Teenage Jesus and the Jerks were an influential American no wave band, based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, who formed part of the city's no wave movement.

Background

Lydia Lunch Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch; June 2, 1959)Martin Charles Strong. ''The Great Indie Discography''. 2003, page 85 is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker. Her career began during the 1970s New York City no ...

met saxophonist

James Chance James Chance, also known as James White (born James Siegfried, April 20, 1953), is an American saxophonist, keyboard player, and singer. A key figure in no wave, Chance has been playing a combination of improvisational jazz-like music and pu ...

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kri ...

and moved into his two-room apartment. She started to combine her poetry with acoustic guitar and was spurred to start a band after seeing one of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

' earlier performances. Lunch found guitarist

Reck Reversion-inducing-cysteine-rich protein with kazal motifs, also known as RECK, is a human gene, thought to be a metastasis suppressor. The protein encoded by this gene is a cysteine-rich, extracellular protein with protease inhibitor-like domai ...

at CBGB and recruited him as a drummer, later moving him to bass. They formed a band called the Scabs and briefly added

Jody Harris Jody Harris is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and composer who was born in Kansas and became a central figure in the seminal no wave scene in New York City in the 1970s. Career history Harris was lead guitarist in the Contortions, an ...

to their line-up. Lunch knew Bradley Field through

Miriam Linna Miriam Linna (born October 16, 1955 in Sudbury, Ontario) is a Canadian-American drummer who has run the Brooklyn-based independent record label Norton Records since 1986, originally with her husband, the late producer and singer-songwriter B ...

and convinced him to join in early 1977. The band put together a ten-minute set of very short songs. It released only a handful of singles. Featured on the seminal ''

No New York ''No New York'' is a compilation album released in 1978 by record label Antilles under the curation of producer Brian Eno. Although it only contained songs by four different artists, some consider it to be a definitive single album documenting Ne ...

'' LP, a showcase of the early no wave scene, compiled and produced by

Brian Eno Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (; born Brian Peter George Eno, 15 May 1948) is a British musician, composer, record producer and visual artist best known for his contributions to ambient music and work in rock, pop an ...

, the group left behind little more than a dozen complete recorded songs. Most of the surviving titles were collected on the eighteen-minute career retrospective compilation ''

Everything Everything, every-thing, or every thing is all that exists; the opposite of nothing, or its complement. It is the totality of things relevant to some subject matter. Without expressed or implied limits, it may refer to anything. The univers ...

'', released in 1995 through Atavistic Records. However, other studio versions of several songs exist, alongside a few live recordings. The group disbanded at the end of 1979, only reuniting briefly in 2008 for a small number of performances with former bassist Jim Sclavunos on drums and

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Moo ...

on bass guitar.

Musical style and philosophy

In his book '' Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984'',

Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his professional career on the staff of ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He has since gone on to freelance and publish a number of full-length books on music ...

identifies Teenage Jesus and the Jerks as an exercise in rock sacrilege:

Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and their comrade bands
Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...
, Contortions and DNA, defined radicalism not as a return to roots but as deracination. Curiously, the no wave groups staged their revolt against rock tradition by using the standard rock format of guitars, bass and drums. It was as if they felt the easy electronic route to making
post-rock Post-rock is a form of experimental rock characterized by a focus on exploring textures and timbre over traditional rock song structures, chords, or riffs. Post-rock artists are often instrumental, typically combining rock instrumentation with ...
noise was too easy. Instead, they used rock's tools against itself. Which is why no wave music irresistibly invites metaphors of dismemberment, desecration, defiling rock's corpse.Reynolds

Lydia Lunch has voiced her disdain for punk rock, claiming in ''Rip It Up'': "I hated almost the entirety of punk rock. I don't think that no wave had anything to do with it. Who wanted

chords Chord may refer to: * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * Chord (geometry), a line segment joining two points on a curve * Chord ( ...

, all these progressions that had been used to death in rock? To play

slide guitar Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object (a slide) against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos tha ...

I'd use a knife, a beer bottle... glass gave the best sound. To this day I still don't know a single chord on the guitar."

Discography

Singles and EPs

Compilations

- ''

Hysterie ''Hysterie'' is a compilation album by American singer-songwriter Lydia Lunch, released in 1986 by record label Widowspeak. Track listing Personnel *Birrer – photography *Gary Hobish – mastering *Lydia Lunch Lydia Lunc ...

'' (Widowspeak - 1986) *''

'' (1995 -

Atavistic Records Atavistic Records is an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois, known for its no wave and free jazz recordings. Atavistic has released albums by Glenn Branca, Nels Cline, Lydia Lunch, Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark, Pinetop Seven, Sw ...

) - this claims to be a compilation of the original Teenage Jesus tracks, but is, in fact, merely side one of Lydia Lunch's 'Hysterie' compilation album, featuring material remixed by J. G. Thirlwell, credited under his pen name Clint Ruin. *''Shut Up and Bleed'' (2008 -

) - this actually is the original Teenage Jesus recordings, including all of the material from the singles and EPs and all but one song from the "No New York" album *''Live 1977-1979'' (2015 - Other People) - compiles material from six different live recordings *''Discography'' (2015) (via Bandcamp) - A compilation of the "Pink" EP, "Pre" EP and the tracks from the "No New York" compilation. Tracks 1-10 were transcribed from vinyl copies, as master tapes are no longer available.

Appearances

*''

'' (1978 -

Antilles Records Antilles Records was a record label founded as a division of Island Records. It began as a jazz label, recording Joanne Brackeen, Biréli Lagrène, and Phil Woods, though its catalogue did expand to include eclectic musicians like Brian Eno and R ...

)

Notes

References

* *

External links

* {{Authority control No wave groups American musical trios Musical groups established in 1977 Musical groups disestablished in 1979 Musical groups from New York City Musical groups reestablished in 2008 ZE Records artists