WHO'S AFRAID OF LYDIA LUNCH?

You can't look into Lydia Lunch's world without blinking. She turns your stomach and she turns your mind.

There is a track on her 3-hour/3-CD set, Crimes Against Nature, entitled 'Daddy Dearest'. It's done in letter style and begins with humorous banter. "Dear Dad . . . I'm living in NYC again . . . What a trip . . . I know I'm a goddam gypsy . . . But you ain't got nothing to complain about. You left home when you were 14, too . . . and shit . . . you ain't settled down yet, either."

It draws you in and you laugh at the typical father/daughter refrains. But this butterfly slowly turns into a snail. And from the back of your neck this snail of fear and disgust crawls down to the cheeks of a young girl's buttocks. And from there on, the hands of a father probe and destroy.

"You wouldn't take nothing without putting something twice as bad in its place. Putting in place of honour and dignity and respectability and normal God-fearing goodness your fingers and tongue. And dick-dick-dicking me out of ever having a normal relationship with a normal man ever . . . And putting in place of me, you. You, your stink and filth and vile-vile sickness. Your hatred for the whole human race. You filthy son-of-a-bitch. Lazy good-for-nothing asshole bastard . . . I hate you . . . I hate you . . . I hate you. Love, Lydia."

Crimes Against Nature (Trident Music) and Incriminating Evidence (Last Gasp), a book of her writings, contain some of the most harrowing poetry/reportage you are ever likely to experience. Henry Rollins comes to mind by comparison. But if you found Rollins' Olympia gig too heavy to handle, the voice of Lydia Lunch will be way too much for you.

It's hard to be objective about a lot of this stuff. That's because it comes at you with such force. It has such an anger, such a rage, such a fierceness, that you either sit back and let it relentlessly roll over you, or else your finger fires at the stop button.

This stuff is molten. This stuff is radioactive. This stuff drills. There are simply no hiding places. This is not stuff to mash potatoes to, even less to peel them. If this work were wallpaper, then the background would be blood-red, with gut and brain as decorations.

Lydia Lunch takes you so far in that it is easy to imagine that there is no way out. That there never was a way out. That there never even was a way in. She gives you a darkness that is found in the deepest cave; a darkness which your eyes will never adjust to.

concrete prisons

It can become too much. And it would be easy to starting asking yourself: How much lower? How much lower? When will it end? Certainly, nobody with a weak stomach for the truth should venture within speaker's range of it. Because the truth doesn't so much hurt with Lydia Lunch, it tortures.

On 'The Right To Revolt', she talks about how all of Nature has been abused, raped, pillaged, and is sick to the point of vengeance. She exhorts her audience to search out the "real enemy," and that, "It's time to learn a little self-defence. It's time to learn how to focus, how to aim and how to fire . . . And take no prisoners. Because we're all prisoners. Trapped like animals in a zoo. Oh yeah! 1992. Right. And what that means to me is police brutality, sexual harassment, race bating, civil rights violations, lack of public housing, homelessness, the bombing of abortion clinics, censorship, Rubbergate, Inner City slavery, fostered by the Government's blatant drug dealing."

Her belief is that force must be met with force. She looks at the historical equation and tells how since those in power have always applied the screws of violence, the oppressed have never made progress without applying those same screws. As she puts it, "Just so you understand, pacifists. When it's time to kill or be killed, I know what end of the fucking barrel I'm going to be staring down . . . The Black Panthers, The Chicago Seven, The SLA, The Weathermen, Kent State, The Attica Uprisings, the Civil Rights riots of 1960, 1970, 1943, 1964-67 . . . You know, violence, it's always been a part of the American political process."

In the introduction to Incriminating Evidence, Lydia Lunch writes: "This collection chronicles the history of my conflicts, abuses, strife, hatred, misery, obsessions and the chronic search for more… Here lies rage, rants, essays, monologues, speeches, stories, and random other bullshit compiled in the hope that I'll never have to hear them again myself."

You could do worse than to listen and read this stuff. During a time when America is becoming better known for shooting rather than welcoming tourists, Lydia Lunch brings you on a ride along the wrong side, pointing out the whys and the wherefores. Maybe copies should be sent to all our politicians as they're debating the Public Order Bill.

Maybe, maybe, they might just realise that when planning for the future of our society, controlling the poor with more and more repressive legislation, and locking them into economic and concrete prisons, doesn't pay.

(Only 2 of the 12 pieces in the book Incriminating Evidence are also on Crimes Against Nature. The CD-set should be available through Virgin and probably Freebird. However, if you any problem getting it - or any other Lydia Lunch work - write to: "Twisted" PO Box 2903, London N1 3NE, UK.)