Lunch, Lydia, 1959-

Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch, 1959) is an American singer, poet, writer, actress, and spoken word performer of the New York no wave and punk scene from the mid-1970s through the 2000s. She 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 Scott B and Beth B, as well as written, directed, and acted in her own underground films.