Dada for Lunch

NEW YORK NO WAVE was always a bit mysterious to those outside the immediate scene. The musical snatches that sneaked out confused rather than clarified. The fact that it was "no" wave indicated that it was somehow removed from the normal musical continuum. It was a cerebral expression of nothing in particular; an anti-art cry from the steel and glass super-structures of the Big Apple.

Brian Eno put some of the very best and worst of it on vinyl when he produced the No New York compilation for Antilles records. The Contortions, DNA, Mars, and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks shared a common aesthetic. They shrieked while the punks merely chastised. They ripped their emotional guts up for the chance to play for the punky-elitist crowds. They derived their manifestos primarily from the world of visual art: take a dib of dada and a dab of '60s self-destruction and you have no wave.

Of the four bands that Eno introduced to the world, only Mars continues to play in the same vein. Unfortunately, their latest single reveals a band without a sense of direction. The other bands, though, have completely restructured themselves. As a result, "no wave" has become as meaningless a term as punk or new wave. James Chance of the Contortions has fired all the musicians from the original Contortions and has broadened his scope so he can become the George Clinton of rock and roll. Robin Crutchfield, organist from DNA, is on his own, developing moody synthesizer compositions, a la Eno. Arto Lindsay continues to lead the greatly crippled and drastically redirected DNA. The agonizing edge to the music has been replaced by craftsmanship and care.

Ultimately, the person who has made the biggest changes since the no wave boom and crash is Lydia Lunch, the former mastermind of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks. Teenage Jesus made the messiest, most agonizing and most chilling no wave noises of them all. They broke up a couple months back, leaving several singles, an appearance on the Eno sampler, a ridiculously short album, and the memories of scores of New York gigs. Lunch recently resurfaced. She now fronts an aggregation known as 8--Eyed Spy, and the New York cognoscenti are ecstatic. She has landed a solo contract with ZE/Buddah records, the home of the Contortions, and her first album with the new band, Queen of Siam, is about to enter the rock wars of the '80s.

Anyone who buys this record on the basis of Lydia Lunch's previous reputation may be terminally stunned: far from selling out, Lunch has decided to fuse several rather unpopular styles into one lumpy, unmanageable mass. Just how this will sit with the punky-elite remains to be seen, but the fact remains that this disc reveals levels of talent that even the most perceptive of critics would never have thought Lunch possessed. She fits together such divergent elements as no wave, big band torch singing, Nicoesque arch-gothic vignettes, and mid-'60s bubble gum rock as if they were somehow destined to coalesce. Without ever having indicated that there was anything up her sleeve--much less between her ears--Lunch has made a tremendous musical leap of faith that will force even the most diehard of critics to reappraise her work.

On the cover, it looks like the same old Lunch we grew to tolerate in small doses. She still needs a new hairdresser and she could stand to lose 20 pounds. Her new leather outfit complete with black nails protruding from her breasts is pure Teenage.

From the start, something is wrong. Two songs go by without Lydia's signature guitar playing and manic singing. The music is stripped down farther than Teenage Jesus dared go without losing their punk audience. The bass carries most of the melody. Piano and saxophone add counterpoint. Slow, crashing drums deemphasize the Teenage approach even more.

With the old band, Lunch wrote lyrics like, "The food is cellophane/I puke elastic." "Mechanical Flattery" opens Queen of Siam with much more developed, ambitious and self-assured lyrics:

Bones splintered shattered dissolve in my skin My torso melts, it flows out my shin Open so open, a circular market Cut on my forehead, it glows in the dark

Of course, they still don't make sense, but then one cannot ask for everything at once. The delivery is deadpan, with no screams or squeals. Lunch complains about having to "run from the night," and the saxophone enacts a very gross parody of her melody line. It is creepy, like a '50s science fiction movie, but confused none the less.

SHOCK FOLLOWS SHOCK: Lydia follows "Mechanical Flattery" with "Gloomy Sunday," an organ-laden bit of doom straight out of Nico's Desertshore. Pat Irwin distinguishes herself on oboe by floating chromatic leads over the top, more than similar in style to Roxy Music's Andy Mackay. Lunch whispers her way through the materials, setting up gothic imagery much better than one might have imagined. In fact, the complete song is quite effective, not unlike reading one's first Roald Dahl story. The true thrust of the album is found in this crosscurrent of styles. Lydia Lunch definitely draws on these particular resources, and she's not afraid to show off her new permutations.

Lunch reportedly does Nancy Sinatra songs alongside of her own compositions when 8-Eyed Spy performs. Therefore, it shouldn't come as any great surprise that she performs the Classics 4's "Spooky." Yet the sheer bravura of the act is comparable only to the early Bryan Ferry solo albums where he gleefully went through the motions on clinkers like "It's My Party" and "These Foolish Things." Half off and half on key, she swoops through the lyrics, even adding that final and sincere "Spook-aye" to the choruses. The band, comprising Jack Ruby on bass, Douglas Brown on drums, and Pat Irwin on everything else, is again excellent, walking the thin line between competence and shambles.

"Los Banditos" ends the first side. It combines vocal rhythmic experimentation and stylized, Spanish classical guitar codas. First Lunch jumps around with some incomprehensible words, then Pat Irwin fills in the cracks with guitar runs. With each chorus, the volume increases and the song ascends another step melodically. Just when things get interesting, it ends. Chalk up one mistake.

Side two adds significant elements: electric guitar and a big band. The second side is also more experimental, with its reverse tape effects and dynamic layered sound. Billy Ver Planck and his orchestra work up for arrangements for four of the songs, the most memorable being "Lady Scarface:"

We had a date 12th Street and 8th If you're gonna be there don't be late Instructed as such Without a soft touch If it would've mattered, it didn't matter much I waited for you A minute or two Hey, just what kind of girl do you think I am?

It is pure camp, and the full orchestral backing suits Lydia Lunch's voice perfectly. What prevents the whole affair from degenerating into the ridiculous is the presence of Pat Irwin's electric guitar. Irwin seems more of a collaborator than a player throughout, and she executes her sonic attacks with ruthless efficiency. The overall conception is very alien; as the band begins to swing, Irwin launches an atonal, heavily feedbacked solo that cuts right through the soul of the song.

The next piece, "A Cruise to the Moon," develops this line of thinking still further. Lunch has fused a smooth, swinging piece reminiscent of Duke Ellington's prime with a completely separate bit of raunch straight out of Teenage Jesus. She makes it all work by brilliantly counterpointing the two. The two factions alternate between dive-bomb runs and frenetic soloing. They both compete for our affections, and we are propelled by the sheer audacity and exuberance of it all.

If fact, audacity is the word that best characterizes the entire album. It is what makes Lunch the most interesting of the no wave survivors. James Chance continues to subsume himself into his own ego and prejudices, Mars and DNA run circles around themselves and their past achievements, but Lydia Lunch has reached out to embrace new experiments. Don't let her cold stare and chubby cheeks fool you. Dada is fun.