Artist

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks

1976-1979·New York City

Lydia Lunch's confrontational noise band, featuring brutally short songs and abrasive guitar work that sounded like strangulation. Formed when James Chance recruited Lunch; both appeared on No New York. Their contemptuous attitude was their gimmick—as an interviewer discovered in 1977, "bullshit obnoxiousness" for people who liked being assaulted as long as there was no physical threat. One of four groups defining no wave's anti-commercial aesthetic.

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