Lydia Lunch, Marc Hurtado, and Suicide

Lydia Lynch was a provocateur in the purest sense. She seemed to create music in part for her own artistic curiosity, but in other part to challenge social expectations and test the tolerance of her audience. Her first group Teenage Jesus and the Jerks would take the most standardized rock instrumentation and flip it on its head, creating utterly bizarre atonal sounds with these generic tools. Though she recognized that her fans were important to the vitality of her career and she respected their support to a certain extent, she would curse and spit on them in live performances. Her behavior was stark and repulsive, but was so intriguing that people could simply not turn away.

Her career is eclectic and nearly impossible to outline. Though she is perhaps best remembered as a founding figure in the short lived explosive no wave movement, music was just one of multiple mediums she used to convey her ideas. She was a poet, an actress, an activist and writer. She never confounded herself to any one occupation and was never afraid to adapt and even contradict her creative ideals.

Lunch is a figure who never draws out a concept (she practically abandoned the No Wave scene before it even started), but also is willing to reevaluate her previous works and adapt it in new ways. Lunch is such an enigmatic and powerful performer that her live shows attract people who both love and are appalled by her music. Whatever people’s opinion of her work may be one ascription that is constant is her intrigue. Her style simply cannot be ignored. She continuously confronts the publics perception of her image. For one example she departed from her dadaist approach to making music and adopted a more commercially appealing sound. The prospect that Lunch could make melodically appealing music was likely a great surprise to her formative audience, but she proved that she was well capable of doing so through her early 80s albums such as Queen of Siam. Lunch’s concerts and setlist are rarely predictable; however, she has been known to pull out treasured songs like the mutated and danceable “Atomic Bongos” and noise saturated pieces such as Race Mixing”. On occasion she has even performed cover songs of Alice Cooper and Suicide. Her concert is a very interesting assortment of songs and expressive theatrics and more than over-exceeds the hype surrounding it.

The music of Suicide may have trouble reaching an audience outside esoteric realms; however, within these particular territories they are considered experimental rock gods. For those who know their music, there simply is no way of letting it brush off. It will stick with you and more than likely change your perspective of what music can be.
They have opened the doors for sub-genres such as lo-fi electronica and noise rock and were on the forefront of punk and industrial music. Though it is not fully realized, much of the music in both the popular and underground circles is somewhat indebted to this group.
Their influence can be heard in the style of artsy arena rockers like Nine Inch Nails and less obvious admirers such as Bruce Springsteen (the claustrophobic mood of Bruce’s “Nebraska” album owes a lot to Suicide). They were even considered to an extent the adopted fathers of no-wave musician Lydia Lunch. It might be hard to imagine, but their live performances are even more bizarre and attention grabbing than their studio recordings. They use dirt cheap instruments, but exploit them beyond imagination. The result is imaginative, haunting and unforgiving. Some of their music like “Che” uses washes of distortion over a rapidly beating drum machine that sounds like a roaring motorcycle engine.
They also show that they are beyond capable of writing upbeat pop songs. The third track on their second album “Sweetheart” is a beautiful 50s do-whop inspired song. It is mutated to interesting extents, but is nevertheless catchy. It is very different from the groups primary sound, but has Suicide’s signature electronic spin stamped all over it. It is not unusual to find the band in the seediest night clubs in town and at times with their stage adorned with so called “trash art”. They use a strange assortment of gear including oscillators, a variety of synths, drum machines some which are just a rhythm maker of a karaoke machine. Their performances are raw, energized and nothing short of exciting.