Lydia Lunch in London, 1981, by Janette Beckman

Jim Sclavunos: “Lydia and I agreed that it should be the aural equivalent of rough sex, a good cold hard hate-fuck. We managed to say what we needed to say in ten minutes, quick and to the point. And just in case there were any masochists or deluded intellectuals in the audience who were getting off on the show, we needed to thwart and frustrate that pleasure with a cruel premature withdrawal.”

Lydia Lunch: “It’s like boxing. If you can punch somebody and knock them down on the first punch, why not? Why should I box for 15 rounds when I can knock somebody out on the first punch?”

Un piccolo promo per una grande serata. Guarda e diffondi!!!

+ INFO

I love a good reissue and one of the best to come along this year is the re-release of Lydia Lunch’s debut solo album, Queen of Siam. Lunch produced this after the demise of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and before she joined the almighty 8 Eyed Spy. The cast she assembled to accompany her on this was pretty impressive  (theguitarist was Robert Quine) and the production, musicianship and general vibe are a million miles away from her shambolic no-wave roots. The great Gloomy Sunday showcases  Lydia as a vaguely gothic torch singer while Mechanical Flattery and Tied and Twisted is Lydia doing her best little girl voice and somehow coming over as a new genre of  nursery rhyme, creepy pop. Her version of Spooky is a strangely straight version with sassy saxophones and showcases the full horror of lounge disco. Lunch writes about how much it  cost to make Queen of Siam in the liner notes and I suspect that Spooky was included just in case the  record company  wanted to release a single. Lady Scarface is all cabaret show band, A Cruise to the  Moonis all jazzy, noir classic but the track I enjoyed  the most is the awesome Atomic Bongos which has a hint of the post-punk funk that would later be adopted by ESG and Liquid Liquid.

Many out there would say that Lydia never bettered her debut but I’m not one of them. I really enjoy theHoneymoon in Red stuff and to my ears she never bettered the Harry Crews album although I think 8 Eyed Spy and Teenage Jesus and The Jerks are just fucking essential as well. If you are looking for Lunch at her drug fucked insane best, Queen of Siam is probably not for you but this is a pretty amazing record none the less. One of the  reissues of the year.

In a previous life I used to review records for a student newspaper. There were many perks with that job one of which is this relic – a record that is so good that I still feel guilty that someone gave it to me for free. This also had a US release I think on the Twist label. In Australia it was released by Insipid Vinyl – a very eclectic and now sadly defunct label whose logo was drawn by Savage Pencil. The reason for the local release may be because Lunch toured hear on a spoken word gig around that time (see the rather full on interview clip I’ve added at the end).  This is now out of print but if you have some cash to splash around then there may be no better thing  to spend it on than a second hand copy of this.

This is a two disc release. The first disc, Transmutation, is a pretty good overview of her career and includes most of her important incarnations. Included are a few songs on which she collaborates with Rowland S Howard which come from the Shotgun Wedding and Honeymoon in Red records, Race Mixing from her stint with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Motor Oil Shanty from  8 Eyed Spy, collaborations with Die Haut and Shockheaded Peters, her cover of the Beatle’s Why Don’t We Do It In The Road and even a cut off her no-wave big band phase from Queen of Siam. The real treat for fans is the inclusion of three of the tracks from the mighty Stinkfist EP, a now out of print collaboration  with Clint Ruin and Thurston Moore (only Son of Stink is missing). It’s all very good stuff and indeed if the record stopped there you would go away very happy but also included is a second disc of a live gig of Lydia playing Honeymoon in Red with Rowland S. Howard, Jim Sclavunos and others. And to make it even more indispensible it includes a live version of Gospel Singer a track written by Kim Gordon for the Harry Crews album. There is no information as to where the gig was played nor when, so it’s all a bit of a mystery but to hear Lunch at the height of her powers is something to behold.

Vanaf dit jaar wordt 1 november niet meer alleen geassocieerd met Aller-heiligen, vanaf nu vieren we Aller-zondaars en bijgevolg wordt zondag 1 november Sinner’s Day. Het wordt een festivaldag waarbij pioniers en ander zwaar geschut uit de hoogdagen van punk en new wave samentroepen in de Ethias Arena in Hasselt. De line-up van de allereerste editie van het festival Sinner’s Day is ronduit indrukwekkend met namen als The Neon Judgement, Lydia Lunch, The Human League, Front 242 en Anne Clark. Peter Hook – bekend van New Order & Joy Division – en Andy Rourke van The Smiths spelen dj, net als Remo Perrotti en Didi de Paris. Gang of Four komen Psychedelic Furs, die hun optreden annuleerden, vervangen.

Voor wie Pukkelpop nog heeft weten beginnen (of Seaside zien eindigen) is Sinner’s Day zonder twijfel hét festival van het najaar. 1 november wordt een zwarte dag voor de Ethias Arena. Zwart op het podium. Zwart van het volk. Hieronder vind je alvast de line-up, die mogelijk onderhevig kan zijn aan last minute changes.

doors open at 13u

14.00 – 14.30 u  THE NEON JUDGEMENT

14.45 – 15.30 u  LYDIA LUNCH

15.45 – 16.30 u  BOLLOCK BROTHERS

16.45 – 17.30 u  ANNE CLARK

17.30 – 18.00 u   ANDY ROURKE  (DJ set/ Part 1)

18.00 – 19.00 u  GANG OF FOUR

19.00 – 19.30 u  ANDY ROURKE (DJ Set/Part 2)

19.30 – 20.30 u  GARY NUMAN

20.30 – 21.00 u  PETER HOOK (DJ set/ Part 1)

21.00 – 22.00 u  THE HUMAN LEAGUE

22.00 – 22.30 u  PETER HOOK (DJ set/ Part 2)

22.30 – 23.30 u  FRONT 242

AFTERPARTY!  DJ Alex Trappeniers (Happy House / Belgisch Congo…)

UPDATE

Om maar meteen met de deur in huis te vallen: vergeet al die fakefeestjes genre ‘I Love the 80’s’ en ‘I Love the 90’s’ : Sinner’s Day is ‘the real deal’. Gisteren getuige geweest van een bijzonder knap festival, dat als het hier en daar organisatorisch wat bijstuurt, absoluut zal uitgroeien tot een blijvend evenement. In voorverkoop gingen al meer dan 8.000 tickets de deur uit, gisteren rondde men de kaap van 10.000 bezoekers wat lang niet slecht is voor een eerste editie. Vooral veel dertigers en veertigers gezien gisteren, het jongere publiek was minder talrijk opgedaagd.

Het begon al tijdens de heenrit, waar we flink moesten aanschuiven richting parking. Gelukkig geraakten we dan weer snel binnen. Het enige jammere was het feit dat onze vrouwelijke compagnon (Kim) in laatste instantie nog afzegde. Onderweg al wat vreemde new wave creaturen gespot, de toon voor het verdere verloop van de dag was meteen gezet.

Klokslag 14u deed Luc Janssen zijn eerste aankondiging, Dirk Da Davo en TB Frank betraden het strijdtoneel onder hun muzikale pseudoniem The Neon Judgement. ‘The Fashion Party’, Tomorrow in the papers’, ‘Chinese black’ en als afsluiter ‘TV-Treated’. In 1990 of 1991 (ik wil er vanaf zijn) zag ik TNJ nog live in The Ritz (tegenwoordig Atmoz, Ritz Building of iets anders) aan de Hasseltse Kanaalkom. Destijds vond ik het toch allemaal wat spectaculairder, laat het ons daar op houden.

Lydia Lunch & The Big Sexy Noise was de volgende in het rijtje. Hoewel de dame een indrukwekkende staat van dienst heeft, was ze voor mij de vreemde eend in de bijt. Ondanks het feit dat ze wat ziekjes was gaf ze er toch een flinke lap op. Hulde! Bollock Brothers blijft welbeschouwd toch meer een fungroepje. Zanger Jock McDonald blijkt naast Celticfan ook een dikke boon te hebben voor Anderlecht. Die man kan bij mij dus op voorhand niets fout meer doen. In zijn typisch Schots geruit pakje brengt hij ‘The faith healer’, ‘Harley David’, ‘Horror movies’, ‘Pretty vacant’ (Sex Pistols cover), ‘Beats of love’ (Nacht und Nebel cover) en ‘Jesus lived six years longer than Kurt Cobain’.

Het eerste hoogtepunt van de dag komt van Anne Clark. Vooral de combinatie van een dichtende Clark, de synthklanken en de projecties gaf een sublieme combinatie. ‘Killing time’, het fantastische ‘Full moon’, ‘Sleeper in Metropolis’ (met begeleidende filmbeelden uit ‘Metropolis’ van Fritz Lang) en als uitsmijter ‘Our darkness’. Tijdens de eerste dj-set van Andy Rourke maken we een eerste plaspauze. Lange wachtrijen aan het toilet, zodat we maar net op tijd terug zijn om te zien dat Gang of Four er meteen stevig inhakt. Ze molesteren ‘en passant’ nog een microgolfoven met een baseballbat. Slechts één bekend nummer gehoord: ‘I love a man in a uniform’.

Tijdens het tweede dj-intermezzo lang aanschuiven voor een hamburger aan de eetstand. We hebben geluk dat we tijdig terug zijn voor Gary Numan, die erg spaarzaam is met hits. Ik meen ‘Pure’ en ‘RIP’ te hebben herkend, ‘Are friends electric’ zat bijna op het eind. Aardig moment: een jongedame die haar t-shirt met dat van Gary wilde wisselen en hiervoor haar witte bh met volle boezem tentoonspreidde. Numan hapte echter niet toe.

The Human League zag ik al voor de derde keer (na Suikerrock en Genk on Stage), dus geen verrassingen meer in hun setlist. Net als bij de vorige doortochten gemerkt dat de twee zangeressen regelmatig een valse noot produceerden, die gelukkig werd gecamoufleerd door de goeie stem van Phil Oakey. ‘Seconds’, ‘The lebanon’, ‘The sound of the crowd’, ‘Don’t you want me’, ‘Love action’, ‘Mirror man’ en ‘Open your heart’ denderden voorbij. In de bisronde ‘Being boiled’ en het kitscherige ‘Together in electric dreams’. Nog even oerdegelijk als vroeger!

De mokerslag werd bewaard voor het einde. Front 242 raasde als gek door de hal. ‘Tragedy for you’, ‘No shuffle’, ‘Welcome to paradise’, ‘Funkahdafi’ en ‘Headhunter’ waren een regelrechte aanval op ieders oren. In de bisronde ‘Im Rhythmus bleiben’ en ‘Punish your machine’. Nog eventjes (tot 1u) op de afterparty blijven plakken en daarna moe maar tevreden naar huis. Volgend jaar is er trouwens een nieuwe editie van Sinner’s Day op 31 oktober 2010. Iedereen kan zijn favoriete acts alvast aan de organisatie briefen.

Godkiller takes place in a dark future after economic collapse, after nuclear holy war, and after Earth is colonized by alien races. Tommy and his kid sister Lucy live in an orphanage in one of the few remaining city-states, but Lucy is critically ill and desperately in need of a new heart. Tommy’s odyssey to find a new heart for his sister begins when he follows an organ-stealing prostitute named Halfpipe out of the city-state and into the savage border-land known as Outer City. Godkiller mixes unforgiving brutality, quantum physics, conspiracy theory, and secret history for an iconoclastic hero’s journey like none before it. This “illustrated film” features intense comic art with mind-bending motion graphics, blood-pumping music, otherworldly sound design, and voice acting by some of the most exciting performers in genre films and youth-culture

No wave – taking lessons from nobody and paving roads where there were none.

Alan Vega, the godfather, by Laura Levine

DNA by Laura Levine

Lydia Lunch (Lydia got her nickname from her days as Suicide’s premier groupie – she used to bring the band lunch), by Godlis

Pat Place of Bush Tetras, by Lisa Genet

Adele Bertei and James Chance, by Stephanie Chernikowski

Lydia, Adele Bertei and Anya Phillips (iconic other half of James Chance – she designed the wardrobe on the Buy Contortions sleeve and had a brief stint managing the Contortions)

Outside the Bowery: Harold, Kristian Hoffman, Diego Cortez, Anya Phillips, Lydia Lunch, James Chance, Jim Sclavunos, Bradley Field and Liz Seidman, by Godlis

Lizzy Mercier Descloux and Lydia Lunch, by Lisa Genet

Tone Death at the Artists Space, by Stephanie Chernikowski

Glenn Branca by Laura Levine

di Tiziana Lo Porto

Erano bellissimi nella loro oltraggiosa imperfezione. Se ne infischiavano del mondo, e la stessa musica punk suonava alle loro orecchie troppo convenzionale. Dipingevano, fotografavano, riprendevano, cantavano, urlavano, più di ogni altra cosa si esibivano, e il loro palcoscenico era la fin troppo celebrata New York di fine anni Settanta. La New York del CBGB, per esempio, amatissimo locale live che un paio di anni fa chiuse i battenti tra pianti e rimpianti di nostalgici e sopravvissuti. La New York di Patti Smith e Robert Mapplethorpe, coppia icona di un’epoca irriproducibile, irriducibile e oltremodo invidiabile. La New York di Lydia Lunch che di quegli anni e di quella scena questo dice: «L’anti-chiunque della No Wave era un miagolare collettivo che sfidava le classificazioni, contagiava il pubblico, oltraggiava le convenzioni, cagava in faccia alla storia, e poi spaccava». Così racconta di sé e dintorni nella prefazione a un gran bel libro fotografico appena uscito negli States e curato da Thurston Moore dei Sonic Youth e dal critico musicale Byron Coley. Il libro si chiama No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980, e insieme al testo di Lydia Lunch raccoglie una serie di importanti foto in bianco e nero e rare interviste ai protagonisti di quel mezzo decennio lì, ovvero la cosiddetta scena No Wave (per farsi un’idea basta ascoltare la compilation del 1978 No New York curata da Brian Eno).

Una non-corrente o anti-corrente musicale che all’epoca si contrapponeva alla New Wave e che per Thurston Moore probabilmente ha rappresentato le radici, le origini, l’io-vengo-da-lì, credibile movente di un accurato e devotissimo lavoro di ricerca, indagine, inchiesta. Operazione già realizzata un paio di anni fa dal regista Scott Crary nell’eccellente documentario Kill Your Idols, che coinvolgeva oltre che lo stesso Moore e il collega chitarrista Lee Ranaldo, la vecchia guardia di quella scena No Wave (con Lydia Lunch ancora una volta capofila) e i giovani eredi a noi contemporanei (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Liars e simili) che dovrebbero «uccidere i loro idoli», ma che, ammettiamolo pure, forse non saranno mai all’altezza. E non per mancanza di talento. «Qui in quest’album di famiglia si nasconde la progenie di sale di Lot», scriveva la poetessa russa Marina Tsvetaeva, rendendo bene l’idea che ci si fa nel rivedere oggi le immagini di un manipolo di ragazzi scapestrati talmente incoscienti e arditi da riuscire a creare una vera e proprio Sodoma nel cuore di New York senza mai rinnegarla. «Non vedevamo molte altre scelte al di là del fare quello che abbiamo fatto», dice adesso Martin Rev dei Suicide, insistendo soprattutto sul fatto che quella che facevano comunque non era musica. Si trattava di distruggere la musica degli altri piuttosto, o – per come la mette Arto Lindsay, all’epoca DNA – di riarrangiarla, ma in ogni caso di radere al suolo in primis, e poi ricostruire il tutto un po’ come capita, ovvero a cazzo. Questa la No Wave, la cui importanza nella storia del rock è stata soprattutto l’avere consentito di superare tutto quello che c’era prima, blues o punk che fosse, di costringere il prossimo a inventare e non limitarsi a rifare. È nata così, pochi anni dopo, la musica dei Sonic Youth, e Thurston Moore ne è consapevole. Il noise dei Sonic Youth è uno dei prodotti migliori della No Wave. Basta assistere a un loro concerto, ora come dieci o vent’anni fa, per capirlo. Accanto a loro, chiunque suoni prima o dopo o nel frattempo, semplicemente scompare. Ascoltateli e, nella peggiore delle ipotesi vi ritroverete a collezionare cd, ep, vinili, bootleg, dvd, libri fotografici, poster, la qualunque, nella migliore deciderete di diventare anche voi musicisti e metterete su la vostra di band. Michael Azzerad, autorevole giornalista musicale, c’ha scritto sopra un capitolo (una band per ogni capitolo, tredici capitoli in tutto) di uno dei suoi libri migliori, Our Band Could Be Your Life, ovvero la nostra band potrebbe diventare la tua vita. Che come concetto può apparire un poco estremo, ma rende perfettamente l’impatto che questa – come poche altre band – può avere sul prossimo.
Alcuni dei nomi della No Wave tornano poi in un secondo volume, curato sempre da Thurston Moore. Mix Tape è il titolo del libro, che si presenta come una raccolta ben confezionata di contributi (testi, disegni, foto, collage, elenchi di canzoni e di nomi di band) intorno al tema della compilation da musicassetta. Un omaggio a un oggetto scomparso, in pratica, che raccoglie nomi più o meno famosi della scena artistica e musicale americana, chiamati a riesumare bei ricordi&compilation. Presenti all’appello, accanto a Moore e a musicisti e artisti che orbitano intorno ai Sonic (Jim O’Rourke, o Leah Singer, artista e moglie del chitarrista Lee Ranaldo), John Sinclair, Dean Wareham, Damon Krukowski e Naomi Yang (ex Galaxie 500), la scrittrice Mary Gaitskill (suo il bel racconto da cui è tratto il film Secretary), Ahmet Zappa, musicista, attore e figlio di Frank Zappa, la regista Allison Anders (quella di Mi Vida Loca e di Four Rooms) e molta altra beautiful people.
Ammirevole il risultato che inevitabilmente induce a mettere a soqquadro casa alla ricerca del proprio di «mix tape» del cuore. O a cercare di ricostruire a mente la scaletta esatta delle canzoni regalate all’amato nel tentativo di sedurlo (se l’amato lo si è poi sedotto e conquistato si può pure provare a chiedergli direttamente se tante volte quella cassetta lì l’ha conservata, risparmiando così tempo e affanno). Nel caso in cui poi vi sentiate abbastanza nostalgici, o anche solo per noia, accendete il computer e andate alla pagina muxtape.com Potrete riprovare il piacere di farvi da voi il vostro impeccabile mix da cassetta, chiamarlo come vi pare e diffonderlo nell’etere. Qualcuno forse apprezzerà.
Nota a margine sulla mia vita, ovvero come Pretty Woman mi ha fatto scoprire la musica dei Sonic Youth. Quando vidi per la prima volta al cinema Julia Roberts dentro la vasca da bagno della camera d’albergo di Richard Gere che, auricolari dentro le orecchie e saponata intorno, cantava Kiss di Prince a squarciagola, avevo diciannove anni. Il giorno dopo andai a comprare un walkman identico al suo, di plastica, giallo e subacqueo. È dentro quel walkman che ho scoperto i Pearl Jam, i Nirvana e molta altra musica. Ci ascoltavo soprattutto vecchie cassette dei Pixies e dei Pere Ubu. Ci ascoltavo anch’io Prince, Kiss e Darling Nikki, la mia preferita che mettevo in tutte le mie compilation. Un giorno ci ho ascoltato anche Thurston Moore, e Kim Gordon, e i Sonic Youth. Per la prima volta. M’è venuto in mente adesso, leggendo questi libri, e ho pensato che da qualche parte dovessi scriverlo. Ecco, l’ho scritto qui.

Thurston Moore e Byron Coley, No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980, Abrams Image, pp. 143, £ 14.00
Thurston Moore (a cura di), Mix Tape. L’arte della cultura delle audiocassette, Isbn Edizioni, pp. 95, euro 22
Scott Crary, Kill Your Idols, Rarovideo, euro 17,90

No Wave was a pretty short musical movement in the late ’70s  that fell somewhere between experimental and punk. It was often more grating than influential but artists like Lydia Lunch and Glenn Branca inspired Sonic Youth. So we can be grateful for that.

Lydia brings her band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks to the Empty Bottle Monday.

Becuz – Sonic Youth

Tom Violence – Sonic Youth

Nel 1979 Brian Eno, folgorato da un’esibizione incendiaria di alcuni gruppi newyorkesi avvenuta l’anno prima all’Artists Space di Soho, produceva una compilation divenuta vetrina per la scena underground dell’epoca e pietra miliare della storia del rock: No New York.

James Chance & The Contorsions, Teenage Jesus and Jerks, Mars, DNA i responsabili di questo “disastro”. Disastro per l’inaccessibilità dei suoni, per il dialogo incessante col free-jazz cacofonico e scorreggione di Anthony Braxton e Peter Brötzmann, per il suo aprire la strada alla contaminazione totale, da cui la scena newyorkese sta ancora raccogliendo succosi frutti.

Da queste premesse nasce No New York (no, non ci stiamo ripetendo), una serata dedicata alla riscoperta della scena underground newyorkese, con la partecipazione straordinaria di Lydia Lunch (chitarrista e cantante nei già citati Teenage Jesus, poi eccellente solista) e Martin Rev (tastierista e vero e proprio scultore di suono nel seminale duo Suicide).

Prima delle loro esibizioni live (la prima insieme al gruppo Big Sexy Noise, il secondo in solitaria, nascosto dietro una fitta coltre di tastiere e male di vivere) incontreranno Luigi Socci e il pubblico alle 19,30. Durante i concerti proiezioni, materiale cartaceo, audio e video consultabile e acquistabile.

Aftershow a cura di 5 dj che ripercorreranno le tappe fondamentali del suono di New York dagli anni ‘60 ad oggi.

Inoltre, durante la serata, fra i partecipanti al concerto verrà estratto un biglietto A/R per New York!

Luogo dell’evento: Extra Club di Recanati.

INFO & PROGRAMMA

46 of the Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time

Venus Zine applauds 46 of the world’s best

By Venus Zine Staff
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 12:25pm

Rolling Stone’s 2003 special issue about the “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” is an ambitious edition with Jimi Hendrix on the cover and accolades to the great players of our time. But the project is sorely lacking in female presence — there are only two women on the list: Joni Mitchell and Joan Jett.

To shine light on the great female guitarists of our time, we have selected 46 of the best based on an array of excellence factors, including either technical skill, standout performance, and style pioneering. To diversify the selection process, we invited guitar experts and music leaders from various genre backgrounds (read their bios below) to nominate their favorites.

Because of the large number of guitarist profiles, we’ve split up the editorial content into three postings. Click on the headlines below to read about Venus Zine’s 46 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Jennifer Batten

Christina Billotte

Kat Bjelland

Rory Block

Carrie Brownstein

Elizabeth Cotten

Brody Dalle

Kim Deal

Ani DiFranco

Tanya Donelly

Rosie Flores

Lita Ford

Suzi Gardner

Sue Ann Harkey

Polly Jean (PJ) Harvey

Jessie Mae Hemphill

Kristin Hersh

Chrissie Hynde

Sharon Isbin

Cordell Jackson

Joan Jett

Peggy “Lady Bo” Jones

Carol Kaye

Tara Key

Kaki King

Courtney Love

Lydia Lunch

Barbara Lynn

Christina Marrs

Satomi Matsumoto

Memphis Minnie

Joni Mitchell

Odetta

Pat Place

Liz Phair

Bonnie Raitt

Toshi Reagon

Michelle Shocked

Donita Sparks

Marnie Stern

Ruyter Suys

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Mary Timony

Sarah Utter

Tal Wilkenfeld

Nancy Wilson

THE PANEL
Meet the experts who nominated the guitarists

Abigail Aronson Zocher earned her bachelors from New England Conservatory of Music in Classical Guitar Performance, studies with David Leisner, and earned their Chadwick Medal for the outstanding graduate of the year. She earned her masters in jazz studies, studying with Mick Goodrick, Cecil McBee, and George Garzone. She has been on the Berklee faculty since 1995 and is an associate professor in their world-renowned guitar department.

Kenneth Bays is the editor of Blues Revue, the world’s largest blues magazine. He has written about folk, blues, roots, and pop music for numerous online and print publications, including Performing Songwriter, American Songwriter, and the All Music Guide.

Calvin Johnson has been working with underground culture since childhood. He is the incubator of many media experiments, including K Records, and lives within walking distance of the Dub Narcotic studio in Olympia, Washington.

Evelyn McDonnell is the editorial director of MOLI.com. She is the author of three books includingMamarama: A Memoir of Sex, Kids and Rock ‘n’ Roll and Army of She: Icelandic, Iconoclastic, Irrepressible Björk. She coedited the anthologies Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop and Rap and Stars Don’t Stand Still in the Sky: Music and Myth. A former senior editor at the Village Voice and associate editor at SF Weekly, her writing has appeared in Ms., Rolling Stone, the New York Times, and Spin. Her 1996 cover story for Option on PJ Harvey was named best interview in a magazine by the Music Journalism Awards.

Amy Phillips is the senior news editor of Pitchforkmedia.com.

Jaan Uhelszki was one of the founding editors of Detroit’s legendary Creem magazine. Since that time, her work has appeared in leading publications including USA Today, Uncut, MOJO, Rolling Stone, Spin, NME, Guitar World, and the Village Voice. Currently a senior editor at Rhapsody, she is the only journalist to have ever performed in full makeup with Kiss.

Nan Warshaw co-founded Bloodshot Records in 1994. Prior to Bloodshot, she was a DJ at punk rock clubs and for college radio, an independent publicist, a bartender, a club buyer, an indie booking agent, and also did work in the non-profit sector. Today she sits on the advisory boards of the Future Of Music Coalition and Rock For Kids. The current Bloodshot roster features a range of indie rock bands with roots inflections including Firewater, Scotland Yard Gospel Choir, the Gore Gore Girls, Detroit Cobras, Graham Parker, and Waco Brothers.

To read the full article, go to:  http://venuszine.com/articles/music/2575/The_Greatest_Female_Guitarists_of_All_Time

Niños muertos bailando.

Y Lydia Lunch.

‘D.I.Y. or Die: How to Survive as an Independent Artist’ é un documental de baixo coste dirixido por Michael W. Dean en 2002. O título do filme e os nomes dos capítulos xa din todo sobre o que se trata, non hai máis. 

Inclúe entrevistas a Ian MacKaye, Lydia Lunch, J Mascis, Ron Asheton ou Mike Watt entre outros.

Listado de capítulos:
1. What Is D.I.Y.?
2. Purpose
3. Integrity
4. Commerce
5. Self-Definition
6. Dealing With Adversity
7. Giving Back
8. Who Did What

VERSIÓN ORIXINAL

Someone quoted me all over this:

“The strange thing was that Huggy Bear’s musical template was hardly revolutionary. It was a relatively straightforward mix between the twee, non-macho, post-C86 bands such as Heavenly and The Field Mice, caught up in the DIY cassette and fanzine culture emanating from labels such as Calvin Johnson’s K Records, and Bristol, England’s Sarah Records, and the noise/pop experimentation of the sonic overlords/ladies Lydia Lunch and Sonic Youth…with a little Fifties beat poetry thrown in. No, it wasn’t so much the music that was revolutionary, as what they did with it. Scratch that. Huggy Bear’s deliberately naïve, anti-societal approach to playing guitar — there is no right and wrong way to play guitar, to paint a picture, to view art —was revolutionary inasmuch as it challenged accepted mores, forced listeners to re-evaluate their entire approach to music.

“In a way, the act of declaring oneself a revolutionary is revolutionary in itself. Despite their musical leanings, Huggy Bear with their rudimentary anarcho-syndicalism, ideas of equal ‘prime movers’ (not leaders) and impassioned feminism had more in common with mischief-mongers and Government-baiters Crass than any of the toy rabbit-clutching bands that followed. One listen to the fury threatening to devour the songs alive on their Wiiija compilation Taking The Rough With The Smooch proves that.”

So I thought I’d re-re-up the part they re-upped here, post a link to the original article here, and give a link to the place that re-upped it, cos it looks like a pretty fucking cool blog.

You can find the Riot Grrrl series of interviews here.

This is an excerpt from my 2001 book Live Through This (now widely unavailable and presumably deservedly so). It also got used for some sleeve-notes, I believe.

The band I loved more than anyone in 1990 was Babes In Toyland.

Everything I understood to be important about rock was tied up with these three women. Kat Bjelland would stand there on stage, face contorted with fury, spitting out her love-hate lyrics over a battered guitar lick. In her flat heels and chiffon she had an odd girlishness: pseudo kindergarten curls, crudely bleached, tattered baby doll dress, red lipstick and wide eyes. Her legs would be covered in bruises by the end of each show from contact with the guitar, pain dulled by a constant stream of whiskey.

There was nothing ‘girlie’ or childish about her performances, though. Her screams sounded ghastly and cleansing, an exorcism of her past and a recent succession of bastard boyfriends. To her side stood Michelle, able to hit her bass with a demonic force that belied her size. Behind them, Lori Barbero, the brash, loud one, everyone’s favourite sister, would be kicking up a major league racket on the drums, and occasionally singing in her operatic, drawn-out voice. At the set’s end, she’d jump up and take a photo of the audience, like we’d all been invited to a private party. It was Kat that your attention was always drawn back to, though, her eyes rolled back wide to the sky, stamping her foot and grinding her sticker-covered guitar against her hips. Kat was the electricity.

So what do I understand to be important about rock? It’s simple.

It has to rock. In other words, there needs to be a primal fury and power that goes way beyond the three or four chords being played. Babes In Toyland had that fury, certainly early on. They rocked as hard as anyone in Tad or Killdozer. Babes had a brilliant grasp of dynamics. They used silence and anticipation as effectively as noise.

It has to challenge. Mostly only art created by women has any validity. The male experience has been created and recreated so often. The female perspective has barely been explored in rock music. Hard rocking music created by intelligent females is still a rarity, and you can forget the juvenile charm of Kittie and their breed in 2000. They are so clearly women (girls) shaped by men into their own fantasy images of what a strong woman should look like. Babes In Toyland never cared about looking cool, not in a traditional sense. How could they, with Kat standing there, glowering and sweating several layers of hatred? This was almost revolutionary: three women creating a metal/No Wave-based sound who didn’t dress in combat boots or leather or lumberjack shirts or PVC, yet who sounded better than virtually every male band.

Somehow, Babes In Toyland were creating a new language, astringent, but oddly tuneful within all Kat’s roars and lyrics like “Fry fucking fry/Fuck and fry my blue boyfriend” (‘Pain In My Heart’). Most of Kat’s words came out as soul -searing screams or five-second blasts of lucid hatred, but then, the past had every bearing on the Babes. Kat was the child of archetypal Sixties American hippies, and her real-life mother would beat her, and yes that did change everything.

The Babes were the flipside to Madonna’s all-conquering power trip, her ability to mould men as and when she liked into her image. But the Babes approached it from another direction altogether, using darkness and torn emotions and every rotten mean trick in the book. Or rather, Kat did and the others tempered it and make it palatable. There was a balance to Babes In Toyland. Without it, they would have tumbled straight into the giddy chasm that made folk like Lydia Lunch impotent as far as the outside world was concerned.

The band’s raw, blistering, enervating music recalled the primeval metal attack of early Sonic Youth and their Blast First label mates, NYC’s abrasive all-female UT. I would dance around on no feet to the sound of Kat’s voice, as I used to with UT, laughing at all the squares who never did understand soul music.

The Babes 1990 Sub Pop single ‘House’ describes a woman’s stubbed toes, broken arms and various wounds before concluding “Oh my God/Is this what it’s like/To fall in love?” Songs from Spanking Machine, released the same year, were equally as unsettling. ‘Swamp Pussy’ advised we should all “cease to exist”. ‘Dust Cake Boy’, with its “Pow! Pow! Pow!” refrain, echoed the jazz textures of the Birthday Party’s ‘Big Jesus Trashcan’ from several years before. Easy listening this wasn’t. Except, of course, the Babes were fun: fucking ace, delirious, down-on-your-knees-and-bloodied fun. The Babes played with punk aestheticism. Raw and furious, Bjelland flirted between self-indulgent and revolutionary with a flick of her caustic tongue. The lyrics straddled an uneasy divide between scathing bitterness and an almost naïve fairytale (‘Hansel And Gretel’) outlook on life.

I was unable to resist the trio. It wasn’t just that they could rock, taught me how to drink (via Kat’s love for Jagermeister) and took me on tour with them. It was that they satisfied a need deep within.

It was the real grunge.

From Plan B #25 – a special request from Sarah Datblygu. This is round about the best email interview I’ve conducted.

Music That Time Forgot Special: The Tronics/Les Zarjaz
Man, The Tronics were great: cardboard box drums, a few bare guitar lines and a rockabilly swagger, 16-year-old singer Ziro Baby inescapably cool in his mirror shades and lean, leather trousers: wiry and wired. “Strictly shark fucks under no manners,” an ice-cool lady announced at the start of his cult 1981 Alien seven-inch ‘Shark Fucks’, before Ziro launched into a typically deadpan exciting three-chord pop song.

Four singles and a flexi were released between 1980 and 1983, including the immortal shout-out ‘Favourite Girls’ – kinda like Television Personalities do Gene Vincent, but without any mess whatsoever. These followed a brace of cassettes, and preceded the excellent mantra-like 12-inch ‘Tranzister Sister’. There was also an album, the minimalist Love Backed By Force, which I found in a second-hand record bin for £2, round about the best two quid I ever spent, frankly.

All Ziro’s rock’n'roll songs were great, and he was accorded a degree of fame: then he went through a severe reinvention and resurfaced on Alan McGee’s Creation Records, shortly around the time of The Legend!, as Les Zarjaz with two, frankly incomprehensible baroque rock singles – which vied with my own for the honour of worst-selling record on Creation ever (least until that Kevin Rowland album came along).

And then…nothing. Ziro Baby just vanished off the face of the earth. Last I heard he was mining in an Eastern European country. So it was with some considerable excitement I received these replies a few months back…

Could you explain about The Tronics came about?
“I kept seeing this sign in my mind like joined writing on an old fridge in chrome letters saying Tronics.”

And where did Les Zarjaz spring from?
“One night I woke up with a group of baroquabillies standing around my bed. They said to me that I was the 13th Emperor of Rome. I didn’t have to do anything but I could continue to do whatever I wanted. They showed me that my brother Nero was the first truly great Rock and Roll star and why, and that no one has ever surpassed or even equalled him and why.”

What’s your fondest memory of the times (very early Eighties)?
“I don’t really know much. I kind of came in off the street and this is where I am. I found a devotchka to bang some drums and put out [1980 cassette] What’s The Hubbub Bub. People told me I should be famous but I don’t get well with famous, so Tronics was awkward the bigger it got.

“I don’t have many fond memories. I got shot twice, once in the lower part of my back in some dumb bizarre circumstance and another time inadvertently in the leg. I was stabbed a few times, once by some wacky dame with a broken glass trying to mark me so no one else would like me. Being ‘interviewed’ by the police waiting for me outside my apartment was normal.

“The best things for me have always been the feelings I get from people who like my music. At the time of recording ‘Tranzister Sister’ we had screaming girls outside the apartment. For an indie band who never hired publicity agents and who did not have the support of a major label I thought that was pretty cool. Devotchkas screaming ‘Shark Fucks’ at me on stage was a psychological dilemma. I thought it was amazing and unique but at the same time it terrified me.

“My place was full of people when I went to sleep, and when I woke up my place was full of a whole different set of people, many I didn’t know. A fanzine printed my address and phone number and things got worse. It got rough in the end and I had to move. That’s one reason why I have never mingled much ever since. I don’t mix well.

“It also came from an earlier incident where a girlfriend, I think she was a girlfriend, it only lasted a few days, maybe even hours, broke down and was taken to an asylum. I went to visit her the next day as I was concerned. I found her in the security wing and she had told other girls in there that I was Jesus. I saw them coming running down a corridor. It was like a dam breaking in slow motion or a group of wild horses running through a pass in a canyon. They were screaming crazy and heading for me. Lucky for me some nurses forced me out through some strengthened glass doors and locked it. The next thing they all hit the door that was now a glass wall, about two-feet from my face. I stood in the autumn wind and rain, leaves blowing around me under a dim outside door light watching them hitting the door screaming ‘Jesus touch me’ and things like that, playing with their groodies and being dragged off one by one by nurses. It all had an effect on me and I walked away.

“I am not Jesus. We whacked him back in the day for being a sensationalist reactionary. I am not a messiah.”

What were your favourite records back then?
“Anything with a hole and grooves really. I would listen to everything. Even Whistling Reg Harris and his Barking Dog. I could never make a list, most basically it might go something like Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Eddie Cochran, anything by Phil Spector, The Residents, Bolan, Ramones, Velvet Underground. I listened to and knew so many bands from that time. All of them were great. One that I particularly liked was Eric Hysteric and the Esoterics from Germany.

“I remember liking Red Ballune. I thought Lydia Lunch was the most amazing guitarist. I got to know her. I told her that I was amazed by her guitar and that I was a massive fan. She said that she didn’t like fans but preferred to be friends. I don’t think she understood that I only wanted to be a fan and didn’t want to be a friend. I’m a Rock and Roll fan.

“Another thing is that these groups and people are all from what most people would recognise as Rock and Roll. I have another life where the music I listened to then, same as today, is not from this time. I was into Domenico Scarlatti and Charpentier before anything else.

“I know the other things I mentioned may be more relevant to your readers but what they might not be aware of is that Baroque music is Rock and Roll in its most pure form. There is nothing else on the same level in Rock and Roll. When I was not listening to Little Richard I would listen to Palestrina and Monteverdi.

“I’m not talking middle class, snobby, crazy about the classics, Classic FM cal. Vivaldi and Bach were never middle class. Baroquabilly is for everyone not just rich people.

“The main reason I got into Clockwork Orange when I was 14 was that the main character, Alex, was this 14-year-old kid, listening to Bach and Beethoven and wandering wide in the night, with his Pe and Em telling him to itty of to skollywol in the morning with Alex saying not going today, got a headache, I’ll be all right as dodgers later. I have never been into Beethoven like that so much but other similarities to my own life took my attention. It was like the book was talking about me. I was the only 14-year-old kid I knew who listened to Bach, dressed in black and hung out at night. The morning skollywol ritual with my Em was identical.

“That’s why ‘Shark Fucks’ has more to do with Handel than might be easily recognised and why I eventually left the cocoon. Tronics was a pupa for Zarjaz.”

How important were the Eighties?
“Every truly great era has a music and art together. Art and music go together like cock in pussy.  Fifties, Sixties, the punk scene, but today I can’t think of anything. Some maybe’s but nothing outstanding. We have no Salvador Dali. We are only told what it is great and unfortunately many will believe it.

“In the Eighties people began to ask to see my CV. By the Nineties musicians were asking if I wanted to see their CV. We are living in a kind of cultural dark ages. Art and music is repressed, kept down and out in favour of acceptable stereotypes that other stereotypes relate to.

I have a distant memory of seeing Tronics play on a bill at The Venue, Victoria in around ‘82. Did Tronics play many big shows?
“Every show I do is big. In terms of size of venue, not that much, but at that time I don’t think people really thought in those terms. I mean on the independent scene that is. I don’t think big venues were considered or it came into our heads. It was more like having no distinct line between the band and everyone else.

“Some punk bands were making it big and big stars, but doesn’t that suck really? I think if you release ‘Shark Fucks’ it’s pretty certain you might not be asked to play alongside U2 at the stadium.

“I was outside of everything, had few clothes and no clothes in one piece, starving, out of my head and wandering around like the living dead with a guitar, but I was not a victim.

“At one time you needed to be black to be in Rock and Roll. By the end of the Eighties if you wanted to make records it was required of you to be milk white with a mock Seventies hair style, otherwise there was no budget for you. Many people asked me to do that and be that. They offered me heap big budget and big gigs. I turn down so many gigs.”

How does it feel to be revered as a cult?
“Serious and exciting.”

What do you do now?
“Some people say I spend too much time in the sea but I have several projects I am working on. I took some time out recently and this delayed the next Freakapuss album but I’m on to the release now. Other than that I study, collect Roman money and prehistoric dinosaur teeth, T-Rex, Raptor and Megalodon. I watch as many starry movies as I can, I like to drive at 30 kmh given there being no one behind me. I keep to the back streets. Now was that Barking Reg Harris and his Whistling Dog”

I’ve placed a link to the original layout here. I have a vague recollection that it might contain more quotes or is better-edited, or something. It was all very last minute.

In part three: Lydia Lunch makes a wonderful racket, Catherine MacLellan provides a soothing antidote, and Tegan Northwood’s ambitions prove to be more admirable than her achievements.

* * *

Lydia Lunch
Big Sexy Noise EP ••••
Sartorial

Spoken-word artist, poetess, actress, collaborator, playwright, author, composer, muse, narrator – Lydia Lunch’s CV could be the life’s work of five or six different people combined. Big Sexy Noise is her latest project, a collaboration with Terry Edwards, James Johnston and Ian White, erstwhile collaborators known collectively as Gallon Drunk, who have over a decade of history with the dirty, sexy godmother of punk, from her 2004 album Smoke In The Shadows to multimedia performances ‘Real Pornography’ and its follow up, ‘Hangover Hotel’, Described as “raunchy rock for the rough road ahead”, this six-track EP is all the things we’ve come to expect from the dark poetess – sex, religion and unrestrained violence.

The abrasive, stream-of-consciousness guitars are heavy on the distortion, as relentless, thumping drum beats and cymbals crash around Lunch’s sordid, indefatigable narratives. From the sexy saxophone on ‘Bad For Bobby’ to the thrashy, exorcist blues of ‘The Gospel Singer’ (co-written with Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon) and the grunge-heavy cover of Lou Reed’s ‘Kill Your Sons’, Big Sexy Noises practically oozes with curdling blood. Quite possibly the most unpredictable comparison of the decade, but searing closer ‘Your Love Don’t Pay My Bills’ could be the hardcore, pornographic version of Destiny’s Child’s ‘Bills Bills Bills’. Always apocalyptic, the self-styled ‘No-Wave Nostradamus’ has attached a caveat to this blistering EP: “It’s time to stop complaining, quit your crying and embrace the coming End Times. Let’s fucking rock.”

Charlotte Richardson Andrews
UK release date: 15/06/09; www.myspace.com/lydialunch

Catherine MacLellan
Water In The Ground ••••
True North

Native to the Maritime Provinces of Canada, Catherine MacLellan is proving a fine exponent of the country’s folk-roots music tradition. Water In The Ground, her third album, is an easily digestible slice of that genre, dominated as it is by an array of delicate and charming guitar-led ballads. That’s not to say it trudges along at a snail’s pace. Mixing things up a little with the heavy boogie woogie bassline of album opener ‘Take A Break’ and the breezy shuffle of ‘Set This Heart On Fire’, it all holds together well to form an accomplished piece of work. MacLellan’s vocals are pitch perfect and crystal clear, her clipped style at times resembling her contemporary Shawn Colvin.

While it doesn’t break any new sonic territory, Water In The Ground is a lovely album that successfully manages to combine some heart-stirring moments with occasional lighter ones. It’s worth noting that the album comes with a copy of MacLellan’s largely acoustic debut Dark Dream Midnight which, while similarly strong melodically, demonstrates how she’s moving forward, hopefully into a bigger arena.

Ben Urdang
UK release date: 01/06/09; www.myspace.com/catherinemaclellan

Tegan Northwood
Last Days Of Home ••
Endgame

Land and our connection to it is at the heart of Australian artist Tegan Northwood’s third album, Last Days Of Home. Music and landscape inform each other for Northwood, who has studied “bush regeneration, energy healing for land and humans and sound healing (using harmonic singing)”. The word ‘healing’ is a poignant one, as the album is part celebration, part elegy, capturing the experience of losing her family property of Murramarang National Park as it was sold off to housing developers. Determined to keep some part of the land, Northwood recorded all the sounds that animated her home, from “the frogs in the dam, birds, the back door slamming, the fridge, storms on the roof.”

These field recordings are an integral part of the album, which sees a love of electronic wizardry, including samplers and loops, blended with more traditional acoustic guitars. With an ambient, easy-listening pop sound, Northwood may be likened to a rural Dido, and her very particular style may not be to everyone’s taste, but it can’t be denied that the love resounding through the songs, and the message behind them, are powerful. An album that wants to be better than it actually is, it explores the crucial, and ultimately life-shaping, relationship we have with nature, healing and home.

Charlotte Richardson Andrews
Available on import only; www.myspace.com/tegannorthwood

Allyson Shaw has just published a mindfuckingly-great cyberpunk novel entitled The Desperate Ones. It’s an intensely poetic, darkly fantastic dash for an apocalyptic finish line in a futuristic cityscape that will be recognizable to many of you. Lemma tell ya: it’s a madcrazy ride fr sure. But as this is a music blog, I thought I’d talk a bit about a few of my favorite versions of the Jacques Brel song that cued off her entire project. I am aware of at least a half dozen versions of this song, the best of which remind me of characters and themes throughout the novel. In no particular order I give you:

NINA SIMONE – “The Desperate Ones” (from Nina Simone & Piano!, RCA Records, 1969) Nina was a master at infusing other people’s songs with an urgent passion that spoke not only to individual battles but of much larger cultural and political wars still relevant today. This isn’t the first song most will associate with Nina, and for good reason. There’s a certain unhinged quality at work here many won’t be able to relate to. The pain fueling this sounds more rooted in Nina’s struggle with bipolar disorder, rather than any attempt to comment on wider sociopolitical issues.

But lord knows, even a single howl in the void can be powerful. Such quiet isolation parallels the perpetual state of forgetfulness of Professor Clymenus Bell in Ally’s novel. It’s the kind of burden that must be shouldered privately, but it’s one that crowds both the past and future into a present in a way that’s more than a little unsettling.

GLYN SYTLER & LYDIA LUNCH – “The Desperate Ones” (from The Desperate Ones EP, Atavistic Records, 1997) Glyn and Lydia’s take is unusual as it’s not based on the Brel original, but on the maudlin American version writer Eric Blau and Brill building employee Mort Shuman came up with for their 1968 stage review known as Jacque Brel is Alive and Well and Living In Paris. It’s not unlike how your 80’s teen hardcore band might’ve covered MINOR THREAT’s reimagining of WIRE’s “12XU” – twice removed from source material and hence infused with meaning never intended in the first place. In this case, it’s a beautiful thing they’ve concocted, indeed. Brel’s sadness remains, but the camp, whispered innocence of Alive and Well becomes darkly humorous in the hands of these two doyens of The Hate Generation.

It’s a wonderful example of just how to bring dead culture back to life again, and echoes the way Ally’s character Rabine taps into lost beliefs, vision, and directed will to save her world from the edge of near extinction. Yep it’s only fiction, but dammit if this shouldn’t be the focus of your Great Work too.

MARC ALMOND – “The Desperate Ones” (from the Brel Extras EP, Sin Songs Ltd., 2008) Don’t think I’m not aware: “The Desperate Ones” is one overwrought song, that’s fr sure. But few in recent decades have tackled overwrought as frequently and effectively as Marc. As if to counter all the others who came before, Marc emphasizes not the tragedy but the singular hope shining through the lyrics. He’s recast it from damning to redemptive.

Like everything else Marc has ever done, it could easily go horribly wrong . . . but I’d reckon it’s this version that most closely matches the overall tone of Ally’s The Desperate Ones. It’s a novel that not only contemplates total destruction but actively steps into – and through! – the apocalypse. And if that ain’t a hopeful thing, I don’t know what is.