A Companion To The Film By Beth B
Before #MeToo, before Riot Grrl, there was
Lydia Lunch. A central fi gure in the no-wave
scene of the 70s—as founder of the seminal
Teenage Jesus & The Jerks—Lunch has
spent the decades since turning the
substance of her life into unapologetic,
stark, and beautiful art.
From the 80s onward, Lunch became a lone voice
publicly calling out the patriarchal aggressions and
day-to-day violence enacted by the powerful—and
never gave a good goddamn whether you wanted to
hear it or not. Refusing to be silenced, she took to
stages the world over, fearlessly speaking the truth,
whether of her own life with its legacy of parental
abuse, her wild times owning the streets of New York
City, or the world she saw around her.
Seeing no boundaries between creative mediums,
Lydia has enacted her vision through music, spoken
word, fi lm, theatre, and more. An accompaniment
to Beth B’s new documentary Lydia Lunch: The War
Is Never Over, this book is the fi rst comprehensive
overview of Lunch’s creative campaign of resistance, a
celebration of pleasure as the ultimate act of rebellion.
Across these pages, Lunch and her numerous
collaborators—including Thurston Moore, Jim
Sclavunos, Kid Congo Powers, Bob Bert, Richard
Kern, James Nares, and Vivienne Dick—recount life
at the frontline of the musical extremes of the 70s
and 80s underground, the wild times, the disciplined
productivity, life lived as a defender of the voiceless,
and an unapologetic force of righteous fury.