9.

Lydia Lunch – Smoke In The Shadows

The whole no wave scene was great even though it met my presence with a certain amount of marked hostility. I don’t often have the experience of going into a room anymore and feeling like I am a stranger. By which I mean, if I’m going to a fight event, I feel like I’m in place and it’s understood that I’m in place. I look like a fighter after all. At a show it’s the same. I went to see Micachu And The Shapes recently, and even though it’s not the sort of music that you might associate with me I still saw loads of people I knew. But in 1977 and 1978? The punk rockers who existed in New York back then got so much shit on the street that when you finally got into their house – you know, Max’s Kansas City or CBGBs – it was fucking hostile and there was a really weird race dynamic too but I didn’t give a shit. I never really tied into that stuff. I was never alienated from it. The city was alienated from itself and I felt quite at home being alienated among the alienated. Lydia sent me Smoke In The Shadows. She said I might want to listen to it. I think she recorded it in her living room but repeated listens have revealed to me that it is fucking fantastic.