#39
February 9 1980
Lydia Lunch
Queen of Siam
Genre: No Wave with Jazz!
4.5 out of 5
Highlights:
Gloomy Sunday
Atomic Bongos
Knives in the Drain
Requisite 80s Cover:
“Spooky”. I get why she included this but, she didn’t need to. It sticks out as an attempt to craft a single while the rest of the record is like a female Tom Waits. It should be as haunting, but it isn’t.
When I was reviewing music for Home Theater Technology I was living on a desert farm in Lancaster, California. The biggest claim to fame, I believe, is that Lancaster was the runner up city for Breaking Bad. Yes. Because Lancaster is the Meth capital of Cali.
That’s not why we moved there. We moved there because my wife at the time wanted to be a horse trainer. The trouble with wanting to be a horse when your only experience is that you took dressage classes when you were a teenager is that your ability is limited by your experience.
In her case it was also limited by her intelligence.
Deciding to be a horse trainer/pig breeder with zero experience except hanging around the Belmont race track with your boyfriend is the height of Dunning-Kruger.
The dead horse on the dirt driveway on a Sunday morning should have been the giveaway.
I had converted a small pantry into an office. It had a window to the depressing expanse of desert that ended at the mountains of Kern County.
I was able to fit a desk, a filing cabinet and my computer in there. It was my escape.
One batch of records I received included Geek the Girl by Lisa Germano.
I chose to listen to this on a cold desert night. Headphones on. Alone.
“…a Psychopath” brought me to lonely lonely tears. Empathetic tears. And fear.
I returned to that record many times over the years.
I thought Lisa was a near original.
I should have gone back to Lydia Lunch. This record is everything Lisa was trying to do, but without violin.
Had I just heard “Gloomy Sunday”, I’d have known.
I don’t know if Lydia wants to be a chanteuse, lounge singer or denizen of the rat infested Bowery but she succeeds in being all three.
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