Experimental punk artist Lydia Lunch brings spoken word tour to Bay Area
Noted noise-punk pioneer and writer Lydia Lunch returns to the Bay Area this weekend with her latest spoken word tour making two stops in San Francisco and Albany.
A renowned writer, musician and punk provocateur, Lunch got her start as the guitarist and singer of pioneering NYC noise/no wave band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks -- a group she started with James Chance, who would later form the Contortions and James White and the Blacks -- Lunch was at the epicenter of the city's underground experimental music scene in the late '70s. She would also become the frequent subject of no-wave documentary and avant-garde filmmakers Vivienne Dick and Scott B and Beth B.
Lunch would go on to release a string of solo recordings, collaborating with the likes of Nick Cave and the Birthday Party, LA-based punk band the Weirdos, Swans guitarist Michael Gira and members of Sonic Youth, as well as establishing herself as a poet and an important figure on New York's spoken word and performance art landscape.
While Lunch has focused more of her later career on spoken word and writing, She returned to music with a vengeance in the past decade when she started fronting her all-star aggregation Lydia Lunch Retrovirus. Featuring powerhouse drummer Bob Bert (Pussy Galore, Chrome Cranks Sonic Youth), bassist Tim Dahl of the NYC experimental noise band Child Abuse and free jazz/noise guitarist Weasel Walter (The Flying Luttenbachers, Burmese, Cellular Chaos), the high-octane group has toured on both sides of the Atlantic to great acclaim and released several live recordings. The current line-up of the band has improv/experimental jazz drummer Kevin Shea (Storm and Stress, Coptic Light) performing in Bert's stead.
Lunch was also the subject of the powerful 2019 documentary film Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over directed by Beth B. An unflinching look at the full arc of Lunch's incendiary art -- and the childhood traumas that helped inspire her creations -- the film is essential viewing for anyone interested in the groundbreaking NYC scene of the late '70s.
Lunch has visited San Francisco regularly of late, appearing at a Roxy Theater screening for the film in 2021 as well as a spoken word engagement at the Make-Out Room with writer and Oxbow frontman Eugene Robinson and Bay Area author Bob Calhoun. She has since returned several times with the Retrovirus, playing an explosive headlining set at the Great American Music Hall that fall with Oxbow and Victims Family in addition to an appearance at the Halloween Meltdown in Oakland's Mosswood Park in 2022.
On her current spoken word tour, Lunch will headline two different Bay Area shows. On Saturday afternoon, she appears at the Great American Music Hall for a special matinee that will also include Robinson reading excerpts from his acclaimed memoir "A Walk Across Dirty Water Straight Into Murderer's Row" that was published by Feral House last year. He may also touch on the sudden split of Oxbow that happened during the band's summer tour of Europe or his latest outing with his noise-rock supergroup Buñuel entitled Mansuetude that came out in late October. On Sunday, the tour stops for another afternoon matinee at the Ivy Room in Albany with support from Bay Area avant-garde guitarist/bassist and composer Myles Boisen (Tom Waits, John Zorn, the Rova Saxophone Quartet, Fred Frith, Splatter Trio, Club Foot Orchestra) and his trio the Scriveners with acoustic bassist Safa Shokrai (Lost Shapes) and drummer Tim Rowe. Angela LaFlamme opens the show.
Lydia Lunch
Saturday, Nov. 9, 2 p.m. $24-$26
Great American Music Hall
Sunday, Nov. 10, 3 p.m. $17-$23
The Ivy Room