Born in Rochester, NY as Lydia Anne Koch, Lunch is best known - not as an actress - but as an American singer, poet, and writer. A founding member of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Lunch remains heavily identified with New York's no wave scene. Given the name "Lydia Lunch" by Willy DeVille, because she frequently stole food for friends, she has collaborated as a singer and spoken word artist with Sonic Youth, Nick Cave, Robert Quine, Einstürzende Neubauten, Henry Rollins, Exene Cervenka and many others. She has also performed in films by Richard Kern, Scott B and Beth B and others.
The evidence of death is before my eyes constantly. Moving from me outward. My death always a step in advance. The world is a mirror of myself dying. The world not dying anymore than I die. I more alive a hundred years from now. Than at this very moment.
The need to document my insanity is an affliction I have not yet cured myself of. . .
I knew that my trauma, no matter what it was, was not unique. I knew that pain was the universal driving force of so many people—I knew that only in the details was it specific, and I just found it urgent to cut right to the chase and get right to the point.
