Lunch, Lydia, 1959-

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is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker. Her career was spawned by the New York City no wave scene in the 1970s, predominantly as the singer and guitarist of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks.[4]

Her work typically features provocative and confrontational noise music delivery, and has maintained an anti-commercial ethic,[5] operating independently of major labels and distributors.[6] The Boston Phoenix named Lunch one of the ten most influential performers of the 1990s.[7] Her collaboration with Sonic Youth called "Death Valley '69" was named one of "The 50 Most Evil Songs Ever" by Kerrang!.[8]

Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch, 1959) is an American singer, photographer, writer, actress, and spoken word performer of the New York no wave and punk scene. Lunch founded the no wave band Teenage Jesus and the Jerks with James Chance in 1976, and in her solo career has collaborated with Exene Cervenka, Kim Gordon, Thurston Moore, Nick Cave, No Trend, and the Birthday Party. Lunch records and performs as a spoken word artist with frequent collaborators, and writes literature and underground comix, often with autobiographical content. She has also appeared in films by Richard Kern, Scott B, and Beth B, as well as written, directed, and acted in her own underground films. The Lydia Lunch Papers date from the mid-1940s to 2019 and consist of materials created and collected by Lydia Lunch documenting her artistic career and output as a singer, writer, photographer, actress, and spoken word performer in the New York punk and no wave scenes. Materials include press clippings, press kits, set lists, posters, magazines, performance promotional material, personal journals and notebooks, original writings for songs and spoken word pieces in various stages, commercial audiovisual material, and published writings. A significant portion of the collection is photographs taken by a variety of artists active in the 1970s through 2000s including Christina Birrer, J K Potter, Annie Sprinkle, Sheyla Baykal, Bart Frescura, Michael Levine, and Marc Viaplana. Most of these images are of Lunch taken for album covers and promotional material, but there are also images with others from her artistic circle including Emilio Cubeiro, Exene Cervenka, Henry Rollins, Rowland S Howard, and Nick Cave. Lunch was also a photographer and a large portion of this collection contains her digital and print images, mostly of friends and from her performance touring locations throughout the United States and internationally. A significant amount of analog as well as digital audio and video recordings of Lunch’s studio and live performances, both solo and with others are also in this collection dating from the late 1970s to the 2010s. Performances took place in clubs including the Knitting Factory, CBGBs, and the Kitchen in New York City, as well as in international venues in Spain, Germany, Australia, and Poland. The collection also contains the files and audiovisual recordings of friend, film co-star, and fellow spoken word performer Emilio Cubeiro.