Dave Chamberlain

Hunter S. Thompson once said something to the effect that the life of an iconoclast is a hard one.

So how about the life of an iconoclastic artist and musician, one so far below the mainstream radar that most people didn't even know she existed, much less still exists? Well that's Lydia Lunch, queen of the grimy underground art scene, nearing thirty years of toiling away--almost fruitlessly--as recording artist, poet, writer and performance artist.

"It's very difficult," she explains from a hotel room in New Orleans, site of her last gig. "You need to be very organized and forward thinking. It's more than a full-time job, and since you get very little support, it's completely exhausting. If it wasn't for Europe, I don't know how I'd live."

Lunch's career began in the seventies as part of the early seminal no-wave band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, but her rise to underground infamy came in the eighties, when her music became denoted by various collaborations (Birthday Party, Sonic Youth and Einsturzende Neubauten, to name an extreme few) and she expanded to the fringe of spoken-word poetry, photography, film and video. (She was once even the poster girl for the Whitney Museum of Art's Underground Film Festival.) Long before Henry Rollins took his reading act to the road, Lunch was touring with her personal salon of erotic, extreme and offbeat words/poetry; long before Jello Biafra began his Chomsky-esque tours of anti-populist rants, Lunch was giving her own alternative news reports.

Though she seemed ubiquitous throughout the eighties, Lunch's touring has been reduced to about once a year through the U.S., with more in Europe. "It's almost impossible to get shows," she explains. "Especially for spoken word." Of course, the American climate has never been particularly open to diversified culture--or at least open enough to lend enough support to carry fringe culture on a tour-like scale. "Even for the Beats, it wasn't good. And I don't consider poetry-slams spoken word; that's just a side-step to poetry."

Europe, however, is another matter. "Europe reads a lot more," she says, "and they don't have as many television stations. Also, there's a broader cross-section of understanding there. Europeans understand the interconnections between music, culture, art, literature and history a lot more. When you read there, the people in the audience know about Fluxus, about Dadaism, and Surrealism."

And in a day when major corporations are able to homogenize and commodify everything--even an openly homosexual junkie like William S. Burroughs can sell shoes to football players--an artist who can avoid the trap of money-for-your-soul is all the more impressive. "I just don't give a shit," Lunch says. "There's nothing that a major record label or ad agency wants from me. They don't want someone who can diversify. The global media is finally catching on to what Biafra and I have been saying for years: people aren't interested in hearing what you have to say if you don't have money. Truth as a commodity will never be popular."

Her commitment to the fringe has led her to live in New Orleans and Pittsburgh, just for the luxury of said cities' low costs of living. Regardless of the hardships, she's still not about to stop playing all over the artistic map. "Think about bands like Bad Religion, or Sonic Youth to an extent. They pound out the same thing over and over again for years before they hit. That's fucking brain death to me."

Lunch has taken to promoting her own spoken-word nights at a club in her current residence of Los Angeles, a free event on Sunday nights. "If it takes me to create a community, to start booking the club, what's next? I suppose I'll have to start washing the fucking glasses."

Lydia Lunch performs a spoken-word show March 8, 6:30pm at the Abbey Pub, 3420 W. Grace, (773)478-4408.

Full view:

While a veritable who's who of the music industry prepares to head down to Austin, Texas, for the annual music festival/beer binge known as South by Southwest, one stalwart of the weekend will be missing: for the first time in five years, the Hideout will not throw its traditional barbecue. According to owner Tim Tuten, the decision not to have a party stems partly from the country's economic climate, as well as the Hideout's. "The thing is," he explains, "we have done it for five straight years, and we always pay for it ourselves. Then we end up dragging our feet trying to find sponsors, and by the time we try, everybody says it's already too late."

(2002-03-07)

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