Photo: Jasmine Hirst
Christopher Todd »Weasel« Walter was only four years old when Lydia Lunch founded her band Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, but that wasn’t his fault, nor did it mean he wouldn’t be able to catch up quickly. Not only did he become one of the main preservationist of the genre; he also gives lectures at various universities about a phenomenon that Lunch, more than anyone else, considers both a world view and a praxis. Together, Lunch and Walter will discuss No Wave, he as a chronicler and performer, she as a pioneer and multifaceted artist whose practice makes even iconoclasm look conservative. What started in New York during the late 70s in reaction to the punk explosion quickly conquered the concert arenas. Associated bands like Sonic Youth and Swans became internationally famous. But how ‘No Wave’ are those bands, actually, and what was and is No Wave anyway? Most importantly, where will it go from here? Lydia Lunch and Weasel Walter will discuss these topics vividly in their talk »No Wave«.
»No Wave and Beyond«
When in doubt, Lydia Lunch has always been in favor of being against things. Fittingly, the movement she and her contemporaries built in late-1970s New York was called No Wave. Because punk didn’t go far enough in its break with rock'n'roll, Lunch and her kindred spirits pushed the abandoned genre to the extreme, i.e. until it was on its very head. From dressed-up jazz (James White and the Contortions) to exuberant guitar ensembles (Rhys Chatham, Glenn Branca) to jarring anti-rock (DNA) to situationist performance art (Lunch's Teenage Jesus and the Jerks), No Wave overturned the conventions of the rock tradition more radically than ever and it sounded outrageously good in the process, exactly because it was never about euphony. But No Wave also became a genre of its own, in turn producing superstars like Sonic Youth or Swans. So where was it headed, and where is it heading now? Pop-Kultur seeks to answer these questions via a special commissioned work by Lydia Lunch and Weasel Walter as well as a discussion and workshop (for the Nachwuchs programme) with them.