Flag singer Henry Rollins here. Rollins is
perhaps her closest peer and their careers have followed remarkably similar
paths. Both exactly the same age, the two can almost be appreciated as twin
brother and sister, sharing much of the same thematic concerns in their music
and spoken word work (unsurprisingly, Rollins – real name Henry Garfield – also
emerged from an abusive childhood), although they are quite different stylistically.
Via a punishing non-stop touring schedule with both his Rollins Band and solo
spoken word shows, including a stint on the highly visible Lollapalooza tour,
Rollins has been finally rewarded with above-ground recognition, feted by the
glossy mainstream media. Lunch is clearly uninterested in following this
route).
/ Lunch gets to grips with Henry Rollins /
I don’t think that would improve anything. Popularity is not my priority anyway. Documentation is. And everything I have done has been documented. I know it’s hard for you to find and it’s often unavailable, but that’s not my concern. I've done my duty in the face of history and when I’m dead I will be recognized and I can wait. I’d rather wait ‘til I’m dead than be living dead, like so many others who are just burdened with the responsibility of their financial situation and doing what they think it is they want to do. Which to me means compromise. I can’t hang with that.
GR: So you would never say, do Lollapalooza …
LL: (Snorts) I spat in their face. Puh-lease!
GR: Perry Farrell asked you?
LL: No, he didn't ask me personally. A lot of fucking good
it would have done him. A lot of fucking good. Hasn't he got enough money by
now? The way he treats people on that tour, it’s a fucking crime. He doesn't
pay anybody – no one gets paid. Like I wanna go to summer camp with 46 other
degenerates to play to people who could give a shit less and who are sun
stroked and drunk? I don’t think so. I’d rather play in a book store in front
of 20 people who fucking get it than 2000 or 20,000 who don’t care. It just
doesn't interest me.
GR: Eventually someone like David Lynch or Jonathon Demme is going to find you out …
LL: It’ll be too late, because they’re both already over.
(Caustic, dripping sarcasm). Sorry, David – you should've called me ten years
ago. I might have thought about it. The only filmmaker I’m interested in
besides Polanski is Cronenberg. And he’s a possibility that I’d like to send my
film script (Psychomenstrum) to. As a matter of fact I just got his address.
He’s the only one who could do it justice. One of his last films was one of his
best: Dead Ringers. That was critically acclaimed but not a big draw. I’m sure
maybe he made the money back in video sales and rentals. But since he’s already
done a film that was basically “gynecologically incorrect” I don’t know if he’d
wanna do another one! But maybe he would. He’s the only one I can think of.
GR: What did you make of his Naked Lunch?
LL: I hated it. Excuse me, no wonder I ignored that film. I have never read a single William S Burroughs book in my life …
LL: I hated it. Excuse me, no wonder I ignored that film. I have never read a single William S Burroughs book in my life …
GR: Funny, I've seen your name linked with his so often.
LL: He likes me. Nah, I don’t think so. I don’t think he
likes any women. I don’t know why they accuse me of being a Burroughs-phile
when I've never even fucking read one of his books. The only thing he taught
me, and he did teach me a good lesson, is that your life can be your art
statement and I think that’s beautiful. That’s the best thing you can teach
anyone: you can have your whole life as your art project. That’s what I believe
in. The artifacts are irrelevant. I live my life the way I want to, where I
want, with who I want to, doing exactly what I want to. What a fucking con.
Beautiful. That’s the success.
GR: When did you get the tattoos on your back? That’s relatively
new, isn't it? What do they mean? (Lunch has acquired swirling,
ornately-detailed vaguely Oriental-looking and feminine tattoos on her back.
They are the female equivalent of the fierce tattoos that cover Rollins’s back
and when exposed make her look like a tiny pagan warrior woman).
LL: Well, no. I've been accumulating them for years. They’re
ancient Egyptian swastikas. They’re symbols of chaos and created in a circular
rosary pattern. Basically it’s just energy symbols. The sign of chaos along my
hips basically means a trouble spot – the lower back, a lot of women have
trouble down there. To me, it was just to focus and concentrate on the chakras,
energy chakras. My own designs, my own symbols. I have a Thai fire god, the
rising lotus, a pyramid. They’re just personal symbols, universal symbols,
ancient symbols.
GR: When did you get them done? ‘Cause I've seen you naked
hundreds of times, I've never seen them before …
LL: Those (Richard Kern) films were made in ’82 and ’84,
don’t forget.
GR: And the Gallery photo spread … (At some point in the late 80s Lunch was featured in a
nude photo spread in the men’s porn magazine Gallery. Photographed by her
kindred spirit, fellow New York performance artist and self-titled Queen of
Post-Modern Porn Annie Sprinkle, the shots seemed to parody 1950s cheesecake
pin-ups, with Lunch snarling amidst props like giant fuzzy dice and balloons).
LL: That was a long time ago, too. “Hundreds of times”
… I guess so!
Postscript: This appeared in the readers' letters section of MAXIMUMROCKNROLL the following month.
Maximum / Graham Russell
Unfortunately our nanny brought your elitist .0001 % of the "punque rocque" population arguing amongst themselves about whether vegan means lactic acid or not magazine to our home. In it, Mr Russell refers to me claiming I (sic) lived with "Lydia Lunch" in SF. I never lived with Lydia Lunch, I barely know her and I've certainly never said it. It just proves that he believes everything he reads in the British tabloids (wich {sic}are certainly not "punk" to buy) and Entertainment Weekly. Gee, the mainstream media really tells the truth, duh, that's so ... "suburbia"!
As for La Lunch, recently she sent a fax to me while I was on a radio show it stated exactly this: "Dear Courtney, stop trying to rip me off, your (sic) not nearly as smart and youll (sic) never pull it off" Gee! I responded - on the air - after I read her very supportive fax, that she had been an entirely important influence on me, had changed my life and helped me discover my own identity, duh, no shit! Lydia's a wonderful orater (sic), maybe the best there is! But she is not a songwriter, and her cobbled attempts at musicianship have been very Yoko / avant-garde, her reason for Shotgun Wedding w/Roland S Howard was (im {sic} quoting) to "show all us bitches who'se (sic) the Queen." (It was very mediocre and boring musically). Shes (sic) slagged all of my contemperaries (sic), Riotgrrrl, Kat, Jennifer (Finch), etc, etc. Lydia should be secure enough in herself to know that she is culturally an incredibeley (sic) important figure and influence instead of being so self-absorbed and meglamaniac (sic) to think she has the copyright on the collective rage of women. And Mr Russell should certainly be more responsible than to quote a sensationlist (sic) British tabloid editorial, not quote, I thought "punk" of the spirit of it was Questioning Authority, not having cable, and since Authority / God is the media true subversiveness / "Guerilla (sic) Warfare" (Lydia concept) is to think for oneself and take no prisoners.
I have indeed spoken 20 (maybe a few more) words to Lydia, always in shy deference. I have always been so awed by her incredible presence and impact on my life. She is utterly my most treasured influence. I have certainly never "lied" about my relationship with her. And any fact checking on Graham Russells (sic) part would have shown this. Also her reference to Lesley (Silverfish) as being her age is ageist and untrue. Lesley is 26 maybe 27, Lydia is 33, wich (sic) noone (sic) cares about anyway except the mainstream press (sexist and ageist). I think Lydias (sic) a total mysoginist (sic) and I think shes (sic) bitter, and its (sic) unflattering and unbefittting to such a great linguistic talent. its (sic) not my fault she cant (sic) play guitar - who cares if shes (sic) not a musician. All I have to say is your (sic) completely stupid and thickheaded to believe the mainstream press when you write for something as marginal and hardline as Maximum.
Sincerely
Courtney Love
Founder of MAXIMUMROCKNROLL Tim Yohannan (1945-1998) replied below:
Dear Courtney's "nanny"
Could you see to it that this marginal issue of MRR somehow infiltrates Courtney and Kurt's abode. And while you're at it, why don't you slide in a dictionary? Oops, sorry for being elitist.
Tim
PS: Do they pay well?
Lydia Lunch photographed in 2011 by Lucie Inland
Still hungry for more, sensationalism freaks? Read my 1999 reunion interview with Lydia Lunch (for the Los Angeles punk zine Flipside this time) here.
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