The 30 Year Lunch Time
an interview with Lydia Lunch from The Scrawl archive
Please note that this is an archival interview and much of it previously appeared in the Questing Beast Grimoire Edition, Lydia’s 20-Year Lunch Time, and appears here in a revised and extended version (now, it should really be the 40 year Lunch-time!)
The Boston Phoenix called her, “one of the 10 most influential performers of the 90s,” now The Scrawl nominates her as, “the most potent writer of the past three decades”
Little Lydia’s big self first hit the scene back in 1976 with the New York punk band Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, whose music, branded ‘No Wave’, consisted of ear bleeding guitar assault with an angry-aggressive little girl screaming ‘No!’ at all and everything. Over the 30 years since, Lydia has not mellowed. The intensity is still undeniable and the anger, aggression and depression has been focused and tempered.
The sphere of music has never been big enough to contain Lydia’s multi-media manifestations. Her creativity soon spilled into spoken word performances, writing, acting and film making. Any such manifestation demands a reaction from its witnesses.
Delivering her spoken word performances on stage, she has been described as a “hideous sreaming bitch”, by herself. Her words can split your skull…
