Remembering James Chance on his birthday

Raising a glass to no wave icon James Chance on his birthday with some interviews and performances you may have missed. 

R.I.P. NYC filmmaker Amos Poe, 1949-2025

Sadly, innovative NYC filmmaker Amos Poe – best known for The Blank Generation – has passed away. He'll be greatly missed. 

Happy Birthday Lydia Lunch!

Celebrating the birthday of influential artist/musician Lydia Lunch with her own story, a discussion of no wave and more.

Beth B's Lydia Lunch doc The War Is Never Over opens June 30

Beth B's feature-length film about Lydia Lunch, The War Is Never Over opens at NY's IFC Center Wednesday. Watch the trailer.

Here's the scoop...

Turning trauma into precise and angry feminist rock, American singer, writer and actress Lydia Lunch helped birth the No Wave music scene in the late 1970s and early ’80s—and she’s still killing it today. Fellow No Wave pioneer Beth B constructs a lively portrait of this innovative performer, whose confrontational artistry resonates loudly in today’s feminist landscape. Critics, filmmakers, musicians and friends discuss the relevance of Lydia’s brilliantly vitriolic world. 

If you are in the New York area, tickets are now on sale for the first two days of the IFC Center screening of Beth B's film: Lydia Lunch: the War is Never Over. Beth and Lydia will be present at the 7:40 PM show on June 30. https://www.ifccenter.com/.../lydia-lunch-the-war-is.../

 More about Beth B.

In the 1980s, Beth B was one of the most prominent creative voices living and working in downtown New York. During this period, she made large-scale installations and Super-8 films. This film work which included G-man and Black Box made her a key player in the Cinema of Transgression film movement. Since the 1980s, she has released numerous documentaries and features for screen and television.

Her non-fiction feature, Exposed, about burlesque premiered in the Panorama section at the 2013 Berlin Film Festival. Beth's documentary, Call Her Applebroog, chronicles the life and work of her mother—renowned visual artist Ida Applebroog. Call Her Applebroog premiered at MOMA’s Doc Fortnight in February 2016.  Beth has also written and directed narrative features such as the great Salvation!: Have You Said Your Prayers Today?, and Two Small Bodies. 

Listen to Lydia Lunch's interview with Beth B and the documentary on her Lydian Spin Podcast right here. Watch the film trailer below. Find out more about Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over and upcoming screenings right here: https://www.lydialunchmovie.com.
 

New book from Lydia Lunch "So Real It Hurts" due in July

"So Real it Hurts" by Lydia Lunch, published by Seven Stories Press, hits the streets July 9. 

Here's the scoop...
"So Real It Hurts is the perfect title for this collection. It's a mission statement. A few bleeding slices straight from the butcher shop. A sampler from an enormous archive of work that will, no doubt, be pored over by grad students, book lovers, film historians, music nerds and straight-up perverts a hundred years from now." – Anthony Bourdain, from the Introduction

Through personal essays, interviews, and poetic verse, punk musician and cultural icon Lydia Lunch claws and rakes at the reader's conscience in this powerful, uninhibited feminist collection. Oscillating between provocative celebrations of her own defiant nature and nearly-tender ruminations on the debilitating effects of poverty, abuse, and environmental pollution, along with a visceral revenge fantasy against misogynistic men, Lydia Lunch presents her exploits without apology, daring the reader to judge her while she details the traumas and trials that have shaped her into the legendary figure she's become.

Inserted between these biting personal essays, Lunch thoughtful cultural insights convey a widely-shared desire to forestall inevitable cultural amnesia and solidify a legacy for her predecessors and peers. Her interview with Hubert Selby Jr. and profile of Herbert Hunke, her short unromanticized histories of No Wave and of the late Sixties, and her scathing examination of the monetization of counterculture (thanks, Vivienne Westwood!) all serve to reinforce the notion that, while it may appear that there are no more heroes, we are actually just looking for heroes in the wrong places. The worthy idols of the past have been obscured by more profitable historical narratives, but Lunch challenges us to dig deeper.

R.I.P. Glenn Branca, 1948-2018

Influential guitarist/composer Glenn Branca died of throat cancer Sunday night. Here's Alan Licht's obit from WIRE. 

James Chance & The Contortions @ The Rivoli, Saturday

NYC no wave icon James Chance has a new album, The Flesh Is Weak. Watch two versions of "Melt Yourself Down."

Watch James White & The Blacks perform "Melt Yourself Down" at Hurrah in 1980

Happy Birthday Lydia Lunch!

Celebrating the birthday of the influential Lydia Lunch with a recent Teenage Jesus performance. 

Happy Birthday Lydia Lunch!

Here's an old gem that Lydia recorded with 8 Eyed Spy followed by a discussion of no wave. 

Byron Coley issues rare Jack Ruby no wave recordings on vinyl

"Back when Thurston and I were working on our book No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980 (see book launch clip below) about the New York No Wave scene, a key mystery we hoped to unravel was the one surrounding the band Jack Ruby. I knew George Scott had been in the band, along with Chris Gray, but we were never able to nail down any hard info. Lydia Lunch and Rudolph Grey both had blazing memories of their weirdness, originality and power, but no one could turn up anything solid. 

"Time passed, the book came out and – chuffed by the fact we'd name-checked the band in the book – some of the participants began to emerge. Weasel Walter got his hands on a great tape of material which he released on CD (most of which is reprised on the limited run Jack Ruby - JACK RUBY vinyl edition), and bits and pieces of the band's story continued to roll out. 

"They'd actually formed in 1973 with Boris Policeband on electric viola and Randy Cohen on Serge synthesizer. The two pretty much constant members were guitarist Gray and singer Robin Hall. They'd done a demo for Epic. The original band never played live, etc., kind of crazy. Then a batch of old tapes was found in Pennsylvania. We sent them to Don Fleming who transferred and catalogued them for us, and we were totally blown away by what he was uncovering. 

"The songs 'Hit and Run' and 'Mayonnaise' are the original line-up recorded in a small Times Square Studio. Boris left after that and they recorded the Epic session as a trio. That's 'Bored Stiff,' 'Bad Teeth,' and 'Sleep Cure.' The other songs were recorded by the later, performing version of the band with Chris and George and another (all but anonymous) person or two. They played five live shows, featuring crawling dolls, buzzing dildos and the cracked Rocket From The Tombs sort of sound they'd evolved. The last one was in November '77 at Max's with Vivienne Dick's then-boyfriend, Stephen Barth on vocals. And the shit may be lo-fi at times, but it is genuinely fucked and a real pleasure to hear nonetheless. Volume 2 coming soon." – Byron Coley

Hit and Run


Bored Stiff


No Wave book launch 26/09/2008